system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5: Why are there feminine/masculine words in many European languages?
gpt
The languages you are talking about are the Indo-European languages. Almost all languages in Europe are part of this language family. The original language that all of these descended from (Proto-Indo-European) had gendered words like that, so almost all of the languages that came from it also have it. Originally, there were three genders: feminine, masculine, and neuter. Some languages, like Russian and German, still have this. Some other languages, like Swedish, merged the feminine and masculine words to make a 'common' gender along with neuter. The Romance languages have gotten rid of the neuter gender and have the feminine/masculine words you were talking about. Funnily enough, English also used to have feminine, masculine, and neuter words, but over time people just kind of got rid of them, and now english is almost completely genderless.