How 89 38 Teaching Hindi Gender system to foreign studunts M. Gnanam’ 1, Introduction ‘The gender of the nouns in Hindi, the major Indian language ia partly semantic, partly phonological and partly arbitrary for which no rules can be given to a learner to find out the gender of the noun concerned, The gondor of Hindi nouns at present is a result of many historical developments, Hindi hhas only two genders masculine and feminine. The language from which Hindi evolved had three genders - masculine, feminine and neuter, Some neuter nouns became masculine and others beceme feminine. Some masculine nouns became feminine, and vice versa (Keamtaa Prasad’ Guru 1957) in due course. As time passed many new nouns mainly from or ‘through Persian and English entered Hindi, Gender in English language is found only in pronouns and Persian language exhibits no gender distinetion at all. These nouns from (or through) Persian and English became masculine for feminine because of various criteria like phonology or semantic equivalence or both. Possibly there were some more criteria also. Similarly nouns from other languages like French ete, also entered Hindi with either gender, Net result is that the gender of Hindi nouns pose @ problem in teaching Hindi as a socond language to a student who is not familiar with 4 similar gender system, It becomes more serious when one has to teach iting Assistant Professor of Hin, U-F-S, SoolHindi gender system to 2 foreign student who is not likely to have the Inowledgo of what is a tatsama word (Sanskrit word in original form) what is a tadbhava (Sanskrit word in changed form, Le. words dorived from Sanskrit words) and what is a Perso-Arabic word, which is usually found in ‘most of the non-Hindi speaking Indian students and helps to certain extent in finding gender of Hindi nouns (Gnanum 1977 ; Sharma 1995). Urdu, another Indian language has almost the same gender system of Hindi and to teach Hindi to a Urdu knowing person is not a problem. Similarly to the speakers of Indian languages like Tamil or Kannada a rule like ‘sll - wa ‘ending Sanskrit nouns (tatsama), excluding denoting a male, are feminine’ is not very useless one, as mastly they can identify tatsama words without much difficulty. The case of foreign students is different, Hence some other devices should be used to teach Hindi gonder system to 1 foreign student. 2. Structural methods Structural methods can be used to teach the gender system of Hindi nouns. Hindi nouns have concord with adjectives (only with - aa ending adjectives and that too have some ekemptions), verbs and complements (ubject complements or object complements) voh_aechaa lartkaah ‘he is a good boy.” woh _agchii lar+kii_h ‘he is a good girl’ voh_acchii Kitab hy ‘it is a good book Verbs lar+kaa aavan ‘the boy came! lortkii —aavii ‘the girl came, 25 oboekiteab _aavii ‘the book came. Complements Jartkoa_gandaa h ‘the boy is dirty.’ larthii_gandii_b ‘the girl is dirty’ Kitash _gandii_h the book is dirty. Obviously kitaab is feminine By the usage one can learn the gender system and in due course one is accustomed with the usage to such an extent that acchaa iteab sounds odd to hissher ears and he/she sey or write only acchii Kitaab, This is exactly how Hindi is acquired as frst language. When Hindi is learnt as a second Tanguage by natural method then also mostly itis learnt in this way only. Another beautiful structural method was suggested by Prof. ‘V4Subramanian and Dr. Parameswaran Pillai (1976) to teach Hindi gender system, They suggested that the plural forms can be introduced first to the students. In Hindi masculine and feminine nouns have clear cut different plural markers and hence by seeing the plural forms one can easily say whether they are masculine or feminine, In Hindi, plural markers for masculine nouns are @ and -aa = 26 °z. = har "house! gharaa ‘pot kasi ‘poet! moti ‘pean zuu “teacher! daakuu ‘robber’ ‘eating Hr Gace aan ign sete 267Feminine nouns take the plural markers yaa, ee, -V. ee a ‘book’ Kitaabee ‘season’ vituee ‘daugher-inlaw bahuee ‘garland! malence ‘beauty’ chaviyan ‘ait! la_kivea ‘small bird ci yaa (ike sparrow) FFrom thio examples it is clear that by seeing the singular form one ean not say which gonder it belongs to, while by seoing the plural form one can immediately say that the particular noun belongs to masculine or feminine. ‘This method has some disadvantages also, This is almost similar to learn ‘2 noun along with its gender, ap given in dictionaries, which is not practically possible, Another disadvantage is some nouns do not have plural forms, at least naturally and commmonly. Plural forms for prakash ‘ight(abstruct, lishryaa Jealousy’ will be very unnatual and uncommon in Hindi, The third disadvantage is that back formation of singular counter parts of -yaa, and -V ending plural forms will not he possible as they can be either -fi ending, or -i ending or -yaa, ending and they have to be taught seperately. Lastly there are some nouns, very few in numbers, only 2 or 3 perhaps, which are used only as plural ee. saraso ‘rousterds! kodo ‘a grain (pl) 2 owenSince there is no singular form in use, itis difficult to say what is the plural marker here. Anyhow as a structural method plural forms also help to learn the gender system in Hindi and the plural forms in due course are so accustomed to the learners that a wrong plural formation like ghare ‘houses’ sounds add to him and he feels the plural of ghar is only ghar and hence it is masculine. 