Talk:What Gender Is Wikipedia
"Gender roles"?[edit]
The fact that Wikipedia is female in many languages says little about gender roles. It is largely determined by grammar. It is not like there was any choice involved whether to make it male or female in, say, Russian or German. It simply is female in Slavic languages due to its ending in "ia", "ija" or "ия", and in German it is female due to its etymology.
This would possibly become clearer if you had also asked what gender Wiktionary, Wikisource or Wikiversity have.
- E.g. in German, Wiktionary would be neuter, by analogy with "Wörterbuch" ("dictionary"),
- in Russian, Ukrainian, Polish, Sorbian and Bulgarian a it would be male due to its localised names: Викисловарь (Vikislovar'), Вікісловник (Vikislovnyk), Wikisłownik, Уикиречник.
- Wikisource is female in Russian, as it has been localised as "Викитека" (Vikiteka) but male in Bulgarian, where it as been localized (more accurately) as "Уикиизточник" (Wikiiztochnik). In German it would have no apparent gender. I would spontaneously make it female, maybe by analogy with Wikipedia or because the German word for source ("Quelle") is female.
- Wikiversity usually inherits its Gender from the respective word for University, which e.g. in German in female (Universität) but male in Russian (Университет / Universitet)
And so it goes on. I would be very cautious to draw any conclusions on the respective cultures from this.. --Johannes Rohr (WMDE) 10:10, 2 January 2012 (UTC)