Kukri, boy or girl?

Jens Schuetz

Jens Schuetz

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Many languages assign animals and even inanimate objects genders.
How is it in Nepal?
Is a Kukri a He, a She or just It?

Just for fun:
In German a cutting blade is It, an ax is female and a dagger male.
Kukri would probably be It but that's just how it feels right unless I know what it's supposed to be in the original language.
 
I don't know about that one Jens... its a tough question. I think they can be both sexes. I have a couple with some drop dead hottt curves that just scream "sexy". I also have some tough brutes that scream "don't mess with me".

IMHO the AK's, Ram specials, WWII's are the boys

The Kobra, Sirupati, Bashpati, are girls.

Now we left few out, I just received my Gelbu a couple days ago and its both sexy and tough. I guess you can think of it as a metro sexual body builder with the ability to round house kick your face like Chuck Norris. The same could be said for the and Chitlangi... tough but sexy.
 
Maybe those Gelbu's are AC/DC? What's the PC word for abnormal these days.
 
Hi Jens. I find that they will tell you their gender on their own free will. In making rifles for 40 years, I have made both male and female rifles. I have one in Vienna, Austria that is female. The very next gun went to Norway and it is definitely male. And they all have names. You just have to listen. Kind of similar to "You don't pick the khukuri, it picks you."
 
Linguistically, no idea. I can tell you it would technically be masculine in Portuguese, but since no one has heard of them and would end up calling them "facão" (big knife) it would end up feminine. The thing is that in Portuguese words from other languages are masculine, but if everyone just calls it "big knife", it doesn't make much difference.

From an anthropomorphic point of view, whichever you prefer.
 
Bookie said:
Hi Jens. I find that they will tell you their gender on their own free will. In making rifles for 40 years, I have made both male and female rifles. I have one in Vienna, Austria that is female. The very next gun went to Norway and it is definitely male. And they all have names. You just have to listen. Kind of similar to "You don't pick the khukuri, it picks you."
Click to expand...

I think this right here ^^^. I kind of teared up a bit reading it, not a beach towel tear up but I definitely needed my hanky. I think there's one of them subliminal messages. That's like the little people talking in your head for those that don't understand subliminal messages.
 
Historically judging from Kaudi some are carrying blessings of female gods like Kali, some from males like shiva.... Of course other kaudi represent temple roofs, peacocks etc.

So What kukri are historicaly themselves, not sure....probably both.....

But I've only ever been cut by ones when Ive decided they can move on though...before then there kind & forgiving to me... So Id guess many were female....:)


spiral

ps.. cross post..

Spot on I think Bwana!
 
Jens Schuetz said:
Many languages assign animals and even inanimate objects genders.
How is it in Nepal?
Is a Kukri a He, a She or just It?

Just for fun:
In German a cutting blade is It, an ax is female and a dagger male.
Kukri would probably be It but that's just how it feels right unless I know what it's supposed to be in the original language.
Click to expand...

Ok, I just checked Wikipedia to get an idea about how gender works in Nepali, and I have an answer for you. In Nepali words ending in O and A are masculine, and words ending in I are feminine. So assuming kukri isn't an exception, it is feminine.
 
Thanks guys. Lots of wisdom here. :)

Of course there's no question that an Amar Singh Taphar is a guy, unless he thought of his Kukri as his stubborn daughter or angry wife ;-) or something of that sort.

Grammatically (thank the interwebs) every non living thing ending on -i is feminine. Yep there are hundreds of exceptions but until Aunty or another expert can give us a clue I'll go with feminin.

Using female for a Kukri in my own mother tongue sounds super unusual while female Katana would sound 100% right.
I've no clue why there's seems to be a barrier in my head. Maybe I've just never heard anybody talking about Kukris in German or there's some grammatical rule which I'm used to even if I can't pinpoint and name it. Interesting.
 
Jens Schuetz said:
Thanks guys. Lots of wisdom here. :)

Of course there's no question that an Amar Singh Taphar is a guy, unless he thought of his Kukri as his stubborn daughter or angry wife ;-) or something of that sort.

Grammatically (thank the interwebs) every non living thing ending on -i is feminine. Yep there are hundreds of exceptions but until Aunty or another expert can give us a clue I'll go with feminin.
Using female for a Kukri in my own mother tongue sounds super unusual while female Katana would sound 100% right.
I've no clue why there's seems to be a barrier in my head. Maybe I've just never heard anybody talking about Kukris in German or there's some grammatical rule which I'm used to even if I can't pinpoint and name it. Interesting.
Click to expand...

Until I learned a language other than English the very idea of inanimate objects having gender was bizarre to me, and even though I'm fluent in Portuguese I still get the gender wrong sometimes when I speak.
 
Scara said:
Ok, I just checked Wikipedia to get an idea about how gender works in Nepali, and I have an answer for you. In Nepali words ending in O and A are masculine, and words ending in I are feminine. So assuming kukri isn't an exception, it is feminine.
Click to expand...

