In English, people who do not explicitly identify themselves with a gender use the pronouns "they/them" mostly, but what about in languages, like in French, where the third person plural pronouns are generally used to refer to multiple males or females only?
Not PC or non-PC related.
Just in our daily conversation, when we are talking about someone's friend or someone's boss, etc, with the description where gender doesn't matter much, we still have to define it's a he or she.
Moreover, in a job description we have to say "he or she has the responsibility to do [enter task] for the role of [enter job title]"
If we can use the word thon, we wouldn't mistakenly use he for everything or she for everything or use "he or she" to lengthen the conversation. I just thought it would be easier.
I know it's never going to happen, just saying. lol
Hello everyone. I am (currently identified as) non-binary and also a linguist and writer. So, pronouns are very, very interesting to me. English "lacks" a third-person singular pronoun, or so we've all heard. Many neopronouns have been proposed (and some people like them) but a lot of people have taken to using "they", as "they" as a third person singular pronoun standing in for someone who's gender is unknown or ambiguous is already unconsciously in general usage, no matter how much prescriptivists like to deny it.
"They" is all well and good. I like "they". However I was reading a book with two non-gendered protagonists and it did become confusing as to whether both of the protagonists were being talked about, and if it was only one, which one. We can chalk some of this up to poor editing but it is still a unique problem to the usage of "they" as a personal pronoun and one we're probably going to run into as more and more people assert themselves as non-binary and choose to use "they".
So I was thinking... there actually is a third person singular pronoun in English, one that is in general usage, it's just used incredibly rarely and is classified as indefinite. And that is the pronoun "one". Even though it's labeled as a third person singular pronoun its usage is currently entirely impersonal... when using "one", one is generally talking about a hypothetical non-gendered person and in informal settings you'd likely default to using "you" for this hypothetical person. However, does "one" have potential as this gender-neutral singular pronoun in English we've been looking for? Or is there a reason I've never seen it proposed? Is it just too weird and stuffy? Has anyone tried it?
Hey everyone! I've been travelling around lately and realized that many many languages don't even have a gender neutral option for the first person. I know some languages have movements like Spanish and French, but what about others?
Not all languages have gender neutral pronouns like English "they", so how do you get around this in your native language? If your native language uses male/female adjectives, verbs, pronouns etc (and neuter isn't an option), what do you do?
When I am speaking about a third person, but I don't know their gender and therefore don't know if I have to use 'él' or 'ella'. Would it be correct to refer to this thrid person with 'usted'?
My English isn't to good, am still learning English, but I want know how I can refer to God in third person without using the traditional use of masculine pronouns, feminine pronouns (as I don't want to make the same type of effect that I do when I use masculine language) or singular they, as I think sounds awkward when talkin' about God and not a human.
(Disclaimer: this post takes for granted that non-binary gender identities are real. Whether you think that is true, there are large numbers of people who do take for granted that this is true, and so this post is about their approaches to language.)
I have some friends who are non-binary and who use they/them pronouns. I was idly considering how I would introduce one of them to my former German professor and I realized there would be a problem: would I say "Hier ist mein Freund, Parker" (assuming "Parker" is their name, for the sake of this conversation), which specifies that my friend is male, or would I say, "Hier ist meine Freundin, Parker," which specifies that my friend is female? Since my friend is neither male nor female, both choices would be flawed. One alternative in this particular case would be to just say, "Hier ist Parker," but that strategy does not avoid all cases of gendered language in German.
So, my question for native and advanced speakers of gendered languages: how do communities who speak your language(s) handle these issues, particularly with respect to non-binary/genderqueer individuals?
While I am of course curious about "official" language policies currently in place or in development around gender-neutrality, I'm more curious about practices that have arisen organically out of communities.
Some examples I'm aware of/languages I'm particularly interested in include (but aren't limited to):
I know I have seen a "gender-neutral" suffix in Spanish, where a neutral alternative to, for example, "todos" and "todas" is "todes." I've also heard "nosotros/nosotras/nosotres." That seems like that strategy could work pretty broadly in Spanish, but I'm sure there are still tough cases.
I'm less familiar with French's approach to this, but I have a vague sense that there are a surprising number of ways to "cheat" in French by subtly using ambiguously gendered language. Am curious how far that might extend.
German, obviously given my framing example above, I'm definitely in the dark on. German does have a neuter grammatical gender, but I'm not aware of a "nosotros > nosotres" style rule that would cleanly transform masculine/feminine words into neuter words. Plus, I don't know what the connotations would be-- sounds like it could be akin to referring in English to someone as "it" (as opposed to "he/she/they"-
... keep reading on reddit ➡Hey everyone,
have decided to write my Bachelor thesis in english (being german) and it's been going decently so far. Have a small question about a case that I have encountered a few times already, better to clarify that now instead of having to correct too many things later:
When I am using personal pronouns for a single person/entity that has not a specified gender I have been instinctively using third person plural pronouns because I have seen it done that way here and there. I can't find a good source though whether that's actual good language. Example:
>The player [...]. Their skill level depends on [...].
Is this the correct method to handle these cases or is there a better way?
