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Gender-neutral pronoun

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Gender-neutral or epicene pronouns are pronouns that neither reveal nor imply the gender or the sex of a person.

Androgynous pronouns are pronouns that refers to both, third or other, or neither gender.

Many languages do not have gender distinctions as an intrinsic part of the language: though it is always possible to specify whether one is talking about a male or female, the language does not force one to make that choice. In such languages, all pronouns are 'gender-neutral', and there is little more to be said.

But in some languages — notably most Indo-European and Afro-Asiatic languages — some personal pronouns intrinsically distinguish male from female; and the selection of a pronoun necessarily specifies at least to some extent the gender of what is referred to.

Since the 1960's many people have felt this forced distinction in English and other languages to be unsatisfactory (see Gender-neutral language) and there have been many attempts to devise sets of pronouns which do not force the speaker to make the distinction. These are what is usually meant by gender-neutral pronouns.

Contents

[edit] Languages with gender-specific pronouns

In these languages some personal pronouns are specific as to gender. Though this usually does not apply to all personal pronouns in the language, a speaker usually does not (at least traditionally) have an option of whether to use gender-specific pronouns or not, since the gender-specific ones do not overlap with the neutral ones.

[edit] Indo-European Languages

See also: Gender-neutral language in Indo-European languages

In most Indo-European Languages - but not in modern Indo-Iranian languages - third-person pronouns are gender specific, but first and second person pronouns are not.

For example, in French,

  • First person singular je ('I'), me ('me')
  • Second person singular (familiar) tu, te ('you')
  • First person plural nous ('we', 'us')
  • Second person plural vous ('you')
  • Third person possessives son ('his'/'hers'/'its') and leur ('theirs')

are all gender neutral; but

  • Third person pronouns il ('he'), le ('him'), ils ('they') are all masculine.
  • Third person pronouns elle ('she'), la ('her') and elles ('they') are all feminine.

In some languages (including most modern Germanic languages) this distinction is neutralised in the plural: English and Russian both have gender-neutral forms for the third person plural pronouns: they/them and они (oni).

Note that the gender-specific pronouns of Indo-European languages are not the same phonomenon as grammatical gender. There is a relationship between them: where a language has grammatical gender, as in French, gendered pronouns are used appropriate to the grammatical gender of the object, as il ('he') for le livre ('the book' - masculine). But English, Dutch and Danish all continue to distinguish gender in third person singular pronouns, but no longer distinguish masculine and feminine nouns grammatically.

[edit] Swedish

In some dialects of the Swedish language there is a word hän (borrowed from Finnish) that means either han (he) or hon (she). [citation needed] It has spread to hacker slang. Some more common gender-neutral pronouns however are hen (he/she) and henom (him/her). [citation needed] The Swedish Language Council recommends den (it) for third person singular of indefinite gender.

[edit] Icelandic

Icelandic uses a similar system to other Germanic languages in distinguishing three 3rd-person genders in the singular - hann (m.), hún (f.), það (nt.). However it also uses this three-way distinction in the plural: þeir (m. only), þær (f. only), þau (nt. or mixed gender). It is therefore possible to be gender-specific in all circumstances should one wish - although of course þau can be used for gender-neutrality. Otherwise the form used is determined grammatically (i.e. by the gender of the noun replaced). In general statements the use of menn could be preferable as it is less specific than þau (see below).

[edit] Other spoken natural languages

See also: Gender-neutral language in non-Indo-European languages

[edit] Chinese

In modern Chinese, there is no gender distinction in pronouns in the spoken language: the pronoun 他 (tā) means "he" or "she". However, around the time of the May Fourth Movement, a new written form 她 of the pronoun was created to specifically represent "she", and 他 is now often restricted to meaning "he". This language reform was part of a "modernisation" movement, and copied from European languages. In writing, 他/她 is even used to mean "he/she" (in that order), while 它 (tā) is used to mean "it". These pronouns are pronounced identically; the difference appears only in writing.

[edit] Japanese

Written Japanese underwent a transition similar to Chinese when an archaic demonstrative kare (彼) was resurrected to translate the "he" of European languages, while a word kanojo (彼女) was invented to translate she. In the spoken language, the words carry the connotation of boyfriend and girlfriend respectively, and instead "ano hito" (literally "that person") is used in those cases where a pronoun is required. Unlike Western languages, pronouns in Japanese are a type of nouns rather than a distinct class.

[edit] Korean

Before modernization, in Korean 그(geu) meant he, she, and it as Chinese tā does. But in Modern Korean geu usually means he. 그녀(geu-nyeo) with the suffix -녀(女, -nyeo) meaning woman, is used for she. 그것(geu-geot) means it.

[edit] Semitic languages

In most Semitic languages only the first-person pronouns (singular and plural) are gender-neutral: second and third person pronouns are gender-specific.

[edit] Thai

In Thai, second and third person pronouns are gender neutral, while first person pronouns and particles differ for men and women. Thus speakers are grammatically required to indicate their own gender, but not that of others.

[edit] Nahuatl

In Nahuatl all pronouns and pronoun affixes are independent of gender.

[edit] Constructed languages

[edit] Esperanto

In common usage, the Esperanto pronouns ŝi, li, and ĝi correspond to English she, he, and it. Although the author, Zamenhof, recommended using ĝi in cases of unstated gender, this is done infrequently. The gender-neutral demonstrative pronoun tiu is commonly used instead (a usage that does not occur in English). Reformers have coined gender-neutral pronouns like ri or ŝli specifically for persons, and "riism" has in fact made some limited progress.

