2.5 Noun gender

Unlike most other European languages, but like English, Ulster-Scots makes little use of grammatical gender. Men, boys, and all male animals are of course masculine gender, females are feminine gender and nearly everything else is neuter (see below). Historically speaking, King’s, with an -'s is not a contraction of his but is an ending on the noun inherited from Anglo-Saxon. Nevertheless, in early documents the possessive cases of nouns, such as in ‘the King’s command’, was sometimes written as the King his commaund, and sometimes as the King’s commaund. Indeed, the possessive case was identical often to the older plural form of –is (see section 2.3), so that ‘the King’s command’ might also have been written: the Kingis commaund. An inscription of 1625 above the door of Ballygally Castle in east Antrim reads: “Goddis providens is mine inheritans”. (‘God’s providence is my inheritance’). All the following usages: the Queen her, the Queenis and the Queen’s are found in Old Ulster-Scots documents. In modern Ulster-Scots, however, the same rules as operate in English are applied for all genders (e.g. tha Quaen’s commaun), although the apostrophe is often omitted in writing (tha Quaens commaun).

In English, vehicles- especially sailing vessels – are sometimes regarded as feminine in the sense that they can be described as ‘she’. This feature also occurs in Ulster-Scots, although the range of ‘neutral’ nouns which can be used as if they were feminine is much more extensive, and includes mountains, trees, the moon, clouds, rain and other aspects of the landscape and weather:

e.g. Scho’s no that bad theday (the weather)
Scho cum doon richt owre tha loanen (a fallen tree)
A biggit tha hoose twa yeir syne an scho’s emppie yit (a house)

A letter written to the Edmonstons of Ballycarry from Galgorm in county Antrim in 1629 illustrates the use of ‘she’ and ‘her’ in reference to a corn mill:

“… to stay the mille from going gave they could. That day that he cam to stayet her sho vas going tow ours before he cam, for the mellors vas gresting stons. He sad that sho sould not go. I tould him, it is out of tyem for sho had ben going tow ours befor he cam.…to hender her from going…Sho is going and grend exceeding vell.”

When nouns have a common gender such as dominie, weans, fowks etc, the pronoun ‘he’ that was used in ‘school-book’ English for such sentences as: ‘Each teacher must leave his room before 8 o’clock’ is not good Ulster-Scots, and the traditional ‘non-sexist’ plural form in English (‘they’ and ‘their’) is also the historical Ulster-Scots usage: Ilk dominie maun laive thair chaummer afore 8 o’clock.

However, the understanding of mankine and men to mean all ‘humanity’ and ‘people’ (male and female) still stands in Ulster-Scots, although these usages are becoming regarded as sexist in modern English.