Grammatical Gender — Masculine and Feminine

0:00 As-salāmu ʿalaykum. Welcome to lesson three, part one. In this session the key learning outcome for us is to get familiar with one of the four properties of an ism called the grammatical gender. What we mean by that, that every ism in the Arabic language will be either masculine or feminine. There is no neutral gender in Arabic. So how to identify whether the ism is to be treated as masculine or feminine. So we will do two things, give you an overview of the topic of grammatical gender

and also how to recognise every ism that you're likely to come across and correctly identify its grammatical gender. In part two of the video inshallah we will take a closer look at how to use that knowledge of what we've got so far. That is we are familiar with iʿrāb, we are familiar with definiteness and now inshallah we're going to become familiar with gender. How to use that knowledge in forming nominal sentences which we've already covered but something new for you. We're going to start looking at

the descriptive phrase which I mentioned in the mapping session. So let's begin with the blessed name of Allah. Bismillahirrahmanirrahim. Alhamdulillah we are already familiar with the idea that every ism in Arabic has four properties. The first being definiteness, gender which we're looking at in this lesson inshallah, number and of course iʿrāb which is unique to the Arabic language. So as far as definiteness is concerned every ism will be either maʿrifatun definite or indefinite nakiratun or in terms of gender it will either be masculine mudhakkarun or

muannathun and then of course number we'll look at in the next lesson which will be singular, plural or dual and as far as iʿrāb is concerned it will either be rafa, nasab or it will be jarb. You should be familiar with this already and these are the short forms that we are using in these lessons to make it easy for us to progress through the subject. So please make a note of this inshallah if you have not done so and how we are progressing through each

part. Al-jins, the gender. In English we can say for example he is a boy she is a girl. I refer to the pen and I will say it is a pen. So we have a neutral gender in Arabic this is not the case. So every noun or every ism in Arabic will either be treated grammatically as masculine or feminine. So again as a simple example we will say he is a boy in Arabic, she is a girl but even when we're talking about a pen we

will say he is a pen or if there's something else which is feminine we'll say she is a car. So this is how it works in the Arabic language we need to understand why and how to recognise the grammatical gender of an ism in order to use it correctly. Now if you look at the top list here it's very easy for you to know how to treat those those words on the top list for example Rajulun, a man that will be treated in Arabic as masculine.

Imra'atun, a woman will be treated as feminine. Waladun, a boy will be treated masculine. Bintun will be treated feminine. But what do you do with words like Qamarun which means moon. Shamsun, sun. Masjidun, mosque. Madrasatun, school. How do you treat them? Do you treat them as male or do you treat them as feminine in the language? And this is what we're going to look at closely in this lesson. Alhamdulillah to simplify this subject which many English-speaking students find very confusing because in English we have the

luxury of the neutral gender which we do not have in the Arabic language. Each and every language will have its own way of doing things. So in order to fly through this subject inshallah I have designed a very simple map for you. As long as you follow the steps in this map you will not go astray, you will not get confused inshallah. Please note I'm going to quickly give you an overview now. Later on in this lesson we go through in detail. So at this stage

just have the overview of the map in your head inshallah and then later on in the lesson you'll find full details. So let's go through the steps first.

4:23 First question to ask whenever you come across an ism is that is this ism real? What I mean by that is does it have a biological gender? Normally in English that we would use he or she with. For example I would say he is a king she is a queen. So there is some gender there in that word that identifies that it is a real biologically male or female. So with real what we do is we treat it exactly as it is. We call them haqiqi

in Arabic and they're treated as it is. So what do I mean by that? He is a headmaster, she is a headmistress. So they're treated as it is in the language same as we have in the English language. So these are called real ones and the terminologies on the screen. Now if it doesn't fall into the real, so for example my phone, my cup for drinking coffee, my pen, these are not real. There's no biological gender to them. Car, sun, moon, star, feelings, emotions, there is

