This article possibly contains original research .(February 2016) |
This is a list of placeholder names (words that can refer to things, persons, places, numbers and other concepts whose names are temporarily forgotten, irrelevant, unknown or being deliberately withheld in the context in which they are being discussed) in various languages.
Arabic uses Fulan, Fulana[h] (فلان / فلانة) and when a last name is needed it becomes Fulan AlFulani, Fulana[h] AlFulaniyya[h] (فلان الفلاني / فلانة الفلانية). When a second person is needed, ʿillan, ʿillana[h] (علان / علانة) is used.[ citation needed ] The use of Fulan has been borrowed into Spanish, Portuguese, Persian, Turkish and Malay, as shown below.
Inna ܐܸܢܵܐ or hinnaܗܸܢܵܐ are used for "thingy", "thingamabob", etc. "Ayka dre-li inna?" roughly translates to "Where did I put the thingamabob?" [1]
A verb of the root '-N-L (ܐܢܠ) likely derived from the noun is used to express actions similarly; for verbs that don't immediately come to mind. Though not directly translatable into English, e.g. "Si m’annil-leh" roughly translates to "go do that thing".
Similarly to other Semitic languages, plān ܦܠܵܢ (masculine) and plānīthā ܦܠܵܢܝܼܬ݂ܵܐ (feminine) are used for "so-and-so". [2] [3]
Bengali uses the universal placeholder ইয়েiẏē. It is generally placed for a noun which cannot be recalled by the speaker at the time of speech. ইয়েiẏē can be used for nouns, adjectives, and verbs (in conjunction with light verbs). অমুকamuk can also be a placeholder for people or objects. [4] ফলনা/ফলানাfalanā/falānā and its female equivalent ফলনিfalani is a placeholder specific to people. [5] The phrase এ যেē yē roughly translates to 'you know' although the literal meaning is 'this that'. To refer to an extended family or generation the phrase চৌদ্দ গোষ্ঠীcaudda gōṣṭhī is used. It can also mean 'everyone one knows', when used in a context of telling your "caudda gōṣṭhī" something and not keeping a secret.
In common parlance and as a placeholder a variety can be used. Navn Navnesen (Name Nameson) is an example.[ citation needed ]
In civil law A, B, C etc. are used. In criminal law T is used for the accused (tiltalte), V is a non-law enforcement witness (vidne), B is a police officer (betjent) and F or FOU is the victim (forurettede). When more than one a number is added, e.g. V1, V2 and B1, B2. [6]
Faraway countries are often called Langtbortistan, lit. Farawayistan. Langtbortistan was first used in 1959 in the weekly periodical Anders And & Co as Sonja Rindom's translation of Remotistan. Since 2001, it has been included in Retskrivningsordbogen . [7]
Backwards places in the countryside are called Lars Tyndskids marker, lit. The fields of Lars Diarrhea. [8] Similarly Hvor kragerne vender, lit. Where the crows turn around may also be used for denoting both a far away and backward place at the same time.
The expression langt pokker i vold is a placeholder for a place far far away e.g. he kicked the balllangt pokker i vold. [9]
In Ancient Egypt, the names Hudjefa and Sedjes, literally meaning "erased" and "missing", were used by later Egyptian scribes in kings lists to refer to much older previous pharaohs whose names had by that time been lost. [10] [11]
"Blackacre" and "John Doe" or "Jane Doe" are often used as placeholder names in law.
Other more common and colloquial versions of names exist, including "Joe Shmoe", "Joe Blow", and "Joe Bloggs". "Tom, Dick and Harry" may be used to refer to a group of nobodies or unknown men. "John Smith" or "Jane Smith" is sometimes used as a placeholder on official documents.
English words to colloquially describe an object whose name the speaker does not know, does not recall, or does not care about include thingy, thingamajig, whatsit, and doohickey.[ citation needed ]
A research in Galician language (and Spanish and Portuguese) [12] classified the toponymic placeholders for faraway locations in four groups:
There is apart a humoristic, infrequent element, as in en Castrocú. Some can add more than one element (na cona da Virxe). It is also noted the prevalence of the adjective quinto ("fifth").
