Masculine and feminine nouns, and where gender shows: the ezafe (-ê, -a), the feminine oblique -ê, and the indefinite -ekî / -eke.
Can identify and use masculine and feminine gender in nouns
Look at these examples. Can you spot the grammar pattern?
Bavê min mamoste ye.
My father is a teacher.
Mala me mezin e.
Our house is big.
Xwişka min li Stenbolê ye.
My sister is in Istanbul.
Pay attention to the highlighted parts. What do they have in common?
Kurmanji nouns are masculine or feminine. Unlike French or German, the bare noun rarely shows its gender: bajar (city) is masculine, mal (house) is feminine, and both end in a consonant. Gender shows up in the endings a noun takes, and those endings are everywhere, so it has to be learned with each word.
| Masculine | Feminine | |
|---|---|---|
| examples | bav (father), bira (brother), bajar (city), nan (bread) | dê (mother), xwişk (sister), mal (house), av (water) |
| ezafe ("of", linking an adjective) | bavê min - my father | mala min - my house |
| oblique (after prepositions) | usually no ending: li bajar; some nouns change their vowel: li bajêr | -ê: li malê - at home |
| "a, one" + adjective | kurekî baş - a good boy | keçeke baş - a good girl |
Words for people follow sex: bav, bira, kur (son, boy) are masculine; dê, xwişk, keç (girl, daughter), jin (woman) are feminine. For everything else, learn the noun with its ezafe form: mal - mala, bajar - bajarê. Place names are often treated as feminine: ji Amedê (from Amed), li Hewlêrê (in Erbil).
The vowel after the noun is the clue. -ê after a noun followed by another word usually signals a masculine noun, -a a feminine one: nanê germ (warm bread), ava sar (cold water). In the plural the distinction disappears: both genders take -ên (malên mezin, big houses), and the oblique plural is -an for all.
Many speakers simplify the masculine oblique in everyday speech, but the feminine -ê is stable everywhere, from Qamishli to Erzurum, and leaving it out is noticeable: say li malê, not *li mal, for "at home".
Apply this grammar in A1 course exercises
Practice ExercisesEnglish has no grammatical gender, so learners skip the endings that carry it. Learn every noun with its ezafe form (bavê, mala), because the bare noun rarely shows its gender, and remember the feminine oblique -ê: li malê, not *li mal.
Error with Two grammatical genders: masculine and feminine
Review the rules for Zayend
Bavê min mamoste ye.
My father is a teacher.
Bavê = father-of (masculine izafe -ê). Min = my.
Mala me mezin e.
Our house is big.
Mala = house-of (feminine izafe -a). Me = our. Mezin = big.
Xwişka min li Stenbolê ye.
My sister is in Istanbul.
Xwişka = sister-of (f izafe -a). Li = in. Stenbolê = Istanbul (oblique).
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Apply this grammar in A1 course exercises