Polish nouns of unpredictable gender

I must say when I put together my list I didn't make any effort in trying to take into account proper names (cities and countries). Wikisłownik says that the town you mention, Przemyśl (65238 citizens according to wikipedia) is, surprisingly, of MASCULINE gender! Looking at the Polish wikipedia article about it I inferred the following (regular) declension pattern:

NOM Przemyśl
GEN Przemyśla
DAT Przemyślowi
ACC Przemyśl
INST Przemyślem
LOC Przemyślu

I was wondering if Polish people not accustomed with the city could use the wrong gender... googling "w Przemyślu", the correct form, returns 263,000 hits while "w Przemyśli" 1,540, a ratio of 1:170 (not much). "do Przemyśla" vs "do Przemyśli" yields 22,600 vs 9... then no, they don't get it wrong :-)

Side note: Przemyśl has a final l and not ł; I think there exist a phonotactic rule which in some contexts (word final seems to be one of these) forces consonants in the same syllable to be all soft or all hard (=> śł isn't an allowed cluster in Polish).

-l: /faul, disel/ and
-cz: /tucz/ are masculine,
so these are mistakes.


Is it surprising because "myśl" is feminine and so should be "Prze-myśl"? Another proper name which is a tricky one is Ostrów. Do you vote for it being of masculine or feminine gender?

Thank you for your corrections Ziemowit. As I said I based my list on the PWN-Oxford dictionary which isn't as accurate as one may wish. I guess some feminine words may be missing from my list because they are listed as masculine in the dictionary!


Well, yes :-)
Given that myśleć=to think, przemyśleć=to think over, myśl=thought then surely przemyśl has got to mean reflection and be the same gender as myśl... but neither supposition is true :-)


Well, Kraków and Rzeszów are masculine are masculine so that's what I'd guess at first.
Also, in my list above all feminine words in -ew and not in -ów... so I'd again guess Ostrów to be masculine.

I then turned to Święty Google i Święta Wikipedia... The latter says there are more then 40 cities/towns/hamlets/islands called Ostrów... do they all have the same gender?

A brutal search effort gives:
"do Ostrowa" vs "do Ostrowi" vs "do Ostrowii" 12,900 vs 9,110 vs 4,040 mmmm!
Let's try something more unambiguous
"jechać do Ostrowa" vs "jechać do Ostrowi" vs "jechać do Ostrowii" 29,100 vs 8 vs 3 ... that's more decisive but the numbers don't add up with the previous search!

One more go:
"z Ostrowem" vs "z Ostrową" vs "z Ostrowią" 53,100 vs 0 ??? vs 11,500 mmmmmm again! google seems to consider ą=a at least at times, which is very bad for this. However many hits do correspond to "z Ostrowią" !

Okay, that's enough, let me look at this huge
pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miasta_w_Polsce_(statystyki)
Wikipedia page in detail...
Ooh, I get it now! Some Ostrow's are masculine and some feminine! There are 3 Ostrów's which make it be be miasta: Ostrów Wielkopolski (72,368), Ostrów Mazowiecka (22,517) and Ostrów Lubelski (2,224). As the accompanying adjective testifies Ostrów Mazowiecka is unmistakably FEMININE! That also explains the random results with Google.

Wikipedia again says
pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historia_Ostrowi_Mazowieckiej

Zaczynając od wieku XV kiedy to nazwa brzmiała Ostrowo, w akcie lokacyjnym Ostrowya 1434, poprzez Ostrowia, wieku XIX miasto zwano Ostrów Mazowiecki, Ostrów £omżyński lub Ostrów w ziemi łomżyńskiej, w okresie międzywojennym używano dwóch nazw mianowicie: Ostrowia Mazowiecka i Ostrów Mazowiecki. W grudniu 1926 Ministerstwo Spraw Wewnętrznych przyjęło nazwę zaproponowaną przez językoznawcę - profesora doktora Kazimierza Nitscha - Ostrów Mazowiecka.

Posterity is left wondering how much beer the excellent professor had had before taking the historic decision...

That was an evil tricky question Ziemowit :-)

Hi,
I re-wrote the list of feminine zero-ending nouns adding a translation and grouping words in categories.
I put some words which seem to me to stand out for importance in bold. Of course, there's some abritrariety in this. I hope it helps.

