• gvngndz [none/use name,comrade/them]
    ·
    edit-2
    3 years ago

    It's really interesting how much Turkish and Hungarian have in common, we Turks also only have one gender pronoun and it's "O". So practically the same thing.

    So far example:

    He = O

    She = O

    They = Onlar (literally the plural of "O")

    • huf [he/him]
      ·
      3 years ago

      apparently the two words are unrelated

      • gvngndz [none/use name,comrade/them]
        ·
        3 years ago

        That's even more interesting then, I'm always fascinated by how different cultures can invent very similar ideas independently.

        • huf [he/him]
          ·
          3 years ago

          it's a pretty popular idea, not having noun classes:

          https://wals.info/feature/30A#2/26.7/149.1

          https://wals.info/feature/44A#2/18.0/149.1

          • gvngndz [none/use name,comrade/them]
            ·
            3 years ago

            I was more talking about how similar they are pronounced, not about having non-gendered pronouns, I know that is a fairly common thing.

            • huf [he/him]
              ·
              3 years ago

              oh, right. yeah, you get that kind of coincidence a lot i think

      • Krem [he/him]
        ·
        edit-2
        3 years ago

        I heard somewhere that 他 is originally a genderless pronoun and that 她 was invented much later as a variant after contact with european languages

        apparently on taiwan they even have the gendered you: 妳, but i've never seen it used by mainlanders.

    • Pseudoplatanus22 [he/him]
      ·
      3 years ago

      I guess it's the Ottoman influence, perhaps? They were half-occupied by the Ottomans for several centuries. Otherwise, they are completely unrelated languages.

      • infuziSporg [e/em/eir]
        ·
        3 years ago

        Pronouns tend to be some of the most durable parts of a language, and the Ottomans didn't have much contact until the 1400s. I would say it's more likely similar patterns of speech traded between Uralic and Turkic-speaking peoples in north-central Eurasia.