Nu?—Neuter Nouns

When I asked my mom o”h what she knew about grammar, she answered, “What do you want to know about bobe (granma)?”

On the next page is a list of neuter nouns.
Yiddish nouns usually are only masculine,
feminine or neuter. Unlike English many
languages have genders for their nouns
(names of people, places or things). A
common neuter noun in Yiddish is kind
(child, plural kinder). How do we say the
child? It all depends, for there are four
Yiddish words for the English word the.
They are; di, der, dos and dem. It is easy
for plurals, for we always use di (di kinder).

Let us simplify things, for if we are speaking of only one child, we use either dos or dem—never di or der. This is true for all the words on the next page. Here are examples.

The child is here. Dos kind iz do.

I see the child. Ikh ze dos kind.

The child’s book is here. Dem kinds bukh iz do.

I bring the child a book. Ikh breng dem kind a bukh.

There are groups of words that are neuter nouns and act like kind. They are country names, towns, metals and diminutives or affectionate (often ending in ele). It is interesting that Northeastern Yiddish does not use the neuter, but assigns them to either masculine or feminine. So if you never use dos for the English the, you may be using Northeastern Yiddish.

Another reason to know the gender relates to the ending of words that change the meaning of the noun (the adjective). The ending of an adjective changes depending on which form of the one uses.

There is a one to one correspondence.
With der you add er
With di or dos you add e
With dem you add n or en

Add a describing word good to each
sentence, and see how it is changed.

The good child is here. Dos gute kind iz do.
I see the good child. Ikh ze dos gute kind.
The good child’s book is here. Dem gutn
kinds bukh iz do.
I bring the good child the book. Ikh breng dem gutn kind dos bukh.
The Yiddish words a and an are spelled and used exactly as they are in English. When using a or an the describing word is not changed—good is gut.

A good child is here. A gut kind iz do.
A good child’s book is here. A gut kinds
bukh iz do.

Reprinted from the May 2004 issue of Der Bay.