ANIMALS, PLANTS,FOOD (30 words)
sólsalt
myszmouse
gęśgoose
marchewcarrot
gałąźbranch (of tree)
płećsex (=gender, for people and animals)
pleśń mould (fungi)
wesz louse
smycz leash
uwięź tether
rzodkiew radish
jabłoń apple tree
pieczeń roast (food)
latorośl vine; offspring
winorośl vine
paproć fern (plant)
zdobycz quarry (prey)
uprząż harness (horses)
klacz mare
spadź honeydew (from flowers etc)
barć hollow in a tree where bees live
twardziel hardwood (duramen)
brukiew swede (cabbage)
żagiew firebrand; kind of mushroom
trzebież forest thinning, extermination
płoć roach (fish)
nać top (of carrot or vegetables)
odrośl offshoot; sucker (of plant, eg ivy)
troć sea trout
wić twig

ABSTRACT OR GENERAL THINGS(26 words)
rzeczthing
mocpower
wszechmoc omnipotence
niemoc impotence
przemocviolence
pomochelp
samopomoc self-help
myślthought
kradzieżtheft
chęćwillingness
przyjaźńfriendship
więźbond (of love, friendship)
rozpaczdespair
dal distance
słodycz sweetness
gorycz bitterness
bojaźń fear, awe
odsiecz relief
wilgoć dampness
rozkosz bliss
woń fragrance
kaźń torment
piędź span
straż guard (to be on -)
rzeź slaughter
podaż supply (economics)

PHYSICAL SIZE, GEOGRAPHICAL FEATURES (17 words)
przestrzeńspace
czasoprzestrzeń spacetime
wieśvillage, countryside
podróżtrip, journey
darń turf
krawędź edge (of coin, table..)
przełęcz pass (of a mountain)
grań ridge (mountain)
perć mountain path
płacheć patch (land etc.)
połać stretch (of land, etc)
przystań harbour
kipiel surf (waves breaking)
otchłań abyss
topiel deep waters; whirpool
toń the depths (sea), abyss
rubież frontier (esp. in military jargon)

ANATOMICAL PARTS, MEDICINE(16 words)
twarzface
krewblood
półkrew half-blood
dłońpalm (of hand)
pierśbreast, chest
breweyebrow
skroń temple (head)
zgorzel gangrene
narośl growth (of flesh etc.)
torbiel cyst (medicine)
kibić waist
żołądź glans (anatomy)
gardziel throat; narrow passage
goleń tibia (bone)
piszczel tibia (bone)
krtań larynx

"HOSTILE" WORDS (8 words)
brońweapon
pogoń pursuit, chase
swołocz scoundrel
waśń feud, quarrel
chorągiew flag
dzicz savage, barbarian
potwarz slander, calumny
grabież pillage, plunder

HOUSE-RELATED (8 words)
kąpielbath
poręcz railing, handrail
sień entrace hall
pościel bedclothes; bed
czeladź household servants
warząchew large wooden spoon
staroć antique
krokiew rafter (large sloping piece of wood which supporting a roof)

MATHS, SCIENCE, METALS (8 words)
ćwierćquarter (1/4)
miedźcopper (metal)
stalsteel
rtęćmercury (metal)
oś axis (maths)
macierz matrix (maths)
jaźń ego (psychology)
śniedź patina (eg on oxidated copper)

COLOURS (6 words)
czerńblack
bielwhite
zieleńgreen
czerwieńred
podczerwień infra-red
żółćyellow; bile (anatomy)

TIME PERIODS (6 words)
jesieńautumn
nocnight
dobranocgood-night
północmidnight, north
WielkanocEaster
równonoc equinox

VESSELS & LIQUIDS (7 words)
łódźboat
siećnet
cieczliquid
kadź vat, tub
stągiew vat, tub
konew large can (tin)
maź gunge, goo

WEATHER-RELATED (7 words)
powódź flood
zamieć snowstorm
sadź hoarfrost
szadź hoarfrost
gołoledź black ice (ice on roads)
szreń snow crust
odwilż thaw, melt (snow, ice)

DERIVATIVES OF THE VERB SPRZEDAĆ (5 words)
sprzedażsale, selling
wyprzedażsales (promocja)
przedsprzedaż advance booking
odsprzedaż resale
rozprzedaż selling

DERIVATIVES OF THE VERB POWIEDZIEĆ ETC (5 words)
odpowiedźanswer
wypowiedź statement
zapowiedź announcement
podpowiedź hint
spowiedź confession

TEXTILE WORLD (5 words)
odzieżpiece of clothing
kieszeńpocket (trousers, jacket...)
nić thread
pilśń felt (hat etc.)
kądziel distaff (tool used in the past in the textile industry)

