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).
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.
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?
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.
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.
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?
I think grammatical gender is just a feature of languages across many different families.