6

Some nouns have two genders, and the meaning is different depending on the gender. Or, there may be regional variation in the gender of certain words. Here are some examples:

  • Der Schild/das Schild.
  • Der Flur/die Flur
  • Der Leiter/die Leiter
  • Der Golf/das Golf
  • Butter is feminine everywhere, but in Austria also the masculine form is additionally used.
  • Teller is masculine everywhere, but in Austria also the neuter form is additionally used.

Some are either masculine or feminine, others are either masculine or neuter. So far as I've seen, if a word has two possible genders, one of them is always masculine. Are there any cases where the gender of a word is either feminine or neuter and never masculine?

guidot
  • 28,192
  • 2
  • 35
  • 84
Omar and Lorraine
  • 267
  • 1
  • 11
  • 2
    The last two examples are not generally correct at all. I am from Austria and "das Teller" is sometimes used, but "der Butter" must be something used in other regions than where I live; I usually say die Butter, der Teller. – wonderbear Dec 19 '22 at 17:32
  • 4
    @wonderbear - I would have been very surprised to learn that linguistic boundaries would be so courteous as to follow national boundaries. According to Atlas  zur  deutschen  Alltagssprache, das Teller occurs as far west as Bern and Stutgart, but is by no means universal in Austria. Meanwhile der Butter seems to be more Bavarian than Austrian. – RDBury Dec 19 '22 at 17:57
  • 5
    You compare different categories. In the first 4 examples, the two genders have different meanings, in the last 2 examples, the gender depends on the region, but the meaning is the same. – Bodo Dec 19 '22 at 18:02
  • @Bodo, I suppose you're right! – Omar and Lorraine Dec 20 '22 at 02:58
  • 1
    @wonderbear "der Butter" is pretty common in all German regions with Alemanic dialects (i.e. west of Augsburg) – tofro Dec 20 '22 at 09:37
  • @tofro Yes, I have heard of the existence of that form before; however it is certainly not typical of Austria at all. – wonderbear Dec 20 '22 at 10:19
  • 1
    @wonderbear In case you count Vorarlberg to Austria, you should re-phrase ;) – tofro Dec 20 '22 at 10:32
  • Note that der/die Leiter and der/das Golf aren't words that can have two genders, they are completely unrelated words that happen to be spelled (and pronounced) the same. – Sebastian Koppehel Dec 29 '22 at 22:35

4 Answers4

14
  • das Steuer = steering wheel
  • die Steuer = tax
  • der Steuer doesn't exist
stackzebra
  • 231
  • 1
  • 3
8

There definitly are. Here are some examples:

  • das / die E-Mail (Schweiz/Deutschland) [elektronische Post]

In this Answer are nouns included, that changed their article:

  • die / das Gebärde

and in this Answer some more examples:

  • die / das Brezel (Deutschland / Österreich) [der Bretzel for Liechtenstein and at least part of Switzerland @Fischer Ludrian]
  • das / die Schorle

So there are such nouns. But the frequency seems to follow the mechanisms you described.

