Wiktionary:Languages with more than one grammatical gender

This is a Wiktionary policy, guideline or common practices page. Specifically it is a policy think tank, working to develop a formal policy. Policies – Entries: CFI - EL - NORM - NPOV - QUOTE - REDIR - DELETE. Languages: LT - AXX. Others: BLOCK - BOTS - VOTES.

Important note: this page is NOT policy, following text notwithstanding. Note that it is marked as a "think tank" and marked to be cleaned up. We have one-letter gender templates such as {{f}} precisely so that we can use them concisely in translations sections when providing different gender forms; also {{t}} does the same. The following partly represents current practice, and can be considered guidelines.

This page contains our policy on the treatment of words from languages with more than one grammatical gender where this fact becomes an issue. This policy mainly affects how translations for nouns and adjectives should be written under the translation section of each Wiktionary entry. The purpose of this policy is to simplify the translations for all Wiktionary entries and to establish a consistency among all entries. Any suggestion for this policy or any opinion should be left on the discussion page.

Note: In this policy, the term second-language lemma refers to the traditional citation form found in the English-to-second-language side of a dictionary. For example, for Latin, the second-language lemma of walk is ambulāre, NOT ambulō (“I walk”), which is the lemma found in the Latin-to-English side of the dictionary.

Translations

For most English terms, the only translation to list shall be the second-language lemma. Any other form of the lexeme shall be omitted.

Any irregularites in the inflection or any usage notes of a translation shall NOT be listed in the translation section. Rather, they shall be listed under the entry of the foreign word.

This keeps the English translation section simple and concise, and since Wiktionary's goal is to include English definitions for all words from other languages, the additional information (in the case, the irregular stem change) can be found in second-language-to-English section of Wiktionary.

Nouns

Unless otherwise specified in the language consideration page for the translation target, the second-language lemma is defined as the [this needs work, including case specification and how to handle languages with different gender systems, originally: "masculine singular"] form. The gender of this lemma shall be included.

For ["animate"? "personal"?] translations that can change their form to reflect the sex of the person they represent, only the [this needs work, including how to translate specifically female English nouns, originally, "masculine singular"] form shall be listed.

For example, in the translation section of the English noun field:

• Latin: ager m

The stem change is shown only in the entry the Latin noun ager:

ager m (genitive agrī); second declension

Adjectives

Unless otherwise specified in the language considerations page for the translation target, the second-language lemma is generally a masculine (or common masculine and feminine) form, in a language with a masculine (or common) gender. (For example, for Latin we use the masculine nominative singular form.) However, exceptions may be made in rare circumstances where the masculine forms do not normally apply; see pregnant for some examples.

The gender of this lemma shall not be listed, since the gender of adjectives in most languages changes to reflect the gender of the nouns they modify.

For example, in the translation section of the English adjective bold (“courageous, daring”):

• Latin: audāx

The stem change is shown in the entry for the Latin adjective audāx:

audāx (genitive audācis); third-declension one-termination adjective