German also sports a variety of placeholders; some, as in English, contain the element Dings, Dingens (also Dingenskirchen for towns), Dingsda, Dingsbums, cognate with English thing . Also, Kram, Krimskrams, Krempel suggests a random heap of small items, e.g., an unsorted drawerful of memorabilia or souvenirs. Apparillo (from Apparat) may be used for any kind of machinery or technical equipment. In a slightly higher register, Gerät represents a miscellaneous artifact or utensil, or, in casual German, may also refer to an item of remarkable size. The use of the word Teil (part) is a relatively recent placeholder in German that has gained great popularity since the late 1980s. Initially a very generic term, it has acquired a specific meaning in certain contexts. Zeug or Zeugs (compare Dings, can be loosely translated as 'stuff') usually refers to either a heap of random items that is a nuisance to the speaker, or an uncountable substance or material, often a drug. Finally, Sache, as a placeholder, loosely corresponding to Latin res, describes an event or a condition. A generic term used especially when the speaker cannot think of the exact name or number, also used in enumerations analogously to et cetera , is the colloquial schlag-mich-tot or schieß-mich-tot (literally "strike/shoot me dead", to indicate that the speaker's memory fails him/her).
A generic (and/or inferior) technical device (as opposed to i.e. a brand item) is often called a 08/15 (after the WWI-era MG 08 machine gun, whose extensive mass production gave it its "generic" character) pronounced in individual numbers null-acht-fünfzehn. [13]
The German equivalent to the English John Doe for males and Jane Doe for females would be Max Mustermann (Max Exampleperson) and Erika Mustermann, respectively. For the former, Otto Normalverbraucher (after the protagonist of the 1948 movie Berliner Ballade , named in turn after the standard consumer for ration cards) is also widely known. Fritz or Fritzchen is often used as a placeholder in jokes for a mischievous little boy (little Johnny), -fritze for a person related to something, as in Fahrradfritze (literally Bicycle Fred, the (unspecified) person who repairs, or is in some way connected to, bicycles). In a similar vein there is Onkel Fritz (lit. Uncle Fred).
There is also Krethi und Plethi, Hinz und Kunz, or Hans und Franz for everybody similar to the English Tom, Dick and Harry if not in a slightly more derogatory way. For many years, Erika Mustermann has been used on the sample picture of German ID cards ("Personalausweis"). [14]
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In Hebrew, the word זה (zeh, meaning 'this') is a placeholder for any noun. The term צ׳ופצ׳יק (chúpchik, meaning a protuberance, particularly the diacritical mark geresh), a borrowing of Russian чубчик (chúbchik, a diminutive of чуб chub "forelock") is also used by some speakers. [15]
The most popular personal name placeholders are מה-שמו (mah-shmo, 'whatsisname'), משה (Moshe = Moses) and יוֹסִי (Yossi, common diminutive form of Yosef ) for first name, and כהן ( Cohen , the most common surname in Israel) for last name. However, in ID and credit card samples, the usual name is ישראל ישראלי ( Yisrael Yisraeli ) [16] for a man and ישראלה ישראלי (Yisraela Yisraeli) for a woman (these are actual first and last names) – similar to John and Jane Doe.
The traditional terms are פלוני (ploni) and its counterpart אלמוני (almoni) (originally mentioned in Ruth 4:1). The combined term פלוני אלמוני (ploni almoni) is also in modern official usage; for example, addressing guidelines by Israel postal authorities use ploni almoni as the addressee. [17] [18]
A placeholder for a time in the far past is תרפפ״ו (tarapapu), which resembles a year number in the Hebrew calendar. Years of the Hebrew calendar are commonly written in Hebrew numerals. For example, the year Anno Mundi 5726 would be written as ה׳תשכ״ו, which can be further abbreviated to תשכ״ו by omitting the first letter that stands for thousands. What makes תרפפ״ו unusual is the use of the same letter פ׳ twice. The word תרפפ״ו has the gematria of 766 = 400 (ת) + 200 (ר) + 80 (פ) + 80 (פ) + 6 (ו), but as a numeral, it would usually be written with the shorter sequence 400 (ת) + 300 (ש) + 60 (ס) + 6 (ו). [19]
John Smith (US: John Doe) is Kovács János or Gipsz Jakab (lit. John Smith or Jake Gypsum, or Jakob Gipsch, with surname followed by given name, as normal in Hungarian). However these names are not used in official reports (for example instead of US John/Jane Doe ismeretlen férfi/nő (unknown male/female) would appear in a police report). Samples for forms, credit cards etc. usually contain the name Minta János [20] (John Sample) or Minta Kata (Kate Sample). Gizike and Mancika, which are actual, though now relatively uncommon, female nicknames, are often used to refer to stereotypically obnoxious and ineffective female bureaucrats. Jokes sometimes refer to an older person named Béla [21] (a quite common male given name), especially if it is implied that he is perverted or has an unusual sexual orientation despite his age.