no biological gender to any of those types of ism or nouns. So what do we do with those? First we look if it has a sign. So the first step is that we put them all into the non-real box if that the way to easiest way to think and then we ask does it have a sign. At the end of the word are any of these signs there? If it is then we will treat it as feminine, simple. If it doesn't have any of the signs

but it belongs to one of the following categories, we will treat it as feminine. If it has neither a sign nor does it belong to any of these categories which we call usage category, then by default it will be treated as masculine. Please note that. So default of non-real which we've called here you can see non-real is that it is treated as masculine. Otherwise if it falls into sign or category it will be treated as feminine. So default is masculine. If it doesn't have those two

main categories it will be feminine. There's also one thing in Arabic, non-rational plurals are treated as singular feminine. We will look at that inshallah in forthcoming lessons. So this is your map. That's all you need inshallah to fly through this very complex subject for english-speaking students and we tend to struggle with it a lot because in English we have the luxury of the neutral gender which we do not have in Arabic. So inshallah make a note of this map, do a screen capture whatever else you

have to do and then inshallah in detail we'll go through it now in this lesson. Firstly what do we mean when I say grammatical gender? In English it's easy, no neutral gender in Arabic so we have an issue here that we need to look at. So every ism will be treated either as masculine or feminine but in English we have she is a headmistress, he is a headmaster, it is a school. Very easy, that's all you do. Now in English there are rare occasion rare occasion

where living things are actually given feminine pronouns. For example we say my car she is a beauty, my car she is a beauty. So here the car is being treated grammatically as if it is feminine. I hope that inshallah makes sense to you. So in English normally we don't but there are rare occasion. My car she is a beauty. So I'm treating my car as if it is, grammatically speaking only, as if it is feminine. Of course in reality it is not. So if I said

for example on her maiden voyage she hit an iceberg. Of course I'm talking about the Titanic, the boat Titanic or the big ship is being treated as if it is feminine. This is rare in English language but we have it. You have to have the same mentality when it comes to Arabic. You have to treat every ism either as masculine or feminine. So at the beginning it looks strange but soon inshallah you'll get used to it. So for example pen I will treat it as if

it is masculine. For example car I will treat it as feminine. So we're going to look at that inshallah. So when I'm referring to grammatical gender what I mean is how is that noun or ism being treated in the language itself. So if you recall the map the first step is to sort out the reality. Reality will always be treated as it is and I believe that is the case in every language. So in any language you speak boy girl will be treated biologically, linguistically as

they are biologically. So here these are the easy ones for us.

9:24 So there is really no worry here. So you'll simply treat it as it is. If it's real male masculine. If it's real female feminine. Once we separate the real and the non-real we are only dealing with the non-real at the moment. Words like tamarun, shamsun, masjidun, madrasatun.

9:45 How do we treat these words? Are they to be treated as a boy word or a girl word? He or she? What do we do with these nouns plus millions of others? Majority of them of course will be non-real as in the language. So we need to now deal with find out a simple step of knowing these. Inshallah as I've shown you in the map there's only three very simple steps you need to follow and you will not be confused about this topic. Three simple steps. So the first step for us is to separate out the real and the non-real. With the real very easy.

10:19 If it's a real masculine it will be treated in the language as masculine. If it's a real female feminine it will be treated as feminine. Very simple step inshallah. Step one. Now we are left only in our box with all the non-real words. Then as I've showed you earlier you ask for masculine or feminine. Very simple step. You ask first question does it have a sign or does it belong to the usage category. If it's not step three is to put them all into the masculine

box. So again very simple. Real first then you will not be confused. Then with step two we look at non-real and then we separate them out in masculine and feminine based upon whether they fall into the sign or the usage category. Grammatically treated feminine by sign. There are three signs which if you see at the end of a word they're very likely to be treated as feminine in Arabic. The first and most important and this is the one we're going to look at some detail in

this lesson inshallah.

