In French (and other languages) why do objects have to be masculine or feminine?

Question

In English, inanimate objects are just that, objects. Why then in other languages are they masculine or feminine and who or what decided which would be which?

Answer 1

Good point thats what makes English such a great language. It just shows a lack of evolution in certain other languages.

Answer 2

The fact is that, until the middle ages, English did have masculine and feminine nouns, and, indeed, a third gender (neuter), and both the definite article and the noun itself changed for gender and case. No one "decides" what gender a word is or was, any more than anyone "decides" that "table" is something you eat you dinner from and "book" is something you read. It just happens that way.

What happened, however, is that, because of the way English is spoken, gradually, the difference between the way masculine, feminine and neuter articles and case endings were pronounced became less and less clear and gradually disappeared altogether.

Examples:
se stán -meant "the stone" and was a masculine noun; its plural was þá stánas "the stones" (þ was an old letter that sounded like modern English "th")
þæs stánes - meant "of the stone".þára stána - meant - of the stones.
þæt scip - the ship - was neuter, and its plural was þá scipu - the ships; þæs scipes - of the ship; þára scipa - of the ships.
séo giefu - the gift is feminine; þá giefa - the gifts;
þære giefe - of the gift; þára giefa - of the gifts.

There are times when I deplore the habit we British have of not opening our mouths when we speak as wide as speakers of other languages; but we can thank heaven that our forefathers seem to have had the same bad habit, which has lead to the grammar of English being much more simple now than it was 700 years ago!!

Answer 3

It's not the objects that are masculine or feminine, but the words used to describe them. This is to help identify which article is needed (i.e. in french le, la, etc) in a way much the same as it is differentiated with verbs the ones that are active and the ones that are passive. I believe another factor is that most european languages have used a more poetic meaning to their words and have used them to express this. I believe that most english words have been used from sounds rather than made up words, hence the way in which they're spelt different than it is pronounced. If you were to observe how the english language has evolved - especially since the texting and the internet has progressed, we are soon going to use hieroglyphs.

You will be aware that whilst in english the words are "inanimate" in european languages these are classed as neutral.

Answer 4

I always wondered that too. Im taking Spanish 3 this year and I think my Spanish 1 teacher said that they do that so you know who you are talking about. Like if they are talking about a guy and in the sentence its all masculine you would know that they are indeed talking about a guy. For inanimate objects such as television and computer they do the masculine/feminine thing for which sounds better with it.

Answer 5

I agree, I am currently learning French, and I have studied some German in the past. The most confusing thing for me is that some objects are masculine in German and feminine in French (and vice versa), so there is just no logic.

Answer 6

both languages have evolved differently from germanic and latin wich have been already structed in such way...

Answer 7

Wrong question ! The right is : Why do nouns have no gender in English?