international composer of mystery

August 27, 2008 6:06 PM

If you know a non-English language (especially one written in a non-Western alphabet), will you please tell me whether your language's entry is correct in this list?

Below is my list-in-progress of words for composer (of music).

In languages that have both a feminine and masculine form, I need the feminine form ("compositrice" not "compositeur"; "Komponistin" not "Komponist"; etc.). That's why asking humans is important, because some translation tools only list the masculine forms.

Any of these replies would be much appreciated:
• confirming any word you're sure is both correctly spelled and correct for referring to a female;
• pointing out any incorrect word (a word that only refers only to a male composer is incorrect here); or
• adding any other languages you know.

Arabic: مؤلف
Chinese: 作曲家
Czech: komponista
Danish: komponistin
Dutch: componistin
French: compositrice
German: Komponistin
Greek: συνθέτρια
Indonesian: pengarang
Italian: compositrice
Japanese: 作曲家
Korean: 작곡자
Portuguese: compositora
Russian: композитора
Serbian: композитора
Spanish: compositora
Swedish: tonsättare
Thai: คีตกวี
Hebrew: ‮מלחין‭

posted by kalapierson to writing & language (35 comments total)

Italian is correct.
posted by Zambrano at 6:22 PM on August 27, 2008

French and Spanish are correct.
posted by jschu at 6:22 PM on August 27, 2008

Danish has to be wrong. 38 hits for "komponistin", almost 400 000 for "komponist".

I'm not Danish, but I guess Danish is like Norwegian her, no gender difference.
posted by Dumsnill at 6:29 PM on August 27, 2008

Chinese and Japanese are correct; the nouns are gender neutral so there's no difference.
posted by monocot at 6:48 PM on August 27, 2008

Korean is almost correct. Just change the last syllable: 작곡가
The nouns are gender neutral as with Chinese and Japanese. (It's actually the exact same set of hanja as in Chinese and Japanese, just spelled in hangeul the way the hanja are read in Korean)
posted by needled at 6:54 PM on August 27, 2008

Igbo - oroegwu
posted by coizero at 7:33 PM on August 27, 2008 [2 favorites has favorites]

Re: Danish: Those 38 hits Danish hits for "komponistin" are all used in a German-language context. There's also one article discussing how one Danish composer deliberately uses the antiquated term "komponistin" to make a point out of her gender. I'd stick with the more widely used "komponist."
posted by whitewall at 7:35 PM on August 27, 2008

Thanks, whitewall. I'm definitely seeking the most modern usage in each language. The word a newspaper/website/etc. would use, today, to refer to a female composer.

A clearly antiquated term (like, say, "poetess" in English) would count as incorrect on my list, so please let me know if that's the case in any other language you see there.


Many thanks to everyone so far (and everybody please feel free to add any language I don't have yet).
posted by kalapierson at 7:57 PM on August 27, 2008

The Russian should be "композитор." That word describes both male and female composers. But, it might have a different ending, depending on how you want to use it. For instance, "I am a composer" would be "я композитор," whereas "I saw a composer" would be "я видел композитора" (the version you have in your list).
posted by epimorph at 8:14 PM on August 27, 2008

The Bulgarian word is "композитор" also. There is a feminine form, "композиторка", but nobody really uses it anymore, and at least in certain academic circles it is considered bad taste ("yokel"-speak, so to say) to use the feminine variant when referring to a woman-composer.
posted by halogen at 8:29 PM on August 27, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

Polish is "kompozytor".
posted by mdonley at 8:31 PM on August 27, 2008

The Russian looks suspicious to me: The default masculine is композитор, and композитора is the genitive of that, so using it also for the feminine would tend to engender confusion. I suspect you could form a clear feminine with композиторка, but that might be read with some diminutive sense as well. (In Ukrainian, for which I actually have reference works, it goes as I have postulated for Russian: композитор is masculine, the masculine genitive is in -а, and nothing explicitly feminine is listed nearby.) People with stronger Russian are welcome to clarify...
posted by eritain at 8:32 PM on August 27, 2008

German is correct.
posted by teremala at 9:24 PM on August 27, 2008

Композитора is just flat wrong for Russian. Композиторша (not -ка) is more correct, but Russian, like English, tends to be fairly comfortable with using the masculine form generically (i.e. "Tanya is a composer"="Таня--композитор", they're both correct). You could, I suppose, say "женщина-композитор," but nowadays that looks just as awkward and archaic as "woman composer," its exact equivalent, would in English. The problem with композиторша is that it sounds rather informal, although there are no negative connotations.
posted by nasreddin at 9:29 PM on August 27, 2008

Swedish is correct.

