I'm new to Italian, and I'm grappling the concept of gender. For example, the word scimmia (monkey) is feminine, but sure there are male monkeys. What do we do if we want to specify a male monkey?
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If your question is only about male monkeys you should perhaps change the title, which is much broader – Walter Tross Aug 21 '15 at 22:53
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Nope, I am using monkey to illustrate my overall questions. But feel free to edit it to be more appropriate – jxhyc Aug 21 '15 at 22:56
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No way I'm going to change your question if it's not clear what your question is. – Walter Tross Aug 22 '15 at 07:38
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You would simply refer to them as:
la scimmia femmina
la scimmia maschio
If you are talking/writing about monkeys you would just say, il maschio (the male) e la femmina (the female). See the example below:
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3Also it depends on the case, but when addressing "unknown" genders "in general" just using the plural usually works: for one "le scimmie" – kos Aug 22 '15 at 13:25