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In some languages — notably most Indo-European, Afro-Asiatic and Niger-Congo languages — some or all 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. Most such languages only distinguish gender in the third person. Outside the Afro-Asiatic family (where it is normal to have gender distinctions in at least the second person, as in Arabic and Hausa) there are only a handful of languages with gender distinctions in other persons. Since at least 1795[2], some people have felt this requirement to be unsatisfactory (see Gender-neutral language) and there have been attempts to devise sets of pronouns which do not require the speaker to make the distinction, since sometime around 1850.[3] These are what is usually meant by gender-neutral pronouns. The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis is often interpreted to mean that people will be less sexist if they do not distinguish gender in pronouns or other aspects of speech. Patriarchal societies with genderless languages, such as the Chinese, demonstrate that gendered pronouns are not a prerequisite for inequality to exist.
English
A speaker may not know or may want to avoid specifying a person's gender. 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'. Other common solutions include the generic 'she', 'one', the generic 'you', circumlocutions such as 'he or she', or using 'he' and 'she' in alternate passages, and rewording sentences to avoid pronouns. (See pronoun game.) Gender-neutral pronouns used in ancient EnglishHistorically, 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.... [4] 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. NeologismsSome groups and individuals have used non-standard pronouns, hoping they will become the standards. Various proposals for such changes have been around since at least the 19th century. The American Heritage Book of English Usage says of these efforts: Like most efforts at language reform, these well-intended suggestions have been largely ignored by the general English-speaking public, and the project to supplement the English pronoun system has proved to be an ongoing exercise in futility. Pronouns are one of the most basic components of a language, and most speakers appear to have little interest in adopting invented ones. This may be because in most situations people can get by using the plural pronoun they or using other constructions that combine existing pronouns, such as he/she or he or she.[5] Here are the third person singular personal pronouns in English: 'he', 'she', 'it', and singular 'they'. Below them are examples of the better known neologisms.
Languages with gender-neutral pronounsChineseIn 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. GeorgianGeorgian, a South Caucasian language, has gender-neutral pronouns. IcelandicIcelandic uses a similar system to other Germanic languages in distinguishing three 3rd-person genders in the singular - hann (masculine gender), hún (feminine gender), það (neuter gender). However it also uses this three-way distinction in the plural: þeir (m. only), þær (f. only), þau (n., which includes 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-inclusiveness. 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. JapaneseWritten 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 (あの人, 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. KoreanBefore modernization, in Korean 그 (geu) meant 'he', 'she', and 'it' like Chinese tā.[citation needed] 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'.[citation needed] Sometimes geu-nyeo means more than 'she' as pronoun, because the word geu is also used to show definiteness, like the article 'the' in English. So, geu-nyeo means 'the woman' or 'a specific woman'. And it can also mean 'girlfriend', like the Japanese word kanojo (彼女). NahuatlIn Nahuatl all pronouns and pronoun affixes are independent of gender. PersianThe Persian language has no trace of grammatical gender: 'he',' she', and 'it' are all expressed by the same pronoun u. This lack of specification has allowed for fluidity in reading the gender of both human lovers and the divine beloved in Persian poetry. TurkishAll Turkish pronouns, like the other members in the family of Turkic languages, are gender-inclusive. The English pronouns 'he', 'she', and 'it' all correspond to the only Turkish third-person singular personal pronoun o. Auxiliary languages
Interlingua has both gender-specific and gender-neutral pronouns. All first and second-person pronouns are gender neutral, as are several third-person pronouns such as su ('his', 'her', 'its'), and se (himself, herself, itself, themselves). Ille, illa, and illo correspond to English 'he', 'she', and 'it', although ille can also be used as a general term. The three pronouns have plurals that are formed by adding -s. Interlingua is one of two major auxiliary languages that are not constructed but are considered to be reflections of a pre-existing reality. The other is Latino sine Flexione. Occidental is sometimes placed in this group as well. Of the three languages, only Interlingua is widely spoken today. Constructed languages
EsperantoIn common usage, the Esperanto pronouns ŝi, li, and ĝi correspond to English 'she', 'he', and 'it'. Although its creator Zamenhof recommended using ĝi in cases of unstated gender, this is done infrequently. The gender-inclusive demonstrative pronoun tiu is commonly used instead (a usage that does not occur in English). Reformers have coined gender-inclusive 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-inclusive pronoun, lu, which can mean 'he', 'she', and 'it' (both animate and inanimate). LojbanIn Lojban, all "pronouns" (of grammatical class KOhA) are all gender-inclusive. The closest equivalent of 'he' and 'she' are ti, ta and tu, which are equivalent to 'this' and 'that', and ri, ra and ru, which are equivalent with 'the latter', 'the former', and 'something I mentioned earlier'. A quite heavy way to obtain a gender-specific "pronoun" would be saying ti poi nanmu (this, which is a man) and ti poi ninmu (this, which is a female). NovialIn 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. Languages with non-gender-neutral pronounsIn 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-inclusive pronouns, since the gender-specific ones do not have inclusive alternatives. Indo-European LanguagesIn most Indo-European languages (though not in the modern Indo-Iranian languages, which are the largest branch of this family), third-person pronouns are gender-specific, while first and second person pronouns are not. For example, in French,
are all gender-inclusive; but
In some languages (including most modern Germanic languages) this distinction is neutralised in the plural: English and Modern Russian both have gender-inclusive forms for the third person plural pronouns: 'they'/'them' and они (oni). Note that there may be gender-specific pronouns even in languages where grammatical gender has otherwise been largely lost or reduced, such as Danish, which continues to distinguish gender in third person singular pronouns, even though it no longer distinguishes masculine and feminine nouns grammatically. Where a language has grammatical gender, like French, gendered pronouns are used according to the grammatical gender of their antecedent, as il ('he') for le livre ('the book' - masculine). Afro-Asiatic languagesIn most Afro-Asiatic languages only the first-person pronouns (singular and plural) are gender-inclusive: second and third person pronouns are gender-specific. In Hebrew, all persons are gender-specific, as are even plural pronouns. ThaiIn Thai, second and third person pronouns are gender-inclusive, 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. 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:
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. *In some dialects of modern English, 'they' is used in the singular when gender is unknown or irrelevant, rather than 'he'/'him'. Attempts at reformFor some languages there has been considerable effort in trying to provide for gender-neutral expression. NorwegianIn Norwegian a new word is proposed, hin ('sie' or 'hir') to fill the gap between the third person pronouns hun ('her') and han ('him'). Hin is used, but in limited groups; it is not yet embraced by society as a whole. One can also use man or en or den (en means 'one'). These three are considered impersonal. SwedishIn 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-inclusive 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. However, large parts of the Swedish GLBT community consider this a derogatory term, since it implies that the person referred to is linguistically equated with a lifeless thing. Instead the terms hen and henom is preferred if one wants to refer to someone without a definite placement inside the binary system of masculine and feminine. Notes
See also
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