In the Dutch language, the gender of a noun determines the articles, adjective forms and pronouns that are used in reference to that noun. Gender is a complicated topic in Dutch, because depending on the geographical area or each individual speaker, there are either three genders in a regular structure or two genders in a dichotomous structure (neuter/common with vestiges of a three-gender structure). Both are identified and maintained in formal language. Overview Traditionally, nouns in Dutch, like in more conservative Germanic languages, such as German and Icelandic, have retained the three grammatical genders found in the older forms of all Germanic languages: masculine, feminine, or neuter. Almost all Dutch speakers maintain the neuter gender, which has distinct adjective inflection, definite article and some pronouns. The picture is less clear for the masculine and feminine gender, because in the standard language the adjective inflection of both is identical, and both share the same article and the same demonstrative pronouns. There are clearer grammatical differences in the definite articles in the genitive (masculine des vs feminine der), demonstrative determiners (masculine diens vs feminine dier) and relative pronouns (masculine wiens vs feminine wier), but usage of those is mostly limited to formal or literary language. The standard language mostly distinguishes masculine and feminine genders of animate nouns by the use of the personal pronoun, which are hij/hem for masculine nouns and zij/haar for feminine nouns and by corresponding possessive pronouns, zijn/zijne for masculine nouns and haar/hare for feminine nouns; all of those have additional unstressed reduced forms. It is also distinguished in the case forms of the definite article and some pronouns, but those have fallen out of use and are only retained in literary or archaic usage and fixed expressions. In Belgium and southern dialects of the Netherlands, the distinction between the three genders is usually, but not always, maintained. Words that were traditionally feminine are still referred to with zij, whereas traditionally masculine words retain the use of hij. In the case of persons and animals of known sex the pronouns used are generally determined by the biological sex rather than by the grammatical gender of the word. In most remaining parts of the Netherlands and in Suriname, the distinction between masculine and feminine nouns has disappeared, producing a common gender that uses the same inflections and pronouns as the original masculine. The pronouns hij and zij are used when