A Grammar of the Persian Language/Of nouns, and first of genders
The reader will soon perceive with pleasure a great resemblance between the Persian and English languages, in the facility and simplicity of their form and construction: the former, as well as the latter, has no difference of termination to mark the gender, either in substantives or adjectives: all inanimate things are neuter, and animals of different sexes either have different names, as پسر puser a boy, کنیز keneez a girl, or are distinguished by the words نر ner, male, and ماده madé female, as شیر نر sheeri ner a lion, شیر ماده sheeri madé a lioness.
Sometimes, indeed, a word is made feminine, after the manner of the Arabians, by having ه added to it, as معشوق mashuk a friend, amicus, معشوقه mashúka a mistress, amica, as in the verse:
- کل در بر ومي بر کف و معشوغه بکامست
Flowers are in my bosom, wine in my hand; and my mistress yields to my desire.
but in general, when the Persians adopt an Arabick noun of the feminine gender, they make it neuter, and change the final ه into ت ; thus نعمة nimet a benefit is written نعمت : and almost all the Persian nouns ending in ت , which are very numerous, are borrowed from the Arabs.
