Posted yesterday at 7:00 p.m.
Country names often make us hesitate. Feminine or masculine? Which preposition to use? Why ?
Usage is sometimes fluctuating and there is not always a simple explanation. If you want to know more, then you have to take the time to delve into the history of a country or the etymology of its name.
This reminds us of a colleague in a hurry who asked us: “So the names of countries that end in a at are female? ” ” Yes like the Canada we replied jokingly. Angola and Guyana are male and Cubafeminine.
How to find it? By consulting the Linguistic Assistance Bank (BDL) of the Office québécois de la langue française. There are files on the names of countries, which indicate in particular the gender and the use of the preposition and the article. For example, Eritrea is a feminine noun and is used with in or with I’. I will visit Eritrea. I will go to Eritrea. Bahrain is a masculine noun and is used without a determiner. I will visit Bahrain. I will go to Bahrain. The Bahrain Grand Prix (and not from Bahrain).
Other sheets give detailed explanations. “We use the preposition in before feminine gender country nouns and before all nouns that begin with a vowel (or a h dumb)”, specifies the BDL. In Ukraine, in Jordan, in Angola, etc The name Sierra Leone is often put in the masculine, but it is very feminine. Sierra Leone.
“For nouns of masculine gender and which begin with a consonant (or a h aspirated), we use tothat is to say at + the. » In Denmark, in Japanatu Senegaletc
The case of the islands is more complex; it depends, among other things, on the point of view and the size of the place. Mauritius is feminine. Haiti is most often masculine and in the newspaper, we prefer to write in Haiti rather thanin Haiti. I will visit Jamaica and Barbados. I will go to Jamaica and Barbados. I will visit the Bahamas (plural feminine noun). I will go to the Bahamas.
The spelling of Vladimir Putin’s name
Does the use of spelling Putin instead of whorewhen you write the name of the Russian president, is a political gesture?
Response
No not at all. This spelling is nothing new – we also write Rasputin. It was already used in 1999, the year in which Vladimir Putin became the Russian head of state following the resignation of Boris Yeltsin (whose name is written Yeltsin in English). than the name Putin also designates in Quebec the dish that we know does not change anything.
It is also the spelling found in French dictionaries, in the media of the French-speaking world and in the many books devoted to it: A Russian named Putin, Putin’s Russia in 100 questions, Putin, the secret routeetc
We therefore respect the rules of transliteration from Russian to French. Transliteration is the transcription into Latin characters of the sounds of a language that is not written in Latin characters. This is the case of Russian, which is written in Cyrillic characters.
The transliteration is done according to the phonetic system of the target language, so French, of course, for The Press. As we have seen, sounds are not transcribed in the same way in French and in English. We write Brezhnev in French, but Brezhnev in English. To make the sound Wherewe write whore in English and Putin in French.