The major reform project Ido introduced a specifically gender-neutral pronoun, lu, which can mean he, she, and it (both animate and inanimate).

[edit] Novial

In Novial the third person pronoun le means he or she or it. There are also the gender specific pronouns lo, la and lu (he, she and it respectively). Each has a corresponding plural les, los, las and lus all translated as they in English.

[edit] Unmarked forms

Traditionally in all these languages the masculine form has been taken to be the unmarked form, that is the form to be used unless it is known to be inappropriate. This has dictated the masculine pronoun in cases such as:

  • reference to an indefinite person, for example "If anybody comes, tell him ..."
  • reference to a group containing men and women, for example French: Vos parents, sont-ils arrivés? ("Have your parents arrived?")

It is this property which has mostly led to the call for gender-neutral pronouns: the fact that the masculine form is used both for masculine referents, and also for those where the gender is unknown, irrelevant, or mixed.

[edit] Attempts at reform

For some languages there has been considerable effort in trying to provide for gender-neutral expression.

[edit] English

English grammar series

English grammar

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In English:

  • The gender-specific pronouns are the personal pronouns of the third-person singular: he/him/himself/his (for male persons or possessors), she/her/herself/hers (for female persons or possessors), and it/itself/its (for neither).
  • The third-person plural pronouns they, them, themselves, their, and theirs work equally well for either sex and are androgynous.

A speaker may not know or may want to avoid specifying a person's gender. Common solutions include singular they, generic he, generic she, one, generic you, circumlocutions such as he or she, using he and she in alternate passages, and rewording sentences to avoid pronouns. (See pronoun game.)

Traditionally, when one wishes to refer to a single definite person androgynously with a pronoun in the third person, the masculine pronoun is used. Some people have begun to challenge this tradition, however, usually by resorting to plural pronouns such as "they", "them" and "their" for singular uses. This is called the Singular they.

[edit] Gender-neutral pronouns used in older English

Historically, there were two gender neutral pronouns native to English dialects, "ou" and "a", but they have long since died out. According to Dennis Baron's Grammar and Gender:

In 1789, William H. Marshall records the existence of a dialectal English epicene pronoun, singular "ou" : "'Ou will' expresses either he will, she will, or it will." Marshall traces "ou" to Middle English epicene "a", used by the 14th century English writer John of Trevisa, and both the OED and Wright's English Dialect Dictionary confirm the use of "a" for he, she, it, they, and even I. This "a" is a reduced form of the Anglo-Saxon he = "he" and heo = "she". By the 12th and 13th centuries, these had often weakened to a point where, according to the OED, they were "almost or wholly indistinguishable in pronunciation." The modern feminine pronoun she, which first appears in the mid twelfth century, seems to have been drafted at least partly to reduce the increasing ambiguity of the pronoun system....

("she" may have come from old Norse.)

Baron goes on to describe how relics of these sex-neutral terms survive in some British dialects of Modern English, and sometimes a pronoun of one gender might be applied to a person or animal of the opposite gender. source

[edit] e, het, hets

Alternatively, some groups and individuals have started to use non-standard pronouns, for example e, het, and hets hoping they will become the standards. E would be used instead of he, she or it (as a subject), het would be used instead of him, her or it (as an object), and hets would be used instead of his, hers, or its. Other examples include

Example: E gave some of hets money to the child, who in turn gave het some lemonade.

E is pronounced just like the "e" sound in he and she, but het is pronounced with the same "e" sound as in wet so as not to confuse it with hit, heat, hurt, or hate.

[edit] A table of suggested forms

These are the 3rd-person singular personal pronouns in English: he, she, it, and singular they. Below them are paradigms of the best known neologisms, none of which are yet used commonly or sustainedly.
Nominative (subject) Accusative (object) Possessive Adjective Possessive Pronoun Reflexive
Male He laughed I hit him His face bled I am his He shaves himself
Female She laughed I hit her Her face bled I am hers She shaves herself
It It laughed I hit it Its face bled I am its It shaves itself
Singular they They laughed I hit them Their face bled I am theirs They shave themself/themselves
Spivak E laughed I hit em Eir face bled I am eirs E shaves emself
Spivak (alternative) Ey laughed I hit em Eir face bled I am eirs Ey shaves eirself
Sie and hir Sie laughed I hit hir Hir face bled I am hirs Sie shaves hirself
Xe Xe laughed I hit xem Xyr face bled I am xyrs Xe shaves xemself
Ve Ve laughed I hit ver Vis face bled I am vis Ve shaves verself
Ze Ze laughed I hit mer Zer face bled I am zer Ze shaves zemself
Ze (alternate) Ze laughed I hit hir Hir face bled I am hirs Ze shaves hirself
Zie Zie laughed I hit zir Zir face bled I am zirs Zie shaves zirself
Thon Thon laughed I hit thon Thons face bled I am thon's Thon shaves thonself

The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis is often interpreted by non-linguists to mean that people will be less sexist if they do not distinguish gender in pronouns or other aspects of speech. Some patriarchal societies that speak genderless languages, such as the Chinese, demonstrate that gendered speech is not a prerequisite for inequality to exist.

Gender-neutral pronouns
He | One | Singular they
Spivak | Ve | Xe | Ze | Sie/hir | Thon

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

is:Kynhlutlaust fornafn sv:Könsneutrala pronomen

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