# Genders for the Sun and the Moon **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [January 15, 2013, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/genders-for-the-sun-and-the-moon/647319 "2013-01-15T19:31:55Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2013, 9:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/genders-for-the-sun-and-the-moon/647319/21 "2013-01-15T21:39:26Z")
It should be noted also that in Tolkien’s _Silmarillion_, the Sun is carried by a female “angel” and the moon by a male one. Neither sun nor moon themselves have gender, though…one is a flower and one is a fruit. ---
**Author:** ![GreasyJack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/df705f/32.png) [@GreasyJack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreasyJack)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2013, 9:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/genders-for-the-sun-and-the-moon/647319/22 "2013-01-15T21:44:06Z")
> [@smaje1](#): > > Wow, I was expecting straighter answers from General Questions. **DrFidelius** ’ answer was very straight. ---
**Author:** ![Giles](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/giles/32/60_2.png) [@Giles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Giles)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2013, 9:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/genders-for-the-sun-and-the-moon/647319/23 "2013-01-15T21:54:07Z")
> [@naita](#): > > In tri-gender Norwegian (masculine, feminine, neuter instead of two-gender common and neuter) the sun is feminine and the moon masculine. I suspect that’s common in Germanic languages. German has “die Sonne” and “der Mond” (feminine sun, masculine moon). In Anglo-Saxon “sunne” is feminine and “mōna” is masculine, so if Modern English still had gender “sun” would be feminine and “moon” would be masculine. ---
**Author:** ![Smeghead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f1d935/32.png) [@Smeghead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smeghead)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2013, 10:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/genders-for-the-sun-and-the-moon/647319/24 "2013-01-15T22:04:26Z")
“Considered” by whom? Without that information, there’s not a chance in hell of answering the question. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Drake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ad7895/32.png) [@Dr.Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Drake)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2013, 10:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/genders-for-the-sun-and-the-moon/647319/25 "2013-01-15T22:09:05Z")
Old English _sunne_ is feminine. Old English _mōna_ is masculine. If you’re asking about English, that’s the GQ answer for the gender of the words. ETA: Drat you, **Giles**! I shouldn’t have wasted time looking for a macron. ---
**Author:** ![smaje1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e47774/32.png) [@smaje1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smaje1)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2013, 10:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/genders-for-the-sun-and-the-moon/647319/26 "2013-01-15T22:15:52Z")
Perhaps this question would have been better suited to Cafe Society. But due to the inane amount of snarkiness received here, I shall limit my research to friendlier colleagues with whom I work. Thank you to those who answered as best they could. ---
**Author:** ![robert\_columbia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e79b87/32.png) [@robert\_columbia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robert_columbia)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2013, 10:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/genders-for-the-sun-and-the-moon/647319/27 "2013-01-15T22:18:47Z")
> [@Dr.Drake](#): > > Old English _sunne_ is feminine. Old English _mōna_ is masculine. If you’re asking about English, that’s the GQ answer for the gender of the words. > > ETA: Drat you, **Giles**! I shouldn’t have wasted time looking for a macron. Given what’s been said about Old English, German, and Norwegian, I wouldn’t be surprised if sun=girl and moon=boy is a Germanic language thing. Modern English would probably be the same had we not removed gender from most non-living nouns. Nowadays pretty much the only inanimate objects that have a non-metaphorical gender are ships, who are traditionally feminine. E.g. “The Pride of the Seas sails for Hawaii tomorrow. She was built in 2006.” However even that’s optional and it isn’t Bad English to refer to ships with “it”. ---
**Author:** ![Giles](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/giles/32/60_2.png) [@Giles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Giles)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2013, 10:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/genders-for-the-sun-and-the-moon/647319/28 "2013-01-15T22:32:36Z")
> [@Dr.Drake](#): > > ETA: Drat you, **Giles**! I shouldn’t have wasted time looking for a macron. I usually use the [Character Map](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Character_Map) program provided by Windows as the fastest way to find a special character. ---
**Author:** ![gnoitall](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/bb73d2/32.png) [@gnoitall](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gnoitall)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2013, 10:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/genders-for-the-sun-and-the-moon/647319/29 "2013-01-15T22:32:42Z")
> [@Giles](#): > > I suspect that’s common in Germanic languages. German has “die Sonne” and “der Mond” (feminine sun, masculine moon). In Anglo-Saxon “sunne” is feminine and “mōna” is masculine, so if Modern English still had gender “sun” would be feminine and “moon” would be masculine. Indeed. If you examine the Wikipedia list of moon dieties, you’ll note that the Norse one is masculine: [Mani](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mani_(god)). The Nordic/Germanic cultural identity of the moon is masculine. So, if “main stream of Western culture” means “US culture, derived mostly from English culture”, then perhaps you can argue that the Romanization of Britain imported the Greco-Roman identification of the moon as feminine, possibly overriding indigenous Brythonic Celtic identification of a masculine moon (no citation; can’t find a Brythonic moon diety in any of the pantheons I can find online) and later resisting the Anglo-Saxon identification of the moon as masculine as well. But Germany is certainly no less part of mainstream Western culture, so the characterization of “Western culture is American culture” is demonstratably overbroad. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2013, 11:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/genders-for-the-sun-and-the-moon/647319/30 "2013-01-15T23:08:34Z")
Linguistic gender is not sexual. A noun is not female-related in Spanish because it’s a “la” word, nor is one male-related if it’s an “el” word. That being said, the moon _is_ a harsh mistress! ---
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2013, 11:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/genders-for-the-sun-and-the-moon/647319/31 "2013-01-15T23:43:03Z")
OP has stormed off, I think. ---
