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Masculine & feminine noun | ||
Tags: Vocabulary learning | Italian | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Questions About Your Target Languages |  | |
| Z.J.J Senior Member China Joined 5614 days ago 243 posts - 305 votes  Speaks: Mandarin* | Message 1 of 8 05 September 2009 at 9:37am | IP Logged | ||
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Generally, in Italian, a m. noun always ends with -o and f. nouns, with -a, I just looked a word (poliglotta) up in Oxford Paravia Italian dictionary, and it says that, "poliglotta"＝[persona] polyglot (m. e f.＝m. & f.), why doesn't it have masculine word "poliglotto"(does it really exist in Italian)? As I recall, in Spanish, "poligloto" represents masculine, and "poliglota", feminine. Thanks!
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| staf250 Pentaglot Senior Member Belgium emmerick.be Joined 5703 days ago 352 posts - 414 votes Speaks: French, Dutch*, Italian, English, German Studies: Arabic (Written) | Message 2 of 8 05 September 2009 at 11:14am | IP Logged | ||
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You surely will find other masculin nouns ending on -a.
Il tassista la tassista masc. e femm. plur. tassisti 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| MäcØSŸ Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5815 days ago 259 posts - 392 votes Speaks: Italian*, EnglishC2 Studies: German | Message 3 of 8 05 September 2009 at 11:49am | IP Logged | ||
The feminine plural of "tassista" is "tassiste", and that of "poliglotta" is "poliglotte" 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Cabaire Senior Member Germany Joined 5605 days ago 725 posts - 1352 votes | Message 4 of 8 05 September 2009 at 11:51am | IP Logged | ||
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I think it is so because the second element in the word is a feminine noun: the "tongue" in Greek: ἡ γλῶττα [hɛ 'glɔ:t:a]
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| Z.J.J Senior Member China Joined 5614 days ago 243 posts - 305 votes Speaks: Mandarin* | Message 5 of 8 05 September 2009 at 12:04pm | IP Logged | ||
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Which is the correct answer? Is poliglotto a valid word in Italian?
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/poliglotto poliglotto (noun) m. (plural poliglotti) (Feminine: poliglotta) http://it.wiktionary.org/wiki/poliglotta poliglotta (m. e f.) persona che conosce e parla più lingue (varianti: poliglotto) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Cabaire Senior Member Germany Joined 5605 days ago 725 posts - 1352 votes | Message 6 of 8 05 September 2009 at 12:04pm | IP Logged | ||
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As I recall, in Spanish, "poligloto" represents masculine, and "poliglota", feminine. Thanks!
In Spanish you have also masculine nouns which ends in -a: el pirata, el poeta, el problema These are words, were the irregularities are due to the ancient tongues. In Latin: pirata malus, poeta doctus In Greek: τὸ πρόβλημα [to 'problɛ:ma] And my Spanish dictionary says: poliglota (a. políglota): Sprachkenner (this is the noun) poligloto: mehrsprachig (this is the adjective) So no difference between Italian and Spanish. But el águila is another cause. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Kveldulv Senior Member Italy Joined 6959 days ago 222 posts - 244 votes 1 sounds Speaks: Italian* | Message 7 of 8 05 September 2009 at 12:05pm | IP Logged | ||
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ZJJ, there is no answer to your quetion. Well, maybe there is and it would be fun to know, but it won't help you learn Italian at all.
As staf250 pointed out, you will find a lot of nouns like that - gorilla, autista, pilota (now that I think about it, almost all of them represent animate beings) - and some adjectives like entusiasta. Have fun learning Italian :) EDIT: Wow, you posted a lot while I was writing my message :) I've never heard the word "poliglotto", although my dictionary says it exist but that it's not common: poliglotta [po-li-glòt-ta] agg. m. e f. [pl.m. -i, f. -e], non com. poliglotto agg. [f. -a; pl.m. -i, f. -e], si dice di persona che conosce e parla molte lingue o di comunità in cui si parlano più lingue | si dice di libro scritto in molte lingue o che riguarda molte lingue: dizionario poliglotta ¨ n.m. e f. [pl.m. -i, f. -e] persona poliglotta ? Dal gr. polýglottos, comp. di poly- ‘poli-’ e gl¨tta ‘lingua’ © 2005, De Agostini Scuola S.p.a. - Garzanti Linguistica Edited by Kveldulv on 05 September 2009 at 12:11pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 6017 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 8 of 8 05 September 2009 at 6:12pm | IP Logged | ||
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To summarise and clarify Cabaire's post:
"poliglotta" comes from Greek. The Romans thought that Greek was the most cultured language on the planet, so they kept any words of Greek origin as close to the Greek original as possible. It's not very logical, but what language is 100% logical? (Argh! I promised myself I'd stay away until I'd finished my essay, and I'm still only a tenth of the way through!) 1 person has voted this message useful |
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