I would also go with "komponist" for Danish, like whitewall said.
posted by gemmy at 9:30 PM on August 27, 2008

To rephrase after reading your comment above: just go with композитор.
posted by nasreddin at 9:33 PM on August 27, 2008

Serbian is most likely incorrect: композиторa is the genitive case, you want the nominative - композитор. The feminine form is композиторкa.
posted by wsp at 9:46 PM on August 27, 2008

Also, the Croatian word is "skladateljica".
posted by wsp at 9:51 PM on August 27, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

hebrew is מלחנת for the feminine form
posted by mnnrm at 11:58 PM on August 27, 2008

Dutch: componiste, not componistin
posted by jouke at 12:09 AM on August 28, 2008

Indonesian (and Malay) have the same word regardless of gender. Yours is correct, though I have a feeling it might refer more to story writers than musical composers.
posted by divabat at 12:21 AM on August 28, 2008

Finnish is "säveltäjä".
posted by keijo at 12:27 AM on August 28, 2008

The Greek one is correct. συνθέτις is another older form that you could see used in a major newspaper.
posted by ersatz at 3:47 AM on August 28, 2008

Thanks divabat. Do you know a better Indonesian word?
posted by kalapierson at 4:15 AM on August 28, 2008

Irish is cumadóir.
posted by nfg at 6:18 AM on August 28, 2008

Portuguese is correct.
posted by dcrocha at 6:46 AM on August 28, 2008

Albanian, feminine: kompozitore.
posted by preparat at 7:03 AM on August 28, 2008

hebrew is מלחנת for the feminine form

close, it's actually מלחינה
מלחין is right for masculine
posted by egg drop at 3:32 PM on August 28, 2008

For the Arabic, your term is general and might refer to a writer more than a musical composer. If you want to be specific, then:

ملحن

As for the female term:

ملحنة

(If you've decide, however, to go with the word in your list, the one that's general and might refer to a writer more than a musical composer, then the female word is
مؤلفة
)
posted by howiamdifferent at 2:29 AM on August 29, 2008

Fantastic input from everyone. So far we've added eight new languages and confirmed or corrected everything from my original list but Czech and Thai. Here's the current list according to all the responses in the thread so far:

Arabic: ملحنة
Bulgarian: композитор
Chinese: 作曲家
Croatian: skladateljica
[[ Czech: komponista (unconfirmed) ]]
Danish: komponist
Dutch: componiste
Finnish: säveltäjä
French: compositrice
German: Komponistin
Greek: συνθέτρια
Igbo: oroegwu
Indonesian: pengarang
Irish: cumadóir
Italian: compositrice
Japanese: 作曲家
Korean: 작곡가
Norwegian: komponist
Polish: kompozytor
Portuguese: compositora
Russian: композитор
Serbian: композитор
Spanish: compositora
Swedish: tonsättare
[[ Thai: คีตกวี (unconfirmed) ]]
Ukrainian: композитор
Hebrew: ‮מלחינה‭
posted by kalapierson at 3:45 AM on August 29, 2008

Just wanted to point out that the Arabic word you've included in your updated list is the feminine form, not the masculine one (which is the first Arabic word in my post above).
posted by howiamdifferent at 3:08 AM on August 31, 2008

I think I don't see what you're pointing out, howamidifferent. I do want the feminine form if it's correct grammatically. I'm looking for the word one would use in a sentence like "She is a composer." Is ملحنة the right word for that?
posted by kalapierson at 8:51 AM on August 31, 2008

The Czech is the feminine form (and is correct too...)
posted by quietfish at 5:32 PM on August 31, 2008

A better word to use in Indonesian would be 'komposer'.

'Pengarang' would be mostly used for writer.

The language is gender neural btw.
posted by joewandy at 11:53 PM on October 14, 2008

The Thai is confirmed correct too.

Other additions:
Hindi: racayitā
Urdu: مصنف

And here's a second AskMe that will hopefully expand the list further.
posted by kalapierson at 10:34 PM on December 21, 2008