**Author:** ![Inner\_Stickler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inner_stickler/32/318_2.png) [@Inner\_Stickler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inner_Stickler)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2013, 11:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/genders-for-the-sun-and-the-moon/647319/32 "2013-01-15T23:47:43Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > Linguistic gender is not sexual. A noun is not female-related in Spanish because it’s a “la” word, nor is one male-related if it’s an “el” word. I don’t think anyone is arguing as such; that sort of “el puente is colgado” is best left to the sapir-whorf fetishists, in my opinion. But the linguistic genders of various relatively abstract concepts such as Night, Day, Death, and the Moon and Sun appear to correlate with their depictions as anthropomorphizations. ---
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2013, 11:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/genders-for-the-sun-and-the-moon/647319/33 "2013-01-15T23:47:51Z")
To continue the female moon thing, I heard a ha-ha joke about moon phases a long time ago (I really did want a way to remember): “When the crescent moon looks like a ‘D’ that means it’s decreasing. But, since the moon is a woman, she’s lying, so it means the moon is increasing.” I don’t know if I have that right. I still don’t know which direction the lighting on the moon will go day by day when it looks like a ‘D.’ ---
**Author:** ![Giles](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/giles/32/60_2.png) [@Giles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Giles)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2013, 11:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/genders-for-the-sun-and-the-moon/647319/34 "2013-01-15T23:54:01Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > Linguistic gender is not sexual. A noun is not female-related in Spanish because it’s a “la” word, nor is one male-related if it’s an “el” word. I think that statement needs to be qualified. Outside the Indo-European family, linguistic gender almost never has much to do with sex. However, Indo-European words for male and female people generally have masculine and feminine gender, respectively. (There are exceptions, of course – the German “Mädchen” for “girl” is neuter because words ending in “-chen” are neuter.) So, Indo-European words for the Sun and Moon probably get their grammatical gender from associated male or female deities. And that, of course, is the other way to OP’s question can be answered: in different religions or mythologies, are sun gods and moon gods male or female? So I’ll add another data point: in Shinto, the sun god [Amaterasu](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amaterasu) (the mythical ancestor of the Japanese Imperial Family) is female while the moon god [Tsukuyomi](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsukuyomi-no-Mikoto) is male. ---
**Author:** ![smaje1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e47774/32.png) [@smaje1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smaje1)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2013, 11:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/genders-for-the-sun-and-the-moon/647319/35 "2013-01-15T23:56:21Z")
> [@Leo\_Bloom](#): > > OP has stormed off, I think. OP has gently withdrawn herself from any further discussion, as she has found solace in face-to-face discussions about the subject with her work peers. But y’all should feel free to continue the discussion. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Gary\_Robson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gary_robson/32/3448_2.png) [@Gary\_Robson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gary_Robson)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2013, 1:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/genders-for-the-sun-and-the-moon/647319/36 "2013-01-16T01:58:44Z")
> [@smaje1](#): > > Wow, I was expecting straighter answers from General Questions. I think you got as close to a straight answer as is possible for such a question. In case the answers in the thread weren’t clear to you, let me sum up: 1. If you’re looking for linguistic genders, it varies from language to language. 2. If you’re looking for actual genders, that makes no sense for inanimate objects. 3. If you’re looking for literary genders, there is no governing body that assigns official genders to objects. ---
**Author:** ![blondebear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/blondebear/32/1022_2.png) [@blondebear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blondebear)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2013, 2:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/genders-for-the-sun-and-the-moon/647319/37 "2013-01-16T02:04:06Z")
In song, anyway, the first tunes that come to mind are _Mister_ Moonlight and Mr. Sun _Mr._ Moon. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2013, 2:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/genders-for-the-sun-and-the-moon/647319/38 "2013-01-16T02:26:15Z")
> [@Giles](#): > > I think that statement needs to be qualified. Outside the Indo-European family, linguistic gender almost never has much to do with sex. However, Indo-European words for male and female people generally have masculine and feminine gender, respectively. (There are exceptions, of course – the German “Mädchen” for “girl” is neuter because words ending in “-chen” are neuter.) So, Indo-European words for the Sun and Moon probably get their grammatical gender from associated male or female deities. I don’t know about that last part. We call it “gender”, but it’s unclear that the origin of why Indo-European languages divide nouns up into different classes was based on sex. Don’t assume there is a sexual origin just because we use the term "gender’ to describe how nouns are divided up. It’s certainly likely that the moon is associated with the feminine sex because of the lunar cycle. But that doesn’t make the Sun masculine. ---
**Author:** ![Speak\_to\_me\_Maddie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/58956e/32.png) [@Speak\_to\_me\_Maddie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Speak_to_me_Maddie)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2013, 2:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/genders-for-the-sun-and-the-moon/647319/39 "2013-01-16T02:38:20Z")
[quote=“Gary “Wombat” Robson, post:36, topic:647319”] I think you got as close to a straight answer as is possible for such a question. In case the answers in the thread weren’t clear to you, let me sum up: 1. If you’re looking for linguistic genders, it varies from language to language. 2. If you’re looking for actual genders, that makes no sense for inanimate objects. 3. If you’re looking for literary genders, there is no governing body that assigns official genders to objects. [/QUOTE] The OP never asked for anything “official”. She simply asked for examples of gender assignments for the sun and moon. There are plenty of these in everything from linguistics, to mythology, literature, religion, etc. Many people helpfully provided many of these examples, others decided to act like pedantic teenagers. ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2013, 3:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/genders-for-the-sun-and-the-moon/647319/40 "2013-01-16T03:07:30Z")
> [@Speak\_to\_me\_Maddie](#): > > The OP never asked for anything “official”. I thought she did: > [@smaje1](#): > > I was just wondering if this was official at all (which is what made me wonder how something like that could be official) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/genders-for-the-sun-and-the-moon/647319.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/genders-for-the-sun-and-the-moon/647319.md?page=3)