3. The present attempt ‘The structure methods whether concord method or plural formation ‘method are based upon the reflections of genders of a noun. Gonder causes, the structure and not the otherway round. Learning gender of a noun by structure requizes a long practice or use of Tanguage. Often a learner asks the teacher whether there are some rules to learn Hindi gender. There are various kinds of attempts in Hindi grammars, written for students to give such rules leading Prof. V.R Jagannathan to ‘mock’ that "this is possibly the ‘most entertaining job for all grammsrians"(1981 : 296) There may be around ‘hundred rules, with exemptions outnumbering them, Sometimes these rules, help the learners less and frighten more. I am not going to blame the authors of those grammars as they honestly tried to answer the queries of the students and as I am also going to make a such attempt here. Before giving rules to identify gender, the students may he made clear about four points - © Gender system of Hindi is a feature of that language and there is nothing odd in that as many languages have such a complox gender eystem (eg. French, Sanskrit te). @ To know the gender of a noun never hesitate to use a good dictionary ‘or ask your teacher (of course not in the examination hall). ® Gender system will he leernt in due course easily by usage and one need not bother himself much to learn them by rules. Tess te Gena pt iy ss 20@ Bven if you commit @ mistake in your Hindi construction because of wrong identification of the gender of a noun (particularly denoting inanimate things or small insect like animates) do not worry. Even native speakers sometimes commit such a ‘mistake’ while speaking. This is particularly found with the use of consonant onding nouns (There was 9 suggestion by Mr Purushattam Das Tandan, a veteran Hindi scholar, to make all the inanimate nouns of Hindi masculine and in support, interestingly he said that even Mr, Rajendra Prasad, then the head of the Constitution Assembly of free India and later the President of India, who himself was a native Hindi Speaker, spoke in the assembly rel_aa gavas 'the train came, while it should have been rol_aa_gayil as rol in Hindi is feminine, His suggestion was not accepted and today here is this attempt having many more of this kind preceded and possibly to follow) ‘Tho rules to help in idendifying Hindi genders can be classified into - not dopended on other languages and depended on other languages. The second kind of rules can be given to the students on the basis of theit language background only, and since these are mostly depended on Sanskrit and Perso-Arabie, are very less useful to foreign students. ‘A. Fules not depended on other languages 1, All the animate nouns which denote a male are maseuline and which denote a female are feminine ie. Hindi animate nouns can be ssid to have some sort of natural gender system, Here some, points can be made clear, which compel to put the adjective ‘some sort of before the ‘natural genders system, @ Some nouns are masculine, in use, but can include female counter-points also, ee. hamaare_daftar_mo das karte _he + saat purush ‘iin __strivaa 0 women‘in our office ten persons are working - soven men and three © Some nouns usually denoting persons of some occupation / profession / business, have both genders (ubhaya lingii) ie. they should be used according to the sex of the persons being denoted, og hamaaropradhsan mantri__sti_nebruii save ‘our Prime Minister Mr. Nehru came’ ‘but_hamaare pradhean _mantri_srimati gandhi _aavii ‘our Prime Minister Mrs. Gandhi came’ © Moet of the non human snimates are conventionallly used only in one gender and the counterpart, eventhough found in the language, is used only ‘whan it becomes imperative in the eonetxt. oe. ‘kutta_vefosdagr jaanvar hota he ‘dog fs faithful snimal! kautiyan ‘a sho - dog’ so in faithful, but it is not seperately sad. But one has to say- merii_kutiyaa nee casr__pilles dive ‘my she dog gave birth to four pups’ ‘where use of kutiyan is imperative naturally Here is a small list of such non human eniamate nouns, as a sample Specific use, when necessary, Isa / blag (mm) maki ly (0) nar makkbii_(m) chastity, hence is feminine, it is easier to put it under exemptions simply. All these rules are only to make ‘he learning easy - not to be very perfect and highly technical) ee. bicchus ‘scorpion’ alu ‘potato’ 1) -iyan endings are mostly feminine (main exemptions are takiyaa ‘pillar’, pahiyaa ‘whee!) em duniyaa ‘world sivas ‘a sparrow 8. Rules depending upon other languages ‘These rules are mostly of less use to a foreign students, and can be left ‘out while teaching. These are about -alconsonant ending nouns and -2a ending nouns. These nouns can be left out to be learnt by the students by practice. We can very well say to a learnor who is frightened by the gender system of Hindi that -2 or -aa ending nouns gender of which are not semantically known, slone make somo trouble in Hindi, which can be learnt in due course, Anyway to complote this paper the rules for -a/-consonant ending and -aa ‘ending also are given here. If they happen to be useful to the learner, they ean be used i) -aa ending nouns @ -aa ending Sanskrit nouns (tatsama) are feminine. ee maalaa ‘garland? (amaataa ‘mother’, pitas ather’ are known of their gender by rule No. Al) 16 olson?Goanam, M. 1977 “Hindi ; Gender system’, 8th All India conference of Inds Linguistics, Muzaffarpur, Guru, Kamata Pasod. 196%{reprint) Hindi wyukaran, Nagri Pracarini Sabbs Verenasi Jagannathan, VR. 1981 Pravog aur Prayog, Oxford University PressDelhi) ‘Kishoridas Vajpey,_ 1960 Hind Shabdanushasan, Nagri Pravharini Sabha, Varanast Sharma, LN. 1995 Hindi Bhasba i Sanrecona_ka_paricavatmak wakaren Satsehitya Sadan, Agra Subramaniyan,V.LParameshvaran 1976 ‘Gender in Hind’, International Journal of Dravidian Linguistics, pp. 15469 Trivandrum, Teast Wr Geer eyiam o raga sats 257FEL 1 #19 Aue as} 258 a] So] Bea oh Ge Res Oy. 2. 89 ap} deol did eee stele ait + aa. 3 Ad Boh an ASS Awe) eu an ote cab) Age Al 200 she. 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