# Do some Slavic languages have an "extra" gender distinction for animate nouns? Tags: gender, slavic-languages, polish, czech, animacy - Score: 16 - Views: 3321 - Answers: 4 - Answered: yes - Asked by: hippietrail (15146 rep) - Asked: 2011-09-21 - Edited: 2018-10-17 - Site: linguistics ## Question I seem to recall hearing and reading that certain Slavic languages including Czech treat animate nouns as something like an extra gender. Even Wikipedia in some places counts more than three genders for some Slavic languages (or used to, I will have to check for the current state of play). For instance here is one such quote from Wikipedia: Another example is Polish, which can be said to distinguish five genders: personal masculine (referring to male humans), animate non-personal masculine, inanimate masculine, feminine, and neuter. Is this the case or is it more complex than that? I think I've heard it described as having three and a half genders too. How is this like and unlike gender and is it sometimes described as being another gender outside linguistics circles or do I have even that wrong? (Note that I'm specifically asking about nouns so please don't submit answers about