I wonder if the difference in alphabets might throw a monkey wrench into that scheme? It would also imply that all kukri (or khukuri) are feminine regardless of model or size. Seems unlikely. How would they reproduce?

If this is correct an Ang Khola would be masculine and a Chitlangi feminine, which makes sense. Doesn't give much help about the M43 or CAK, however.

Lokendra Kami handled the problem with his ceremonial "marriage of brave man and wise woman":

View attachment 479232 View attachment 479233
 
davidf99 said:
I wonder if the difference in alphabets might throw a monkey wrench into that scheme? It would also imply that all kukri (or khukuri) are feminine regardless of model or size. Seems unlikely. How would they reproduce?

If this is correct an Ang Khola would be masculine and a Chitlangi feminine, which makes sense. Doesn't give much help about the M43 or CAK, however.

Lokendra Kami handled the problem with his ceremonial "marriage of brave man and wise woman":

View attachment 479232 View attachment 479233
Click to expand...

And it does bring up the point that if I endings are feminine, that means that kami is feminine, even though it is a chiefly male profession. Of course I may be going too far in trying to understand too much of Nepali from a single paragraph on Wikipedia.
 
Scara,
Just saw you found the -i =female before I typed it. Cool.
I can see how genders for things seem weird after learning English.
There is just one thing in English, if the gender of the animal in question is unknown any animal in English is It. That sounds a bit inpersonal and dead to me. Maybe my first language made me a tree hugger with genderfying everything which moves?
I try not to but once in a while in English I accidentally refer to a dog as he or a cat as she. Nobody seems to mind. People are just nice here.

David I think the wrench isn't that big. The sounds which determine genders are very similar to our alphabet. It just looks way different and has more variations of the same sound.
Giving Kukri Genders based on the model name adds a whole new level of fun.
 
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My KLVUK and one other is masculine. My Curved Spine is THE bitch. Becoming snooty already, too. The others haven't told me and we'll have to wait and see about the custom M43 when it finally arrives.
 
Scara said:
And it does bring up the point that if I endings are feminine, that means that kami is feminine, even though it is a chiefly male profession. Of course I may be going too far in trying to understand too much of Nepali from a single paragraph on Wikipedia.
Click to expand...
The Kami profession could be female even if it's done by males.
Most hair cutters in Germany are females but everybody who goes there says they are going to the "Friseur" which is a male word. Same for tailor, baker and so on. All male even if the people doing it aren't. There are even genderspecific words for female tailor, baker and hair dresser but when referring to the profession or a shop it's male, even if run by females only.
 
I find myself saying Ain't She Sweet alot which would signify female but probably meaningless.

For some reason my mind is stuck on male dogs. We have always had female dogs with male names and I always refer to them as he's. Our current puppy the exception is a female with a female name "Daisy" which of course could be horribly upsetting to any guys out there named Daisy so apologies in advance.

BUT I still call her a he, in fact I often times call her Odie which was her predecessor the female beagle.

So in summary, perhaps it's time for me to take one of them test to see if it the khuk, the dog, the males or the females or ME.

For the record ahlzeimers and dementia are not the same thing, my saw bones told me so, if I remember right, I think it was him anyhow.

So in summary, oh we already crossed that bridge.
 
Jens Schuetz said:
The Kami profession could be female even if it's done by males.
Most hair cutters in Germany are females but everybody who goes there says they are going to the "Friseur" which is a male word. Same for tailor, baker and so on. All male even if the people doing it aren't. There are even genderspecific words for female tailor, baker and hair dresser but when referring to the profession or a shop it's male, even if run by females only.
Click to expand...

You have a point there. And with the lack of gender sounding impersonal, I can see what you mean there. It does seem impersonal when you think about it. What I like about the lack of gender though is that you don't need to know the specific gender, it's generic so you lose specificity but gain simplicity. Plus it always seemed weird to refer to seemingly masculine things as feminine and vice versa.
 
Does anyone here know the origin of "genderizing" objects in language? Is it only common in languages derived from Latin, or is it done in Asian and other languages? How far back does it go?

We can all speculate about this, but I'm hoping that someone on this subforum actually knows the answer and can share it.
 
Which brings us to the question. Has there ever been a female kami or sarky? Never came up before that I recall.

I would think culturally probably not but I don't know why I think that. Never heard of one.
 
davidf99 said:
Does anyone here know the origin of "genderizing" objects in language? Is it only common in languages derived from Latin, or is it done in Asian and other languages? How far back does it go?

We can all speculate about this, but I'm hoping that someone on this subforum actually knows the answer and can share it.
Click to expand...

I know it happens in Russian and Nepali, neither of which are from Latin. Beyond that, no idea. I don't think it happens in Japanese, and I think it happens in Tagalog.
 
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