As for place names, there is Mucsaröcsöge or Csajágaröcsöge, little villages or boonies far out in the countryside, and Kukutyin [20] or Piripócs, villages or small towns somewhere in the countryside. A general place reference is the phrase (az) Isten háta mögött, meaning "behind the back of God", i.e. 'middle of nowhere'.
In Icelandic, the most common placeholder names are Jón Jónsson for men, and Jóna Jónsdóttir for women. The common or average Icelander is referred to as meðaljón (lit. average John). [22]
In official texts, the abbreviation N.N. (for Latin nomen nescio , "name unknown") may be used. Out of official texts, N.N. is very occasionally (and non-seriously) expanded to Nebúkadnesar Nebúkadnesarson, a name used in the short story "Lilja: Sagan af Nebúkadnesar Nebúkadnesarsyni í lífi og dauða" by Halldór Laxness. It is part of the short-story collection Fótatak manna.
The Icelandic version of the Nordic words for faraway places is Fjarskanistan or Langtíburtistan. This and the other Nordic counterparts come from Donald Duck comic magazines, in which Donald tends to end up in that country if he doesn't play his cards right.[ citation needed ]
An unspecified or forgotten date from long time ago is often referred to as sautján hundruð og súrkál (seventeen hundred and sauerkraut). [23]
There is no single name that is widely accepted, but the name of Sukarno, Indonesia's first president, can be found in many articles; it has the advantages of being Javanese (about 45% of the Indonesian population), a single word (see Indonesian name), and well-known.
Other male names: Joni (Indonesian for Johnny), and Budi (widely used in elementary textbooks). Ini ibu Budi (this is Budi's mother) is a common phrase in primary school's standardized reading textbook from 1980s until it was removed in 2014. [24] Popular female placeholder names are Ani, Sinta, Sri, Dewi.
Fulan (male) and Fulanah (female) are also often found, especially in religious articles (both are derived from Arabic).
Zaman kuda gigit besi (the era when horses bite iron) and zaman baheula indicates a very long time ago. [25] [26]
Common Irish placeholders for objects include an rud úd "that thing over there", an rud sin eile "that other thing", and cá hainm seo atá air "whatever its name is".
In Irish, the common male name "Tadhg" is part of the very old phrase Tadhg an mhargaidh (Tadhg of the market-place) which combines features of the English phrases "average Joe" and "man on the street".
This same placeholder name, transferred to English-language usage and now usually rendered as Taig , became and remains a vitriolic derogatory term for an Irish Catholic and has been used by Unionists in Northern Ireland in such bloodthirsty slogans as "If guns are made for shooting, then skulls are made to crack. You've never seen a better Taig than with a bullet in his back" [27] and "Don't be vague, kill a Taig". [28]
A generic male person can also be called Seán Ó Rudaí ("Sean O'Something", from rud "thing") or Mac Uí Rudaí ("O'Something's son"). Additional persons can be introduced by using other first names and inflecting the family name according to normal Irish conventions for personal names, such as Síle Uí Rudaí ("Sheila O'Something") for a married or elder woman and Aisling Ní Rudaí for a young or unmarried woman.
Paddy, another derogatory placeholder name for an Irish person, lacks the sharpness of Taig and is often used in a jocular context or incorporated into mournful pro-Irish sentiment (e.g. the songs "Poor Paddy on the Railway" and "Paddy's Lament"). By contrast, the term Taig remains a slur in almost every context. Biddy (from the name Bridget) is a female equivalent placeholder name for Irish females.
Also note that the Hiberno-English placeholder names Yer man, Yer one and Himself/Herself are long-established idioms derived from the syntax of the Irish language. Yer man and yer one are a half-translation of a parallel Irish-language phrase, mo dhuine, literally "my person". This has appeared in songs, an example of which is The Irish Rover in the words "Yer man, Mick McCann, from the banks of the Bann".
名無しの権兵衛 Nanashi no Gonbei (lit. Nameless Gonbei) is a common placeholder name for a person whose name is unknown, comparable to John Doe in English. Gonbei is an old masculine given name that, due to being common in the countryside, came to have connotations of "hillbilly".