11:24 The second is and the third is. Please don't worry if you do not know the terminology already and again don't worry if you don't even recognise what they are. Inshallah through examples you learn them. So these are special names given to these letters if you want to call them that appear at the end of words and this indicates or these are one of the signs that that word should be treated as feminine. So which is a round ta, alif mamduda is an alif followed by hamza

and alif maksura which is written like a ya at the end of a word but has fatha before it and it's actually a dotless ya but in reality it's an alif. You elongate the sound very similar what you do with alif normally that elongates the sound. Ta marbuta feminine by sign. This sign ta marbuta is the most common of all of words that are feminine in fact it covers a wide range of real as well as non-real words which are to be treated as feminine in

the Arabic language. Of course real words you'll treat as it is as we've done already the separation is step one but if you see ta marbuta at the end it is very very likely that it will be treated as feminine as it is the most primary sign of something to be treated feminine in Arabic. So for example let's look at some words here on the screen which will help us inshallah ta'ala and you can see there a huge range of words so we have first jannatun

paradise, ayatun sign this is of course miracle as well but it is an ayah of Quran it refers to it. Sa'atun watch, ghurfatun room, salatun prayer, zakatun zakat, kabeeratun pick, sayyaratun car, suratun surah, ba'idatun far, fitnatun trial, ghurfatun room, aryatun town or village, madinatun city. So you can see huge range all having ta marbuta all of them to be treated as feminine because they end with ta marbuta. There are some masculine nouns in Arabic which have ta marbuta at the end very few that you're likely

to come across for example usama or usamatu. Usama is a name of a person then we have muawiyah then we have hamza and then we have talha, khalifa these are all masculine names or names of male persons and therefore they will be treated as masculine. Why? Remember step one so even though they look like exceptions they're not in reality exceptions so if you see a word that is masculine meaning real male and has a ta marbuta at the end it will be treated as masculine. Why?

Because reality is always treated as reality so again beware of exceptions with ta marbuta but they are very very rare very very rare and it is only used with those which are real masculine and if you follow my steps that I gave you earlier that you separate the real from the non-real that inshallah this confusion will be removed. So ta marbuta you can take it as a exclusive sign of feminine apart from the fact that when in rare occasions it is used with real masculine names

for particular which have ta marbuta at the end. There are large sets of words that you'll come across which will have a masculine and a feminine version and it is very easy to convert from the masculine to the feminine of course and vice versa if you follow the following steps but take for example we have the word muslim now i'm sure by now we all know that the word muslim of course refers to a male muslim so this is masculine and ends with muslimun musliman or

muslimin in the three different arab which we've already seen so it's simple this is masculine muslim or male muslim but to say a female muslim i will say muslimatun muslimatun or muslimah if we end there so this is a female so this is feminine now in order to convert from the masculine to feminine it is very very simple all you need to do is follow the following steps number one you will place a fatha at the end of the word so no matter what it has

here you'll cross it off and you place a fatha at the end let me change the colour so you can see that so you place a fatha at the end of the word so you can see the first step is to place a fatha on the last letter of the masculine word and then what you do after that is that you add the ta marbuta at the end so you take get your ta marbuta which is here you can see either it will be written like

so or if the letter before it allows you to join to it and this is arabic writing rules you write it like so so you can see the two different versions on the screen so you'll add the ta marbuta at the end of the word the third step is to place the correct vowels at the end depending on what the arab of that word will be so the arab will dictate what goes at the end but nonetheless these are the three steps that you need to

take so with this one musli muslimun we wanted to say in the rafa we'll say muslimatun so i've done the first step i put the fatha and i put the ta marbuta and i put the tanween at the end for musliman we do not need the extra alif so that's gone so we put the fatha here and then we put the at the end the two fathas there in the nasab and same thing with the with the jar we take exactly the same the fatha fatha

fatha remember the rule and then we put the the whatever it needs to be at the end and that's all you need to do to convert for those words that have a masculine ism and a feminine version of the same ism so you'll see that many many times in arabic and you need to learn how to do this in order for you to make sentences or translate sentences or phrases etc in arabic primarily this is done with words that are derived nouns they call them as

