• TechLich@lemmy.world
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    9 months ago

    Yep. Most Latin languages have gendered nouns. Italian, Spanish, German etc. All have masculine/feminine objects.

    Eg. In Italian a fork is feminine (la forchetta) but a spoon is masculine (il cucchiaio). A table in your living room is a boy (il tavolo) but a table that you’re eating lunch on is a girl (la tavola).

    It’s bizarre.

    • Hegar@kbin.social
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      9 months ago

      German isn’t a Latin language, it’s in the Germanic branch, along with English, Dutch and others. French, Italian and Spanish are Romance or Latin languages.

      • TechLich@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        True! It’s not just a Latin thing and Slavic languages have it too. I wonder where it came from originally. Probably one of those Proto Indo European things. Though it’s in some Indigenous Australian languages too (though not all) so might be even older?