On documents or forms requiring a first and last name, 山田 太郎 Yamada Tarō and 山田 花子 Yamada Hanako are very commonly used example names for men and women respectively, [29] comparable to John and Jane Smith in English. Both are generic but possible names in Japanese. Yamada, whose characters mean 'mountain' and 'rice field' respectively, is not the most common last name in Japan, ranking 12th nationwide in 2024; however, it is a mundane name that appears throughout the country. [30] Tarō used to be a common name to give to firstborn sons; though it has declined in popularity, it is still sometimes given to boys. [31] Hanako (literally "flower child") was once a common name for girls but is considered old-fashioned nowadays. [32]
Sometimes, Yamada will be replaced with the name of a company, place, or a related word; for example, 東芝 太郎Tōshiba Tarō for Toshiba, 駒場 太郎Komaba Tarō for Tokyo University (one of its three main campuses is located in Komaba), or 納税 太郎Nōzei Tarō on tax return forms (nōzei means "to pay taxes"; it is not a last name). Although Tarō and Hanako are by far the most popular due to their recognizability as example names, different first names, such as 一郎Ichirō or 夏子Natsuko for men and women respectively, may be used. In recent years, there have also been more unique placeholder names, such as 奈良 鹿男Nara Shikao for the city of Nara (shika means "deer", which is a symbol of the city) and 有鳶 時音Arutobi Jion for the company アルトビジョン Altovision. [33] [34]
When avoiding specifying a person, place or thing, 某bō can be used as a modifier to a noun to mean 'unnamed' or 'certain/particular' (e.g. 某政治家bō seijika, "a certain politician").
When referring to multiple people or when keeping people anonymous, it is also common to use A, B, C, etc., with or without honorifics. 子ko may be added to the end for girls and women (e.g. A子ēko).
The symbols 〇〇/○○, read まるまるmarumaru (doubling of 丸maru meaning 'circle') is a common placeholder when various values are possible in its place or to censor information, similar to underscores, asterisks, <blank> or [redacted] in English. It can be used in place of any noun or adjective. The symbols ××, read チョメチョメchomechome, ペケペケpekepeke or バツバツbatsubatsu are also used, although chomechome is sometimes avoided due to having sexual connotations. The symbols are usually doubled but can be repeated more times. Placeholder symbols are sometimes read ほにゃらら honyarara.
Other filler words include 何とかnantoka, 何たらnantara and 何何naninani. These can be used for a person whose name has been temporarily forgotten (e.g. なんとかちゃんnantoka-chan, roughly "Miss What's-her-name" in the third person). 何とかnantoka and 何とやらnantoyara are sometimes used when purposefully omitting a word from a saying (e.g. 何とかも木から落ちるnantoka mo ki kara ochiru instead of 猿も木から落ちるsaru mo ki kara ochiru, meaning "even monkeys fall from trees"; the word 猿saru meaning "monkey" has been replaced with 何とかnantoka meaning "something" or "you-know-what", although "monkey" is still implied).
誰々daredare or 誰某daresore for people, 何処何処dokodoko or 何処其処dokosoko for places and 何れ何れdoredore or 何其doresore for things that are unnamed or forgotten are also used.
In computing, starting in the late 1980s, hoge (ほげ, no literal meaning) or hogehoge (doubled) were used much like foo and bar, although their use seems to have decreased in recent years. [35]
This section needs additional citations for verification .(May 2021) |
In Latin the word res (thing) is used. Some Latin legal writers used the name Numerius Negidius as a John Doe placeholder name; this name was chosen in part because it shares its initials with the Latin phrases (often abbreviated in manuscripts to NN) nomen nescio , "I don't know the name"; nomen nominandum, "name to be named" (used when the name of an appointee was as yet unknown); and non-nominatus/nominata, "not named".
Formal writing in (especially older) Dutch uses almost as much Latin as the lawyer's English, and, for instance, "N.N." was and is commonly used as a "John Doe" placeholder in class schedules, grant proposals, etc.
