In French, some country names are masculine (represented in green) and some are feminine (represented in purple).
Is this assignment random? Not exactly. It’s usually rather case-by-case.
And of course, that got me thinking about how these countries got their names.
L’Argentine comes from Latin argentinus, meaning ‘silver.’ Argentinus is masculine, but concepts (and the embodiment of ideas) are generally feminine, thus Argentina (and variants thereof) is feminine as well.
Japon, on the other hand, came to Italian through Marco Polo’s use of the Chinese term jih-pǔn, then to Portuguese ( “Of the Ilande of Giapan,” Luīs Fróis), and from Portuguese to French as a masculine word.
Despite ending in an ‘a’, Canada is masculine. It comes from the Iroquian word kanata for ‘village,’ which the indigenous people used to direct Jacques Cartier toward a particular settlement. (The French have a habit for mis-applying Indian words, actually. The word ‘Illinois’ means ‘men.’ The French explorers asked the indigenous people ‘what they were.’ It’s a logical response, really.)
Mozambique is named after the Shiek who ruled the area, Musa bin Ba’ik. Or, the way that Europeans misheard his name.
For one reason or another, French country names are about half masculine and half feminine. This is especially interesting considering all (I believe) Latin country names were feminine.
Anyway, food for thought. I’ll be talking more about place name origins some other time.