well as adjectives and the types of those types of words you will have a masculine and a feminine version take a close look at the words on the screen you have at the right hand side the masculine and there's a space and there for the feminine version of the same word so we have kabeerun and then we have munafiqun, sagheerun, salihun, we have qaseerun and we have mushrikatun so what i'd like you to do is convert the masculine to feminine and there's one feminine word which

i'd like you to convert to masculine using the three steps that i showed you earlier please complete this task before continuing the video this will help you practise the rule that i went through and inshallah if you do it couple of times you should be able to remember this rule forever and this will help you with throughout your arabic studies before continuing please complete this task pause the video then come back to it let me go through the steps with you as a reminder i hope

you've actually paused the video and did this exercise get yourself a sheet of paper a notebook whatever and please complete it because this is something very easy and inshallah i'll give you the confidence that you've learned something that you can progress with so our first word is kabeerun kabeerun is masculine we need the feminine version of that so the rule is you don't touch anything before the last letter you put a fatha on the last letter doesn't matter what it had originally and you put a

tamar buta at the end so before the tamar buta you'll always see a fatha always so this is the rule inshallah you add a fatha on the last letter and you add the tamar buta at the end then we have the word munafiqun we want the feminine version of that again same principle same step and we put a fatha and we have the tamar buta at the end so you can see here two three simple steps that i've done with the two examples above sagheerun means

small and we want the female version of that sagheeratim sagheeratim you can see very simple salihun pious female pious or righteous and then we have at the end the last one on that right hand side is taseeran you're going to notice the extra alif i mentioned before which comes when you have two fathas at the end so let's do this one it'll be done and we don't need to put the two fathas when it's tamar buta and that's all we've done inshallah in this one and

again you can see simple steps that we're following now the next one we need to reverse engineer it back to the masculine very easy because we know last step is to add the tamar buta so we get rid of that and then last one was that we add a fatha on the letter but because the other one has tanween at the end we put the same tanween on the masculine version so let's look at this one inshallah mushrik so we go back to that step tamar

buta has been deleted or let me write it and then delete it so you can see it so delete that a fatha there i need to get rid of that and we go back to the original mushrikun means a idol worshipper polytheist so you can see here alhamdulillah very very simple steps that you need to take to convert the masculine to feminine i hope and pray that you've actually done these uh please make sure you practise as many as you can and that way that knowledge

will become permanent inshallah in your knowledge base so take a quick screenshot of this if you have not done so already please make a note of the masculine and feminine version how to convert from one to the other one very important point let me illustrate that inshallah with more examples so we have muslimun muslimatun mu'minan mu'minatan sualihun sualihatun al abida al abidata okay means the worshipper uh mushrikun we've done already mushrikatun so we have the masculine feminine conversion that you already know these are adjectives so

let's look at some of them kabeerun kabeeratun sagheerin sagheeratin katheeran katheeratan qaleelin qaleelatin al qareebu al qareebatun again exactly the same as we've done before of course note in the last example we had al therefore there is no tanmeen the single vowel sign all the things that we've learned so far all coming but there are certain words or there are many words in arabic which are names of things for example a pen pen will be either masculine or feminine a book will be either masculine or

feminine car will be either masculine or feminine there is no masculine and feminine version of each so you cannot do that to every single word please note that there will be certain words or quite a few of them that you'll come across which will either be masculine feminine based on the rules that i've already told you so for example ayatun why is ayat treated as feminine arabic because it has the sign at the end qalamun is pen is masculine why because it doesn't fall into or

does not have the sign nor does it fall into any other categories of feminine sayaratun car feminine niyatun intention feminine jannatun paradise feminine so you can see here that the words the conversion bit that we've done is not applicable throughout the language because you cannot make pen a male and female version they are in reality one or the other and that will be based on the rules of the language so please make a note of that very important point alif mamdudah alif mamdudah literally means the