Emperor Justinian's codification of Roman law follows the custom of using "Titius" and "Seius" as names for Roman citizens, and "Stichus" and "Pamphilus" as names for slaves. [36]
The constructed language Lojban uses the series brodV (namely broda, brode, brodi, brodo, brodu), ko'V (namely ko'a, ko'e, ko'i, ko'o, ko'u) and fo'V (namely fo'a, fo'e, fo'i, fo'o, fo'u) as pro-forms with explicitly assigned antecedents. [37] However, Lojban speakers had begun to use them as placeholder words, especially in technical discussions on the language. To distinguish both uses, some special markers were created to unambiguously differentiate between anaphoric and metasyntactic usage. [38] [39]
The noun wihajster (from German Wie heißt er?lit. 'What is he called?') can refer to a (usually) handheld tool or device. [40]
A universal placeholder name for a man is Jan Kowalski (kowal meaning "(black)smith"); for a woman, Anna Kowalska. A second unspecified person would be called Nowak ("Newman"), with the choice of first name being left to the author's imagination, often also Jan for a man; this surname is unisex. Jan is one of the most popular male first names in Polish, and Kowalski and Nowak are the most popular Polish surnames.
The verb tentegować ( ten + tego + -wać (action postfix) = "that" + "of this" + " do") can refer to any action. [41] Various prefixes (roz-, prze-, przy-) can be used to narrow down its meaning.
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A large number of placeholder words for people, things, and actions are derived from Russian profanity (mat), as may be found in multiple dictionaries of Russian slang. [42]
An informal placeholder (for persons, places, etc.) is "такой-то [ ru ]" ("takoy-to" (masculine form; feminine: takaya-to; neuter: takoye-to), meaning "this or that", "such and such", etc.).
A historical placeholder for a personal name used in legal documents and prayers is "имярек [ ru ]" ("imyarek"), derived from the archaic expression "imya rek" meaning "having said the name". The word entered into a common parlance as well.
To refer to an unknown person, the words "nekto", "kto-to", etc., equivalent to "someone", are used, as in "Someone stole my wallet".
Placeholders for personal names include variations on names Иван (Ivan), Пётр (Pyotr/Peter), and Сидор (Sidor), such as Иван Петрович Сидоров (Ivan Petrovich Sidorov) for a full name, or Иванов (Ivanov) for a last name; deliberately fake name-patronymic-surname combinations use one of them for all three, with the most widely used being Ivan Ivanovich Ivanov.
The name "Vasya Pupkin" (Russian : Вася Пупкин) may be used as a placeholder name for an average random or unknown person in the colloquial speech. [43] [44]
Placeholder names in the Spanish language might have a pejorative or derogatory feeling to them, depending on the context.
When several placeholders are needed together, they are used in the above order, e.g. "Fulano, Mengano y Zutano". All placeholder words are also used frequently in diminutive form, Fulanito/a, Menganito/a, Perenganito/a or Zutanito/a.
The words "tío" and "tía" (uncle and aunt respectively) can be used to refer to any unspecified male or female. It is also used between friends to call each other (equivalent to "dude").
Welsh uses betingalw (or the respectful bechingalw), literally "what you call", meaning whatchamacallit. [49] Pwyna is used for persons whose name cannot immediately be recalled.
In linguistics, a grammatical gender system is a specific form of a noun class system, where nouns are assigned to gender categories that are often not related to the real-world qualities of the entities denoted by those nouns. In languages with grammatical gender, most or all nouns inherently carry one value of the grammatical category called gender. The values present in a given language, of which there are usually two or three, are called the genders of that language.
In grammar, a noun is a word that represents a concrete or abstract thing, such as living creatures, places, actions, qualities, states of existence, and ideas. A noun may serve as an object or subject within a phrase, clause, or sentence.
John Doe (male) and Jane Doe (female) are multiple-use placeholder names that are used in the British and US-American legal system and aside generally in the United Kingdom and the United States when the true name of a person is unknown or is being intentionally concealed. In the context of law enforcement in the United States, such names are often used to refer to a corpse whose identity is unknown or cannot be confirmed. These names are also often used to refer to a hypothetical "everyman" in other contexts, like John Q. Public or "Joe Public". There are many variants to the above names, including John/Jane Roe, John/Jane Smith, John/Jane Bloggs, and Johnie/Janie Doe or just Baby Doe for children. A. N. Other is also a placeholder name, mainly used in the United Kingdom — which is gender neutral — along side Joe / Jo Bloggs and the now occasional use of the "John" and "Jane Doe" names.
A proper noun is a noun that identifies a single entity and is used to refer to that entity as distinguished from a common noun, which is a noun that refers to a class of entities and may be used when referring to instances of a specific class. Some proper nouns occur in plural form, and then they refer to groups of entities considered as unique. Proper nouns can also occur in secondary applications, for example modifying nouns, or in the role of common nouns. The detailed definition of the term is problematic and, to an extent, governed by convention.
