I think he could indeed be right, I was curious about that too and came across this page[0] about Mongolian gers (aka yurt) which includes the following etiquette guidelines:

- When approaching a Mongolian ger it is customary to say, “Nokhoigo Khorioroi” which means “Hold the dog,” even if you don’t see a dog. This is because guard dogs are common and a dog may be aggressive towards visitors, but it in general alerts the occupants to your presence so they can come out and greet you.

- Never knock on a ger door. It is considered rude. You simply enter.

- When entering a Mongolian ger, step with your right foot first and never stand on the threshold. The threshold is said to be the “neck” of the ger and standing on it tantamount to “strangling” the home.

- Mongolians don't chat to each other over the threshold. Step in rather than asking things through the doorway.

- To greet your hosts say, “Sain bain uu?” (pronounced “Sey-Ben-Oo”) – meaning “how do you do?” If you are entering for the second, third, fourth time, you can just say “Sen-ooo”, meaning “Hi!”.

Today we both learned :)

[0] https://notesofnomads.com/mongolian-gers/#Ger_etiquette_The_...

Greetings in Mongolian are fun because the question and the response are so similar.

- сайн yy?

- сайн, сайн yy?

- сайн, <...>

Took me awhile to learn to hear the various elaborations on that for different types of people.

really:

  - fine, you?

  - fine.. fine.. you?

  - fine :)

heh,

The yy/uu is an interrogative that turns the preceding sentence into a question, so it disappears. Literally translated, it's just:

- good?

- good, good?

- good, <...>

But the actual meaning is:

- how's it going?

- good, how 'bout you?

- fine, <...>

There's simply a few layers of simplification going on to get from the 'correct' grammar to here. Native speakers will use small differences in emphasis between the words, but I'm not nearly fluent enough for that.

Here's the french one:

    - ça va ?
    - ça va, ça va... ça va toi ?
    - ça va :)

The `toi` is optional but there's a bit leg pulling involved.

I particularly appreciate that this is literally "Does it go? It goes. Does it go for you? It goes."

Native speakers don't generally look inside idioms the way non-native speakers do. English is full of equally odd-looking constructions. Still, this amuses me all the time in French.

One does not simply enter a Mongolian ger, evidently.

Stop writing simply <magic incantation> in the documentation ;)

> “Never knock on a ger door. It is considered rude. You simply enter.”

I suppose this is because you will be met well before you arrive at the door-the resident will come out to greet you, presumably because their dog alerted to your presence?

What do you say if you don’t want someone to enter your yurt? My dog is hungry and thinks you’re lunch?

I think that across Europe it is considered unlucky, or inappropriate to step on a door still (threshold?). I mean Europe as in European folklore.

In India, at least South India, it's considered unlucky to give or receive anything through the door threshold; either party goes to the other side and hands over (food, money, bag, etc.).