MISCELLANEOUS (14 words)
kolejrailway
baśńfairy tale
pieśń solemn song
pieczęć seal (on document)
żerdź perch, pole (for birds,drilling tools...)
dań gift
gładź smooth surface
obręcz hoop
mać mother (obsolete. Used only in curse words)
młodzież young people
gawiedź rout (crowd)
chuć sexual urge
Białoruś Belarus
cerkiew the Orthodox Church

I propose the following additional rules:

Female:
- -śń, -źń

- -śl (exception Przemyśl)

- Noun forms of colours in -ń and -l

- Nouns ending in -moc and -noc

Remaining exceptions:
Female:

J: kolej

L: dal, gardziel, kądziel, kąpiel, kipiel, piszczel, pościel, sól, stal, topiel, torbiel, twardziel, zgorzel

Ń: broń, dań, darń, dłoń, goleń, grań, jabłoń, jesień, kieszeń, krtań, otchłań, pieczeń, pogoń, przystań, sień, skroń, szreń, toń, woń, [przestrzeń, czasoprzestrzeń]

Ś: Białoruś, gęś, oś, pierś, wieś

W: brew, brukiew, cerkiew, chorągiew, konew, [krew, półkrew], krokiew, marchew, rzodkiew, stągiew, warząchew, żagiew

-: gałąź, maź, rzeź, uwięź, więź

Ż: grabież, kradzież, młodzież, [odsprzedaż, przedsprzedaż, rozprzedaż, sprzedaż, wyprzedaż], odwilż, odzież, podaż, podróż, rubież, straż, trzebież, uprząż

CZ: Bydgoszcz, Radogoszcz, ciecz, dzicz, gorycz, klacz, obręcz, odsiecz, poręcz, przełęcz, rozpacz, rzecz, słodycz, smycz, swołocz, zdobycz

D-: czeladź, gawiedź, gołoledź, kadź, krawędź, łódź, miedź, [odpowiedź, podpowiedź, spowiedź, wypowiedź, zapowiedź], piędź, powódź, sadź, śniedź, spadź, szadź, żerdź, żołądź, gładź

RZ: macierz, [twarz, potwarz]

SZ: mysz, rozkosz, wesz

Male:

A: boa, satelita

C: Brześć, dziegieć, kapeć, liść, łokieć, paznokieć, pypeć, rupieć, śmieć, wiecheć

ŚL: Przemyśl

I added "boa" as it's supposed to be treated as a male gender word. By the way, if some native Polish speaker could point out which of these words are so rare that one most likely never will encounter them, it would be nice.

I've oounted approx. 127 separate nominal declension "classes" or groups in Polish (including place names!):-)

I figured naturally that, f.ex. 'Przemyśł' would follow the [masculine] noun 'myśł':

N/A. myśł
G/V. myśli
D/L. myśle
I. myśłem

But I see, once again, that I was mistaken. LOL

)))))))

I goofed yet again: 'myśł' is feminine)))))

APOLOGIES!!!!!!

It's "myśl", not myśł. It can be a bit confusing seeing as it's "umysł", etc. Yes, "myśl" is female, but Przemyśl is male, as are all the "-mysł"-words.

The ones in bold are not used very often. You can come across them once in a while, but you may as well do without them. Let's say they're for highly advanced learners.

Thanks. The only word of those you marked in bold that I've ever encountered while reading is "rubież".

I have seen and heard the gnu problem neatly circumvented by identifying the animal as anytlopa gnu, declining antylopa as a fem. noun and leaving the gnu intact as a kind of undeclinable qualifier.

I decided to run all words through the Narodowy Korpus Języka Polskiegoand here are the results, sorted from most frequent to least frequent (unsurprisingly "rzecz" on the first place):

10000++:
rzecz 87920, odpowiedź 40304, młodzież 30646, stal 28382, sprzedaż 22385, twarz 22258, pogoń 18223, broń 16294, wieś 15253, krew 13904, wypowiedź 13775, straż 13649, łódź 10765

2000-9999:
podróż 8690, przestrzeń 6315, Przemyśl 6313, kolej 6200, dłoń 5727, Bydgoszcz 5703, kradzież 4926, jesień 4592, dal 4469, powódź 3951, zapowiedź 3627, Białoruś 3586, przełęcz 3480, odzież 3069, smycz 2548, sól 2159, więź 2043, pierś 2003

1000-1999:
rozpacz 1960, miedź 1880, podaż 1845, kąpiel 1513, cerkiew 1450, mysz 1399, woń 1300, pościel 1194, oś 1186, zdobycz 1184, kieszeń 1157, gałąź 1142, wyprzedaż 1137, gorycz 1112, spowiedź 1104, dań 1103, rzeź 1084