elongated alif meaning you strengthen lengthen the sound it occurs only at the end of an ism and it has an hamza after it please note with no hamza then it is not alif mamdudah just because you've got a long alif at the end it will not fall into this group and it's a sign of something being feminine please beware that there are exceptions for example zakariya that you can see here at the end has the alif but this is masculine why because in reality it is

masculine for now just make a note of few examples inshallah this will be discussed in detail when we look at derived nouns in the more advanced lessons but for now just note that it's examples of these types of words will be treated as feminine in arabic so sahra'u darra'u bayda'u hamra'u now note in arabic we've got red white these are words that are referring to colours in arabic because they're treated as adjectives you will have a male and female version this is the feminine version we

will look at that inshallah in more advanced lesson and others like sahra'u darra'u because of the sign they are treated as feminine again when you look into derived nouns this will make a bit more sense so please note the second sign is alif mamdudah it is less less rare in terms of the volume of words that you will come across alif maqsura is written as a dotless ya that appears end of some words it is referred to or it means basically shortened alif so please note

the way to recognise it is that there is no dots plus before it you will see either a fatha or a standing uh khara zabar as they call it in the indian subcontinent or dagger alif as is referred to sometimes in arabic text so this is usually written uh the letter ya without dots um and it can be sometimes written also as a normal alif again these are written rules that you don't need to worry about for now they are also a sign of a word

to be treated as feminine for example husna, bushra, sughra, kubra, ad-dunya, the world, greater, older, smaller, youngest, etc good news good or beautiful so these are just examples of these words which are treated as feminine in the arabic language please note that there will be exceptions now the exceptions are also covered within the rule that i've given you for example isa alayhis salam, musa alayhis salam, yahya these are real masculine so they'll be treated as masculine so as long as you remember the first step inshallah

you will not be confused so this is another sign again rarer than the ta marbuta that we came across and again when we do the more detailed uh look at the um derived nouns inshallah this will make sense so i hope inshallah you made a note of this all you need to do as i said before just be aware of it and when we go to the more detailed we will pick it up so in summary if you see at the end of a word ta

marbuta you know that it is to be treated as feminine of course the exceptions been already covered alif mamduda at the end of words it will also be treated as feminine and alif maksura if it appears at the end of a word it is treated as feminine so these are your three signs three signs of femininity in the arabic language grammatically treated as feminine by usage there are certain categories of ism that are treated in arabic as feminine even though they're not real feminine and they

do not have the signs of being feminine so we're going to study them under a category called usage meaning that these words have been used as feminine in the arabic language by arabs therefore we will accept them as feminist so simple usage the first category which is the easiest one to remember is body parts in pairs meaning any part of your body that you have in pairs the ears the eyes the hands feet etc you have two of they are treated primarily as feminine so some

of the words that you're likely to come across which means hand these words will be treated in arabic as if they are feminine so grammatically they will be treated as feminine as far as body parts that are singular for example nose we have head and then we have tongue or it's also used for language these words will be treated as masculine please note a simple rule that's all it is why and what don't get into it there is no reason to even dwell on that that's

just the way it has been used in the arabic language names of most places and some tribes etc are also treated as feminine for example these words are treated as feminine in the arabic language majority of the places you like to come across names of places will be treated as feminine and that and also some tribe names like Quraysh and others will be treated as feminine exceptions there are six arab countries which are treated as masculine for example so these are few countries that are treated

as masculine by arabic language so again usage these are the few exceptions you're most likely to come across the next category are words that are used to refer to fire wind and wine that kind of thing so for example you have hellfire fire so these words are also treated as feminine and we'll group them under the category of wind wine and fire so under the usage category we so far have body parts in pairs we have names of places and we have words associated with wind

fire or wine beyond these categories there are a handful of words very few that's probably very rare that you come across anything than those listed on the screen so please make a note of these these are words that you're likely to come across that are as feminine in the in arabic so for example which means a house or abode also another word for house is is treated masculine but is treated as feminine the self as in planet earth well and bucket so these are a few

