# Who determines the gender of new nouns in such languages? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [February 23, 2004, 8:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-determines-the-gender-of-new-nouns-in-such-languages/230731 "2004-02-23T20:18:35Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Showing post:** 11
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2004, 2:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-determines-the-gender-of-new-nouns-in-such-languages/230731/11 "2004-02-24T14:48:10Z")
> [@tremorviolet](#): > > Yeah, but aren’t most of the words they review already in popular use? I’ve read the Academie is trying it’s damnest to stomp out the wholesale importation of words like “le fax” by making up long French compound words. So the French populace must sort of “decide” what gender the noun is… And the french populace does. Generally, as already mentionned by assigning a masculine gender for “imported” words. For instance, e-mail is masculine. The french word recognized by the “Academie francaise” , courriel (invented by the Quebecois, I believe), is masculine too. It could be also the company selling a new product. The first importer/ producer of vaccum cleaners had to come up with a word, for instance. This was _un_ aspirateur, masculine again. Finally words can arise from new slang (une meuf= une femme= a woman). Gender assigned by the populace, once again. Some words can be created locally for a new product, in which case the inventor/company assign the name and gender. Actually, the Academie Francaise is rarely involved in the process (it’s not like its members are actively trying to invent words. They just set the rules of use for the existing language), except when it decide to create french words in order to replace an anglo-saxon one already used. Generally without much success, like with the “courriel” mentionned above. Though sometimes, for some reason, the “official” word actually stick. I saw it happen with the “balladeur” (still masculine) which replaced the “walkman”. By the way, the academie francaise is mainly a college of peer-elected writers, and mainly known here as such (being elected to the Academie is considered the ultimate honor by many french writers who are actively trying to get in). I mention it because it’s quite obvious that in foreign countries (or anglo-saxon countries at least) it’s mainly perceived as a “language regulation board”. It’s also only one (though by far the most famous) amongst the “academies” (for sciences, arts, archeology, etc…), the one in charge of litterature, grammar, etc… --- _[View the full topic](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-determines-the-gender-of-new-nouns-in-such-languages/230731)._