Comments on: international composer of mystery

Question: international composer of mystery

kalapierson — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 18:06:17 -0800

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

By: Zambrano

Zambrano — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 18:22:13 -0800

Italian is correct.

By: jschu

jschu — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 18:22:40 -0800

French and Spanish are correct.

By: Dumsnill

Dumsnill — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 18:29:14 -0800

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.

By: monocot

monocot — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 18:48:37 -0800

Chinese and Japanese are correct; the nouns are gender neutral so there's no difference.

By: needled

needled — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 18:54:15 -0800

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)

By: coizero

coizero — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 19:33:38 -0800

Igbo - oroegwu

By: whitewall

whitewall — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 19:35:56 -0800

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."

By: kalapierson

kalapierson — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 19:57:56 -0800

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).

By: epimorph

epimorph — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 20:14:43 -0800

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).

By: halogen

halogen — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 20:29:14 -0800

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.

By: mdonley

mdonley — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 20:31:00 -0800

Polish is "kompozytor".

By: eritain

eritain — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 20:32:03 -0800

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...

By: teremala

teremala — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 21:24:33 -0800

German is correct.

By: nasreddin

nasreddin — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 21:29:55 -0800

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.

By: gemmy

gemmy — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 21:30:57 -0800

Swedish is correct.

I would also go with "komponist" for Danish, like whitewall said.

By: nasreddin

nasreddin — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 21:33:25 -0800

To rephrase after reading your comment above: just go with композитор.

By: wsp

wsp — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 21:46:53 -0800

Serbian is most likely incorrect: композиторa is the genitive case, you want the nominative - композитор. The feminine form is композиторкa.

By: wsp

wsp — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 21:51:24 -0800

Also, the Croatian word is "skladateljica".

By: mnnrm

mnnrm — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 23:58:52 -0800

hebrew is מלחנת for the feminine form

By: jouke

jouke — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 00:09:46 -0800

Dutch: componiste, not componistin

By: divabat

divabat — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 00:21:53 -0800

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.

By: keijo

keijo — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 00:27:55 -0800

Finnish is "säveltäjä".

By: ersatz

ersatz — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 03:47:06 -0800

The Greek one is correct. συνθέτις is another older form that you could see used in a major newspaper.

By: kalapierson

kalapierson — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 04:15:51 -0800

Thanks divabat. Do you know a better Indonesian word?

By: nfg

nfg — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 06:18:50 -0800

Irish is cumadóir.

By: dcrocha

dcrocha — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 06:46:00 -0800

Portuguese is correct.

By: preparat

preparat — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 07:03:54 -0800

Albanian, feminine: kompozitore.

By: egg drop

egg drop — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 15:32:26 -0800

hebrew is מלחנת for the feminine form

close, it's actually מלחינה
מלחין is right for masculine

By: howiamdifferent

howiamdifferent — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 02:29:28 -0800

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
)

By: kalapierson

kalapierson — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 03:45:08 -0800

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

By: howiamdifferent

howiamdifferent — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 03:08:42 -0800

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).

By: kalapierson

kalapierson — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 08:51:46 -0800

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?

By: quietfish

quietfish — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 17:32:56 -0800

The Czech is the feminine form (and is correct too...)

By: joewandy

joewandy — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 23:53:00 -0800

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

'Pengarang' would be mostly used for writer.

The language is gender neural btw.

By: kalapierson

kalapierson — Sun, 21 Dec 2008 22:34:39 -0800

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.