Talk:ушу

Is ушу neuter, feminine or both?
I had a look at the gender and, apart from in Большой толковый словарь русского языка (С. А. Кузнецов, 2009, through www.gramota.ru), which states that it is feminine, I could only find support for neuter, both in dictionaries and in real-world examples.

Here’s a translation of the research I did for the Swedish Wiktionary article:

Is the word "ушу" neuter or feminine, or both?
 * Русский орфографический словарь (Российская академия наук/В. В. Лопатин, through www.gramota.ru) says neuter
 * Большой толковый словарь русского языка (С. А. Кузнецов, 2009, through www.gramota.ru) says feminine
 * Русское словесное ударение (М. В. Зарва, 2001, through www.gramota.ru) says neuter
 * English Wiktionary is unsure of whether it is neuter or feminine
 * Russian Wiktionary says neuter, on the other hand that page (as so many others) seems to have been automatically created so [the gender chosen] might depend on what dictionary they used

Searching the corpus Национальный корпус русского языка gives 3 cases of direct support for neuter, 4 cases of indirect support for neuter (contexts where it is unclear if [the word] is neuter or masculine, but clear that it is not feminine) and no support at all for "ушу" being feminine:

Direct support:
 * Чему же учит Игорь Васильевич Зайчиков? (2003) // «Боевое искусство планеты», 2003.10.18
 * Игорь Лебедев. Невидимое оружие // «Техника - молодежи», 1991
 * Игорь Лебедев. Невидимое оружие // «Техника - молодежи», 1991

Indirect support:
 * Алексей Маслов. Шаолиньцюань: техника ударов руками // «Техника - молодежи», 1991
 * Современное айки-дзюцу - универсальная боевая и спортивно-оздоровительная система (2003) // «Боевое искусство планеты», 2003.12.08
 * Принципы рациональных самостоятельных занятий каратэ (2003) // «Боевое искусство планеты», 2003.12.08
 * Алексей Яшкин. Стойки в каратэ (2004) // «Боевое искусство планеты», 2004.09.09

Now, Национальный корпус русского языка doesn’t necessarily give the full picture but considering the relatively large support for neuter and the complete absence of support for feminine that we see there, I’ll set the gender to neuter for a start. If substantial support for "ушу" also being feminine would come forth, then we can always add that [information] at a later stage. /Elias Mossholm (diskussion) 25 maj 2014 kl. 19.19 (CEST)


 * Also the Russian Wikipedia article has 2 cases of direct and 7 cases of indirect (of which one is the name of a source [for the article], which by the way is not among the examples above, even if the author occurs in one of the examples) support for "ушу" being neuter, and now support for it being feminine. /Elias Mossholm (diskussion) 25 maj 2014 kl. 19.37 (CEST)

Elias Mossholm (talk) 18:24, 25 May 2014 (UTC)


 * Easily fixed in the English Wiktionary. Added the second gender. --Anatoli (обсудить/вклад) 23:44, 25 May 2014 (UTC)