Arabic names have historically been based on a long naming system. Many people from Arabic-speaking and also non-Arab Muslim countries have not had given, middle, and family names but rather a chain of names. This system remains in use throughout the Arab and Muslim worlds.
Adpositions are a class of words used to express spatial or temporal relations or mark various semantic roles. The most common adpositions are prepositions and postpositions.
Samoan is a Polynesian language spoken by Samoans of the Samoan Islands. Administratively, the islands are split between the sovereign country of Samoa and the United States territory of American Samoa. It is an official language, alongside English, in both jurisdictions. It is widely spoken across the Pacific region, heavily so in New Zealand and also in Australia and the United States. Among the Polynesian languages, Samoan is the most widely spoken by number of native speakers.
In linguistics, a compound is a lexeme that consists of more than one stem. Compounding, composition or nominal composition is the process of word formation that creates compound lexemes. Compounding occurs when two or more words or signs are joined to make a longer word or sign. Consequently, a compound is a unit composed of more than one stem, forming words or signs. If the joining of the words or signs is orthographically represented with a hyphen, the result is a hyphenated compound. If they are joined without an intervening space, it is a closed compound. If they are joined with a space, then the result – at least in English – may be an open compound.
Placeholder names are intentionally overly generic and ambiguous terms referring to things, places, or people, the names of which or of whom do not actually exist; are temporarily forgotten, or are unimportant; or in order to avoid stigmatization, or because they are unknowable or unpredictable given the context of their discussion; or to deliberately expunge direct use of the name.
Japanesepronouns are words in the Japanese language used to address or refer to present people or things, where present means people or things that can be pointed at. The position of things and their role in the current interaction are features of the meaning of those words. The use of pronouns, especially when referring to oneself and speaking in the first person, vary between gender, formality, dialect and region where Japanese is spoken.
Profanity in Finnish is used in the form of intensifiers, adjectives, adverbs and particles, and is based on varying taboos, with religious vulgarity being very prominent. It often uses aggressive mood which involves omission of the negative verb ei while implying its meaning with a swear word.
The morphology of the Welsh language has many characteristics likely to be unfamiliar to speakers of English or continental European languages like French or German, but has much in common with the other modern Insular Celtic languages: Irish, Scottish Gaelic, Manx, Cornish, and Breton. Welsh is a moderately inflected language. Verbs inflect for person, number, tense, and mood, with affirmative, interrogative, and negative conjugations of some verbs. There is no case inflection in Modern Welsh.
The grammar of the Polish language is complex and characterized by a high degree of inflection, and has relatively free word order, although the dominant arrangement is subject–verb–object (SVO). There commonly are no articles, and there is frequent dropping of subject pronouns. Distinctive features include the different treatment of masculine personal nouns in the plural, and the complex grammar of numerals and quantifiers.
This page is about noun phrases in Hungarian grammar.
German pronouns are German words that function as pronouns. As with pronouns in other languages, they are frequently employed as the subject or object of a clause, acting as substitutes for nouns or noun phrases, but are also used in relative clauses to relate the main clause to a subordinate one.
Classical Kʼicheʼ was an ancestral form of today's Kʼicheʼ language, which was spoken in the highland regions of Guatemala around the time of the 16th-century Spanish conquest of Guatemala. Classical Kʼicheʼ has been preserved in a number of historical Mesoamerican documents, lineage histories, missionary texts, and dictionaries. Most famously, it is the language in which the renowned highland Maya mythological and historical narrative Popol Vuh is written. Another historical text of partly similar content is the Título de Totonicapán.
A genderless language is a natural or constructed language that has no distinctions of grammatical gender—that is, no categories requiring morphological agreement between nouns and associated pronouns, adjectives, articles, or verbs.
The English pronouns form a relatively small category of words in Modern English whose primary semantic function is that of a pro-form for a noun phrase. Traditional grammars consider them to be a distinct part of speech, while most modern grammars see them as a subcategory of noun, contrasting with common and proper nouns. Still others see them as a subcategory of determiner. In this article, they are treated as a subtype of the noun category.
Vietnamese is an analytic language, meaning it conveys grammatical information primarily through combinations of words as opposed to suffixes. The basic word order is subject-verb-object (SVO), but utterances may be restructured so as to be topic-prominent. Vietnamese also has verb serialization. In sentences, the head of the phrase usually precedes its complements, nouns are classified according to series of lexical parameters, and pronouns may be absent from utterances. Question words in the language do not exhibit wh-movement.