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The word "mountain" is assigned a female gender in at least most of the Latin-based languages. "La montange" in French, "la montanga" in Italian, "la montana" in Spanish, etc. I'd guess that's part of the reason...

WoundedKnee wrote:The word "mountain" is assigned a female gender in at least most of the Latin-based languages. "La montange" in French, "la montanga" in Italian, "la montana" in Spanish, etc. I'd guess that's part of the reason...

That is what I was looking for - thanks!!!!

What about Mt. Aconcagua? Male, female, or it?

When I climbed this mountain I got the distinct feeling it's a "she"

Fletch wrote:Cold and unforgiving.

WoundedKnee wrote:The word "mountain" is assigned a female gender in at least most of the Latin-based languages. "La montange" in French, "la montanga" in Italian, "la montana" in Spanish, etc. I'd guess that's part of the reason...

In Slavic languages mountain = gora, hora, planina (she). Peak, summit = szczyt, wierch, vrh (he).

My Bulgarian friend once told me about the mountains in his country: Pirin, because of both its name and the rocky roughness, is considered the only ‘masculine’ mountain range in Bulgaria. All the others – Rila, Rodopi and Stara Planina – are women. The whole story is here.

Now just look what you've started, Cindy!

kamil wrote:In Slavic languages mountain = gora, hora, planina (she). Peak, summit = szczyt, wierch, vrh (he).

Slavic languages are full of bad words in Swedish.
Kuk means cock, hora is a whore...

So is Kebnekaise male or female, Lolli?

dadndave wrote:Now just look what you've started, Cindy!

I think it's cool and an excellent conversation considering there it could have gone

Maybe a knowledgeable person can go through the various "lists" -- e.g. DPS, SPS, state highpoints -- and determine how many were named after women, men, or are ambiguous.

Lolli wrote:Slavic languages are full of bad words in Swedish.
Kuk means cock, hora is a whore...

Kuk appears in mountain names in Croatian/Bosnian/Serbian, right? Bobotov kuk for instance.
And in Danish pik is cock, innit? Sounds like peak.

Nah. Let's start at the top and work our way down.




1. Qomolangma (Everest) Female. "Mother Goddess"

2. K2?? - "...just the bare bones of a name, all rock and ice and storm and abyss. It makes no attempt to sound human. It is atoms and stars. It has the nakedness of the world before the first man - or of the cindered planet after the last"
—Fosco Maraini


3. Kangchenjunga (I can't determine a gender) "Sacred treasure of five snows"

4. Lhotse (appears genderless) "South Peak"

5. Makalu (male by inference - see SP Makalu page) "Big Black"

6. Cho Oyu (Female) "Turquoise Goddess"

7. Dhaulagiri (no apparent gender) "White Mountain"

8. Manaslu (no apparent gender) "Spirit Mountain"

9. Nanga Parbat (No apparent gender but I'm putting this down as female for obvious reasons "Naked Mountain"

10. Annapurna (female) "Full of food" (apparently a femine sanskrit construct. Usually translated more poetically as "Harvest Goddess"

11. Gasherbrum 1 (No apparent gender, but maybe the Balti language uses male and female adjectives, I dunno). "Beautiful Mountain"

12. Broad Peak (does this even require a comment? )

13. Gasherbrum 2 (see Gasherbrum 1)

14. Shisha Pangma (No apparent gender in either it's Nepali or Tibetan names) "Holy Mountain" or "Mountain overlooking a grassy plain" - see SP page)

So I make that 2 female (unless we we allow Nanga Parbat and Broad Peak), 2 male and 10 genderless names.

If my survey sample is sufficient, I'd have to say that the myth in the OP is BUSTED!

Many languages (other than English) require that nouns be either male or female.

Perhaps our multi-lingual friends could offer some insight into whether mountains are male or female in their language.

dadndave wrote:So is Kebnekaise male or female, Lolli?

It's a mighty IT.

(It's not a dead thing. )

That must make Denali male then? (Unless it was a same-sex relationship of course...)

Chalk another one up to the boys team.

CindyAbbott wrote:

WoundedKnee wrote:The word "mountain" is assigned a female gender in at least most of the Latin-based languages. "La montange" in French, "la montanga" in Italian, "la montana" in Spanish, etc. I'd guess that's part of the reason...

That is what I was looking for - thanks!!!!

Not quite so simple, perhaps, if we consider that the female romance-language nouns have then balancing pairs, e.g. 'le mont' and 'il monte'....

Looking for rules here, much less rational ones, may well be a hopeless and endless task.

But committing to mountaineering is rather similar, ain't it.

FortMental wrote:I suspect that gender assignments are directly related to the approachability of a mountain. The further away, inaccessible, and beautiful they are, the likelier the are to be feminine. That's my storty... I'm sticking to it. Regardless of the facts.

NICE!