miscellaneous words that are treated as feminine in arabic just make a note of them in your notebook inshallah there is one very important addition to this list which we will cover in some detail in lesson number six but this is the idea in arabic that non-rational plurals are grammatically treated as singular feminine this is a quite a weird rule for us so it will be treated as singular feminine don't worry as we develop our knowledge i will be giving you plenty of examples but these words

or plurals of non-rational beings are treated in arabic as singular and feminine please note that inshallah whether the masculine whether the single is masculine feminine doesn't matter as long as the plural is of the non-rational kind it will be so what do i mean by rational and non-rational in arabic out of everything in the universe or everything of creation it can have a name any noun that refers to angels jins or humans is called in arabic rational anything does not have that is called non-rational and

that's all i need you to remember for now and be aware that there are sets of words which are plurals of words that are not angels jins or humans can be treated in arabic as singular feminine so in conclusion let us summarise what we have learned so far in this lesson the map i introduced you to at the beginning of the lesson we're going to go through it now now that we've gone through all the steps and we should be familiar with the topic please use

this map this is going to save you a huge amount of time in making notes studying the subject and getting confused over it anytime you come across a word which is treated feminine come back to this map and inshallah all your confusion will be removed all you need to do is go through the steps i've given you and for english speakers this is a confusing subject i do accept that but inshallah it will become very easy so i'm going to show you on full screen please

feel free to take a copy of this rewrite it redesign it i'm sure you can do a far better design than me and keep your own notes once you've done it once it becomes part of your knowledge base you won't have to worry about it for the rest of your study inshallah and believe please believe me when i tell you this topic is going to come again and again what is masculine what is feminine so let's solve it right at the beginning before we go into

deeper study so let's review our map one more time every ism in arabic will be either masculine or feminine the first question you need to ask is is this word referring to something real i.e does this have real gender is it biologically male or female like we would we would use in english he or she if it is you treat it as it is please do not move from this step until you've done this part then everything else all the exceptions and confusion will be removed

forever so first thing haqiqi is it real then it is treated as it is if it's not real which would be the bulk of the you'll follow the following step the first question you will ask is does it have a sign if it doesn't have the sign then you will ask the second question does it belong to the usage category as far as the signs are concerned there are three which appear appear at the end of the word and you've got some examples on the screen

for you and we have which you can see on the screen so these are your three prime signs again the exceptions that you're most likely to come across will be if you haven't separated the real from the non-real if it doesn't belong to any of those or doesn't doesn't have any of these endings the next question to ask does it belong to any of the following categories is it body parts in pairs is it the name of any place or tribe etc does it refer to

wine wind or fire or does it belong to the handful of miscellaneous words if it doesn't then you will by default treat it as masculine please note almost majority of the words you'll come across which are non-real you will treat it as default which is masculine and then the last one inshallah we'll cover in more detail broken plurals or plurals of which is the non-rational beings can be treated in arabic as single or feminine and this is all you're going to need in order to proceed

with this subject inshallah even until you get to advanced level alhamdulillah all the praises and thanks belongs to allah the lord of the worlds alhamdulillah i have shared with you brothers and sisters a simple map simple step-by-step instruction on how to recognise the subject of gender of an ism in arabic i hope and pray i've been able to do justice and that it is a very simple way of approaching a subject which for english speakers i included myself when we first started learning arabic i found

very confusing but these steps inshallah will help you please do watch these videos with the intention of learning arabic to understand quran and also inshallah allah grant you taufiq to not only learn but also to teach in your local community whatever you find of benefit from here so take this inshallah as a lesson for learning arabic to understand the book of allah azza wa jal please do give me feedback if anything here is complex or if there are any mistakes of course human beings are prone

to making mistakes i will correct them in the next version coming keep your feedback coming inshallah suggestions anything that can be done to improve the programme i will do my level best if it's possible for me to implement for you that's it for now may allah bless you and reward you for all your support all your duas and all your messages i am really overwhelmed by them and i'm grateful to allah azza wa jal for them first of all and to you for giving me feedback

until the next video assalamualaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh