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I'm writing an article in Polish about game engine named "Unity". I constructed the following sentence:

Unity jest bardzo jednolita, jeśli chodzi o encje i komponenty.

This translates more or less to:

Unity is very uniform, when considering entities and components.

However, in Polish gender of nouns is somewhat more important than in English, because verbs and adjectives have different forms, depending on gender of noun they refer to. For instance, if Unity is masculine, I should write "Unity jest jednolity", but if feminine, "Unity jest jednolita". In Polish "Unity" translates directly to "jedność", which is feminine in Polish. However from what I know, I should follow the gender of noun in the original language rather than its Polish translation.

Hence finally the question: what is the gender of word "Unity"? And additionally, could you recommend some online English dictionary, which states gender of nouns?

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    This kind of question doesn't make sense to native English speakers. English doesn't have gender in the sense of classes that all nouns can be categorized into. I would recommend using the same strategy you would use to determine the gender of a proper noun with no etymology and some arbitrary, non-Polish form (e.g. what gender would you use for an entirely made-up game engine name like "Adadgba"? My understanding is that some languages use the gender of the corresponding common noun, so maybe go with whatever's the gender of the Polish word for "game engine").
    – herisson
    Commented May 22, 2018 at 7:44
  • @sumelic, Since I would still have to use some gender - even for made-up name, I'd probably go for "Adadgba engine" - "silnik Adadgba" and since engine is masculine, I would have my gender to work on (so to say). The problem is that "Unity" translates to proper noun with specific gender in Polish which is feminine and applying masculine forms (from "engine") to Polish-feminine "Unity" sounds kinda weird.
    – Spook
    Commented May 22, 2018 at 8:09
  • @sumelic, This is also interesting what you say, that there are nouns without gender specified - but then how would you say - out of my head: "Unity has specific properties. (Its/his/her) properties are: ..."? Or is this sentence invalid in terms of English grammar?
    – Spook
    Commented May 22, 2018 at 8:10
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    It's a question of Polish, not English. There should be some rules about the gender of loan words from other languages. For example, in German, e-mail would be feminine (though some people would treat it as neuter), even though it has no gender in English. Unity in German would be feminine, presumably as -ity words in German end with -heit and would be feminine.
    – Oliver Mason
    Commented May 22, 2018 at 8:14
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    You would use "it" ("its properties are..."). What I meant is that most English speakers don't think of a word/name like "Unity" as having "neuter gender" . We just use "it" because that's the pronoun that is used to refer to inanimate things in contexts like this. The use of it/she/he is generally based on the thing that you are referring to, not on the word that you use.
    – herisson
    Commented May 22, 2018 at 8:16

1 Answer 1

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The relevant Polish Wikipedia article treats the word as a foreign proper name that doesn't show case, number, or gender.

Gry stworzone na silniku Unity w wersji 5.1.1 obsługują 22 platformy sprzętowe, są to między innymi Windows, Linux, Android. Wśród nich znajdują się także konsole siódmej oraz ósmej generacji. Kompatybilne z Unity są również hełmy rzeczywistości wirtualnej takie jak Oculus Rift i Samsung Gear VR. Gry stworzone w Unity po zainstalowaniu wtyczki Unity Web Player mogą działać również w przeglądarce internetowej.

This seems to be the same strategy of a Polish gaming website:

„Unity 5 to wielki krok dla Unity, który daje twórcom możliwości tworzenia piękniejszych i bardziej skomplikowanych gier dla szerszej publiczności na wielu platformach. Chcemy by każdy miał dostęp do Unity 5 i dlatego zwiększyliśmy wartość naszych wolnych od świadczeń licencji. Unity 5 Professional zaczyna z mocą Unity 5 i dodaje do tego wartościowe narzędzia, takie jak Unity Cloud Build Pro oraz Team License. Unity 5 Personal Edition przeznaczone jest dla początkujących twórców i oferuje te same możliwości silnika i edytora za darmo”. Źródło: https://www.gry-online.pl/S013.asp?ID=90666

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  • So? What's the answer, then?
    – Kris
    Commented May 22, 2018 at 9:06
  • This is not entirely true, that Wikipedia article treats Unity as name, adding "engine" ("silnik Unity"), which dictates masculine gender. This is a way to somewhat escape problem of Unity's gender, but one should add "engine" to Unity every time grammar dictates usage of gender-aware verb or adjective. This is of course doable, but generates a lot of repetitions in the text.
    – Spook
    Commented May 22, 2018 at 9:33
  • That is the answer. The Wikipedia article doesn't mark the word morphologically, which is highly unusual for a language where even personal names are marked.
    – KarlG
    Commented May 22, 2018 at 9:33
  • I don't speak Polish, but from what I know of Slovak and Czech, I'd expect case endings after the prepositions z and w where only Unity appears.
    – KarlG
    Commented May 22, 2018 at 9:37
  • "Unity 5 Personal Edition przeznaczone jest" suggests neutral gender here.
    – Spook
    Commented May 22, 2018 at 11:51

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