Re: Gender of rivers - and other waters.

In Dutch, it is generally the case that individual rivers are
feminine. (As evidenced in my name, 'der' being the (archaic) genitive
of the feminine version of 'de' and 'Vegt' being a river.)

2008/10/3 Lars Finsen <lars.finsen@...>:
> It struck me that the Suraetuan rivers all have masculine endings, and I
> guess the Suraetuans must think of their waters as a kind of semen that
> fertilises the Earth. Maybe you people who have such wide repertoires of
> languages can tell me how common this is? Of course, many languages don't
> have a gender system. Of the languages I know anything about, at least
> German has a masculine word for river, but the majority of the others seem
> to be feminine. How are you dealing with this in your conlangs?
>
> Urianians, too, seem to think of their rivers and lakes as masculine, while
> the Azurians have only feminine river names and some feminine and some
> neuter lake names. Surprisingly, the Urianians, unlike the Greeks, have a
> feminine rain goddess, who may even have given her name to the whole tribe,
> as her name is Uri. The word for rain in Suraetua is a masculine, ikuda.
>
> In the (weird) creation myth of the Urianians, Urt, the creator god,
> fertilises the primal lake Kinau by dropping the severed genitals of his
> brother Im (sometimes written Imm) into it. The lake then overflows and
> gives rise to the rivers of the world.
>
> Just thought you might like to know.
>
> LEF
>