choXer
  • 3,352
  • 9
  • 30
  • 2
    Email is neuter only. Did you mean E-Mail? And Nutella can have any gender. – xehpuk Dec 20 '22 at 00:53
  • 2
    @xehpuk, "Email" is clearly meant to mean "E-Mail", and both are often-used spellings in my experience. The Duden may not accept it, but it's still used; and if someone would want to differentiate it from the other meaning, "Emaille" is always there. I have never heard "der Nutella". – AnoE Dec 20 '22 at 13:07
  • 2
    @AnoE "People often misspell it" is not a good argument. This is officially regulated and anchored in § 40. – xehpuk Dec 20 '22 at 20:34
  • 1
    Attention!!! »Email« (pronunciation [eˈmaɪ̯] or [eˈmaɪ̯l], english: enamel) is neuter only. It is a glass-surface on metal goods (like pots and jars, but also some jewelry). The word with two genders is »E-Mail« (pronunciation [ˈiːmeɪ̯l] or [ˈiːmeːl], english: email or e-mail). This word means electronic mail. - I edited this answer to correct this obvious and common error. (Also a common error is an error!) – Hubert Schölnast Dec 21 '22 at 08:56
  • @HubertSchölnast Wobei man sich durchaus streiten kann, ob man das auch so schreiben muss. Ich schreibe auch Tshirt. – choXer Dec 21 '22 at 09:40
  • 1
    @xehpuk, I didn't know there was official regulation and anchoring for language. Just out of curiosity, where is that paragraph, and in which contexts is it legally binding? As Hubert mentioned, in english "email" seems to be common; so the word "Email" in German texts would just be the verbatim copy of an English word, which we do all the time, in all contexts, with perfect validity. – AnoE Dec 21 '22 at 09:48
  • @AnoE He is talking about "Amtliches Regelwerk des Rats für deutsche Rechtschreibung" – choXer Dec 21 '22 at 09:53
  • 1
    @choXer, thanks. In that case, that's binding for schools and government agencies, and only a recommendation for everyone else. – AnoE Dec 21 '22 at 10:42
  • 2
    @AnoE Of course, everyone can use the language as they please. But this kind of defeats the purpose of this site. – xehpuk Dec 21 '22 at 11:54
  • @xehpuk, kind of - if this question were about how to write E-Mail; in this case it was a simple example amongst many, clear from the context, and I found the reaction a bit overkill. Obv. if someone is a pupil and needs to get his C1 etc. levels, they better write it correctly. – AnoE Dec 21 '22 at 12:36
  • You can add der Bretzel for Liechtenstein and at least part of Switzerland. – Fischer Ludrian Dec 21 '22 at 13:19
  • @FischerLudrian it's already part of Hubert Schölnast's answer, but thanks! – choXer Dec 21 '22 at 13:22
  • 1
    Yeah, but there the article der is also missing. Bretzel has 3 genders. – Fischer Ludrian Dec 21 '22 at 13:29
  • @FischerLudrian Sorry, misunderstood. I change it. – choXer Dec 21 '22 at 13:39
  • @HubertSchölnast People tend to sometimes write Email when they mean Emaille. – glglgl Jan 06 '23 at 14:21
  • @glglgl: I know. But in this case they really mean Email (not E-Mail). These two words are synonyms. Both mean "enamel" ( a glass-surface on metal goods). – Hubert Schölnast Jan 06 '23 at 14:32
3

This hasn't come up yet, but deserves a honorable mention.

The suffix -nis supplies a handful of nouns that can be either feminine or neuter. Generally, this entails a semantic difference, though this wasn't always the case: back when -nis was a very productive source of abstract nouns, their gender fluctuated quite freely between feminine and neuter.1 If we were allowed to count these obsolete examples, we'd have a very long list on our hands...

Duden Sprachwissen has a page on Genus von Substantiven auf ‚-nis‘, which mentions:

And I also found

1 Until the 19th century, nouns ending in -nis tended to fluctuate between the feminine and neuter gender. Jacob Grimm comments on this in the article erkenntnis, f. und n. (published in 1862):

während sonst die bildungen mit 'nis' zwischen beiden geschlechtern, ohne unterschied der bedeutung, schwanken, könnte bei diesem häufig vorkommenden wort der sprachgebrauch und namentlich der philosophische in die weibliche und neutrale form besondere vorstellungen gelegt zu haben scheinen.

As a reader of Kant, I am accustomed to his frequent use of das Erkenntnis beside die Erkenntnis; in a departure from the standard usage, Kant also wrote die Bedürfnis and die Ereignis (or Eräugnis).

marquinho
  • 1,199
  • 1
  • 6
  • 19
2

Here on German stachexchange is a list of nouns with 2 or 3 genera. This list is incomplete, but it also contains the entries listed below. The Gender is marked by a definite article, the article of the most common gender is written as first article:

  • das/die Baguette
  • die/das Brezel
  • das/die Cola (Fanta, etc.)
  • die/das E-Mail
  • die/das Geschwulst
  • das/die Omelett(e)
  • die/das Schorle
  • die/das Tram
Hubert Schölnast
  • 122,799
  • 17
  • 211
  • 403