500-999:
przystań 965, macierz 873, rozkosz 816, krawędź 786, liść 774, żołądź 759, podpowiedź 757, chorągiew 748, otchłań 691, łokieć 669, odwilż 622, wiecheć 579, marchew 564, krokiew 527, odsiecz 520, gęś 517, ciecz 507

200-499:
klacz 484, czeladź 436, poręcz 436, sień 385, słodycz 357, pieczeń 353, grabież 319, satelita 305, brew 302, skroń 285, śmieć 281, maź 272, toń 259, obręcz 252, grań 252, boa 233, twardziel 228, Brześć 223, goleń 217, gardziel 217, uprząż 212

100-199:
paznokieć 196, krtań 185, dzicz 158, przedsprzedaż 124, jabłoń 124, gawiedź 116, swołocz 110, gołoledź 109, wesz 108, kapeć 103, półkrwi 103

50-99:
potwarz 92, czasoprzestrzeń 92, torbiel 88, szadź 82, gładź 78, piędź 78, rubież 75, kadź 74, darń 74, żagiew 72, kipiel 70, brukiew 68, topiel 67, odsprzedaż 63, pypeć 56, żerdź 50

0-49:
piszczel 47, rzodkiew 43, kądziel 38, rupieć 32, trzebież 32, dziegieć 31, Radogoszcz 31, spadź 30, zgorzel 29, sadź 22, szreń 11, uwięź 9, konew 9, stągiew 6, warząchew 5, śniedź 0, rozprzedaż 0

Correct! I just checked in my grammar:-) LOL

Many thanks for your posted correction (...in both languages)
))))))))

Good job on the whole, Derevon, but it seems a bit tricky at some points - I'd say you are much more likely to use "jabłoń" (apple tree - 124 occurences) than "gardziel" (217); the occurence rate of "paznokieć" (nail) is also suspiciously low - 196, while "dań" has 1103. I don't remember ever seeing "dań" as the Nominative case in any text, so I suppose that this frequency is the result of mixing the word with Accusative plural of the word "danie" meaning a course of a meal. I guess that the program counts only words which appear in the texts in their Nom. sing., therefore it counts "paznokieć" and omits "paznokcie". It would be best to check the meanings and judge for yourself if you are likely to need them or not.

strzyga

You have a good point. I simply searched for the words in the nominative singular, and some words are of course much more likely to be found in other cases or in the plural. For example paznokcie would of course result in a lot more hits than paznokieć. In the plural it's not all that important to know the gender of a word, though. Also this corpus is made up from written sources and may not reflect everyday speech very well. Nevertheless they should give some kind of idea of which words are the most common and which ones you would hardly ever encounter. (The corpus has something like 450 million words so less than 50 hits there should mean it's not a common word for sure)

gnu is simply neuter - to gnu, tamtemu gnu (like to okno, tamtemu oknu)
the only thing all gramatical cases of this word look (and sound the same) - one can say it is not declined - similar cases are boa, wotum(only in singular) - both are neuter

Thanks. Although from what I could find in a dictionary "boa" is male, not neuter.

... and you are right. It is a non-declined masculine noun: Widziałem dzisiaj w puszczy tego samego boa, co wczoraj. Już się szykował aby mnie dopaść, ale znowu zdołałem mu umknąć. Biedaczek, pozostał bez śniadania. Pewnie będzie ponownie próbował jutro, niedobry boa ...

Thanks for the confirmation. By the way, any idea why "satelita" is male?

Here is a thread where this question was asked before. Here

actually, for all of Polish's difficult bits, predicting noun gender is incredibly easy. It's much more predictable than German and French, for example.

Gently depends on what you mean by "predictable", Josh! German, as with a great many inflected languages, has it's quixotic repetition or doubling of case endings, plus the eight or so plural markers for every noun (not to mention those myriad nouns with zero change in the Nominative plural!), this being shared by Icelandic, Hungarian along with quite a few others, including of course Lithuanian:-). Having said all that, as I've observed before repeatedly on PF, there's something almost mathematical (though surely also "irregular" in declension pattern) about the aforementioned languages. The same cannot be said for Polish, the nature of whose mutations in both verbs and nouns is so chaotic as to border on the just plain sadistic!! I scarcely agree with the anology to German or French, the inflectional mutations of the former being rather orderly and exact, all things considered. French compared with Polish is practically living in paradise (at least it was for me)LOL

Polish nouns reveal a great many exceptions, more than German at any rate, and roughly analogous to the vagueries of English spelling, what with it's silent, yet pronounced and written, letters etc.