Arabic has two genders, masculine and feminine. There’s a clear difference between masculine and feminine in Arabic. The terminology used for gender is الجِنْس, or al-jins which translates to “sex, race, kind”. Generally speaking, a noun is either masculine, feminine or of uncertain gender (sometimes masculine, sometimes feminine).

Masculine nouns don’t have a special form. On the other hand feminine nouns, have three specific forms ending with:

• The tā marbūṭa (ة): which is the biggest category.

• The alif ى (or ا): for elatives (اِسْم التَفْضِيل) and masculine adjectives in the pattern فَعْلانُ (diptote).

• The alif hamza (اء): for colors and deformities.

The tā marbūṭa (ة)

The letter hā  ه …ـه/ when written with two dots above (ة …ـة…) is pronounced as /t/, the same way that ت/ t/ is spoken. This form of writing, which occurs at the end of a word to signify femininity for nouns or adjectives, goes by the name “tā marbūṭa”. It’s an incredibly important component in proper pronunciation and understanding of the language.

The most common way to derive feminine nouns and adjectives is by adding the ending ـةٌ\..َ.ةٌ…َ /atun/ to the masculine form.

Note: A few nouns with the feminine ending tā marbūṭa are masculine, because they are used only in reference to males, e.g

راوِِيَة  storyteller

عَلاّمة  great scholar

أُسامة  Usama

خَلِيفة  caliph

Note 2: Nouns ending in tā marbūṭa (ةٌ …َـةٌ…َ) /atun/ do not take the extra final alif  ا …in the indefinite accusative form. So the correct form is طالِبةً (not طالِبتًا).

Note 3: At the end of a sentence the final vowel of a word is normally not pronounced. Even tā marbūṭa is usually left unpronounced at the end of a sentence, as in طالِبةٌ ṭāliba for ṭālibatun.

The alif (ى)

The alif ى is used for elatives (اِسْم التَفْضِيل) and masculine adjectives in the pattern فَعْلانُ (diptote).

The alif hamza (اء)