this post was submitted on 15 Mar 2025
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English breaks my brain... How is some languages end in -an, but others end in -ese, -ish, etc... [Open Discussion Thread on Languages and their Quirks] (lemmy.dbzer0.com)
submitted 2 months ago by IDKWhatUsernametoPutHereLolol@lemmy.dbzer0.com to c/casualconversation@lemm.ee
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I mean:

English

Russian

French? (how did this happen? France --> French?!?)

Chinese

And someone from Afghanistan is an Afghan? How did the word get shorter not longer? 🤔

Also, why is a person from India called an Indian, but the language is called Hindi? This breaks my brain...

Philippines --> Filipino? They just saw the "Ph" and decided to use an "F"? 🤔

Okay idk how language even works anymore...

[This is an open discusssion thread on languages and their quirks...]

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[–] Hjalamanger@feddit.nu 4 points 2 months ago

If I'm free to discuss what ever language quirk I'd want to, then let's talk about German nouns. How did they end up with three genders (die, das and der) for their nouns? English has none, French has two just like Swedish mostly has two but the Germans ended up with five.

For any English speakers unfamiliar with the concept of noun gender it's basically a way of grouping nouns. It commonly effects how they word works with other grammar. For example the German genders determine whether die, das or der should be used when English has the and it does, in a more convoluted way involving other grammar to, determine whether ein, eine, einen or einem should be used where English has a/an