Thanks in advance!
I live in the Netherlands and really want to come out to the people I'm close with, but I don't know which pronouns to use in Dutch. I don't really want to use neopronouns either. How do I deal with this?
How would a person who uses the English equivalent of them/their pronouns be referred to in Spanish or French or other languages that use female/male versions of words? At least in French I know that “their” defaults to masculine if the subject is even partly male or unknown (meaning- when you refer to a group of people you would only use the feminine if you knew 100% of them are female), so would gender-neutral people largely be referred to as male? How does that sit with that person if so?
... is pretty annoying. In the internet I tell people to use they/them pronouns (if we communicate in english) but in real life I can't do that because it doesn't exist in that way... It makes me sick, even when i haven't outed myself to my family and most of my friends. I get so tired of feminine pronouns, that i often just want somebody to call me by masculine ones... but explain that to someone who hasn't heard of that nonbinary-stuff... I also don't have much queer friends in the internet to tall about that issue openly...
First of all, I'm not sure if this is the proper subreddit to post this in but I can't seem to find a better one and I'm curious so here we go:
What are some gender neutral pronouns in your language? Are they actual established lexical terms or are they modern terms invented with equality and non-binary gender-thinking in mind? Which ones do you like/use yourself, which don't you like and why?
The reason why I'm asking is that I've not really found a gender-neutral pronoun I like in English. There doesn't seem to be too much of a consensus on it either so it's hard to know which to use. Also, a lot of the variants I've heard/seen online (like "zee", "sklee" etc) just strike me as.... over the top? For me a pronoun needs to have more of an everyday feel to it because they are so commonly used and apply to a wide range of people. I also think this is sort of important if a pronoun is to gain somewhat common ground: it has to slide off of people's tongues easily and I think that happens more often with words that are a bit more low-key. So I tend to just use "they" in English.
In my native language, Swedish, there seems to be fewer variants in circulation. In fact the only one I'm really aware of is "hen", which sounds funny in English but in Swedish it makes sense because she is "hon" and he is "han". So it ends up having this feeling of being quite "natural" and.... non-constructed, I guess is the word I'm searching for. And this feeling I think makes it easier for the word to gradually become a part of people's automatic vocabulary. At least it does for me, and I'm sure some others would agree.
Anyways, I'll end by saying that I hope I haven't said anything offensive in my post. I'm not super read up on issues relating to the idea of non-binary gender and similar things, and I bring up the topic more from a language point of view with my main question/concern being finding words that may be able to function well in an everyday context and possibly gain a wider acceptance rather than going into the deeper and more philosophical/ideological debates.
Hi cis person here.
So I was sitting in class on the first day of fourth semester Spanish and I just had the thought of how you’d handle that while maintaining both grammatical correctness and respect for someone with a they/them pronoun preference or anything else besides he or she.
I ask because there’s no singular they in Spanish as far as I’m aware. Spanish doesn’t even have an “it” equivalent for inanimate objects and uses el and la. And all of the adjectives grammatically use the gender of whatever noun or pronoun they describe.
I feel like defaulting to the masculine endings like you would for describing a group of people of mixed genders (such as los hermanos for all siblings) would still be disrespectful if used in the singular, especially if the person was AMAB.
Also now that I actually personally know multiple people who use they/them pronouns and it’s possible I’ll be talking about them in class when doing speaking stuff talking about what we did on the weekend for example, I’d want to be respectful and do that properly.
Mainly I do ask about Spanish, but I am curious to see how other languages would handle it too!
Not really sure how best to start this, so I guess I'll just give context.
A friend of mine (Name isn't that important to the story but for the sake of clarity I'll call them Nick) has started going by they/them pronouns, and in response our mutual friend (lets call him Ken) has started referring to EVERYONE by those pronouns. I personally use my biological pronouns (he/him) and using other pronouns in reference to me makes me feel uncomfortable. The last time Ken used they/them pronouns in reference to me, I told him verbatim "Could you please not use pronouns I don't use for myself in reference to me? It makes me feel uncomfortable." And his immediate response was "It makes it easier for me to just refer to every one with gender-neutral pronouns." His tone was somewhat aggressive and defensive, so I didn't feel the need to press the issue. But I'm strongly considering getting angry next time it happens.
My reasoning is that we only really know maybe 2-3 people that use different pronouns than their biological gender assigns them, so referring to everyone with they/them pronouns is unnecessary when you're pore likely to interact with people that use their biologically assigned gender pronouns. If people that use unusual pronouns can get offended/feel uncomfortable/expect that you use the pronouns they identify as, people that use their biologically assigned pronouns should be able to as well. Am I wrong for thinking this?
Hey y’all. I am working towards publicly detransing (FtMtF) within the next few months and am trying to best prepare myself so I don’t freak out when I make the change. Right now I’m out at home but after a spending over a third of my life as an FtM I’m still pretty jumpy about hearing she/her, sister, etc (even though it’s what I want). I’ve been experimenting with playing female characters in video games lately to try and get used less jumpy about it with limited success. Any advice for ways I can kind of get used to this stuff before I go public?
