Pronouns in other languages

[GingerPCatt]

I've been wondering if the changes in pronoun use and loss or definition change of the word woman is being pushed in languages other than English. Im terrible at languages, but I know many western European languages are very gendered (objects being masculine or feminine). Are they experiencing the same attacks on language as in English speaking countries?

I don't know - although following with interest- but related to this, I keep wondering why the non-specific pronouns are they/them, ie plural, when surely it would be more grammatically correct to use it, which is singular and neutral. English and German have masculine, feminine and neutral pronouns presumably for just such a purpose so I don't know why we're not using them in English.

I have seen 'iel' used on French twitter, which I think is much neater than 'they'.

@mintkoala

I have seen 'iel' used on French twitter, which I think is much neater than 'they'.

But how do they conjugate verbs and adjectives? They will still take either the masculine or feminine forms.

Some languages have third person plurals that come in male or female versions. So for example in Spanish, he is él, she is ella, and they is either ellos, ellas.
(A group containing equal numbers of men and women is ellos...)
But in Spanish you use pronouns less, the verb “hablan” can mean “they talk”, and that covers both male and females..

British Sign Language doesn’t have personal pronouns.

My friend is Spanish and an interpreter and was told at a conference that the gender of a speaker couldn't be assumed (and no one was asked to specify pronouns) so only gender neutral terms could be used. Except gramatically they don't exist, the interpreters were expected to make them up on the fly. E.g. 'I am ready' would be 'estoy lista/listo' for f/m but they couldn't use either term so as not to define the person's gender. She said it was crazy and no one could understand what was expected.

He, she, and it in spoken Mandarin all sound the same "ta". There wasn't even differentiation in writing between them until relatively recently in the history of the language.

But how do they conjugate verbs and adjectives? They will still take either the masculine or feminine forms.

There also seems to be a thing of making language more inclusive of the feminine, so adjectives or participles appear as for instance 'couche.e' to cover both couche and couchee. (I've had to leave the accents off here because I don't know how to do them.)

Also expressions such as 'Salut toutes et tous' for 'Hello everyone' where the feminine form is up front rather than disappearing into the masculine form as French traditionally does.

Have to stress this is just observation and I'd love a French person to come on and explain it!

@OneMoreForExtra

I don't know - although following with interest- but related to this, I keep wondering why the non-specific pronouns are they/them, ie plural, when surely it would be more grammatically correct to use it, which is singular and neutral. English and German have masculine, feminine and neutral pronouns presumably for just such a purpose so I don't know why we're not using them in English.

I don't know, but using 'they' as a neutral personal singular has been commonplace in English for centuries. The only thing that's new about it is individuals of known sex wanting it to be applied to them.

(That last sentence is itself a demonstration of its normal usage, come to think. 'Them' is better than defaulting to male or awkward him/her)

I wasn't quite right in what I just noted as I said 'individuals', but that sentence would read naturally if it had been 'an individual of known sex wanting it to be applied to themself'.

In German "they" would be "sie" same as the female pronoun "sie", the difference would be in the verb, so "they are" would be "sie sind", "she is" would be "sie ist". I am not sure how "they" would be translated in this context, though.
This is not to be mixed up with formal address of someone which is "Sie", used for both sexes. So when I'd be almost late for work my colleague would say "Sie sind aber spät dran" which would translate roughly into "You are a bit late today" (we were never on first name terms, so the formal address was used).
German is easy - no one ever said.

So interestingly anyone learning English might need to learn a whole set of bonkers rules ‘just in case’. God help my Farsi speaking relatives because there isn’t one!

You will all be relieved to learn that I have survived the many personal assaults and literal violence of being referred to as both he and she.

In Turkish the pronoun "O" refers to men, women, animals and things. You also have onun for his/her/its and ona for to him/her/it. Nouns are not gendered either.

There's an article here about the different languages and genders.

deepbaltic.com/2018/03/20/being-non-binary-in-a-language-without-gendered-pronouns-estonian/

I teach 3 European languages and I don't know the answer to this (because it's a fairly recent phenomenon and I haven't spent time in those countries for a long while)!

To me it already feels weird in English to use 'they' and a plural verb when referring to a specific person. But in French and Spanish, 'they' is either masculine or feminine, there is no neutral form. Plus of course most adjectives will be in a masculine or feminine form.

In languages, the masculine has traditionally been the 'default gender (no surprise there ). So if you have a mixed sex group you'd use the masculine 'they'. But that doesn't really help if you're trying to be gender neutral! I'm hoping a native Spanish or French speaker might turn up and give us an answer!

I teach a language at KS4&5 and I've already been approached by two students who feel strongly about they use of 'they' and wanted to alert me that that's what they were doing and not that they were unintentionally getting it wrong.

I explained that the grammatical construct of this language meant that they'd get marked incorrectly (past tense verb use in this language changes depending who you're talking about - so the ending of the verb determines who is being described IYSWIM.

They were adamant though and I think they feel that I wasn't seeing things from their point of view.

They felt that language should evolve with the times.

*the use of 'they'

They felt that language should evolve with the times.

Hmm. The thing is, language evolves, but you can't make language evolve the way you want it to!

I discovered recently in a similar conversation that in Hungarian there are no gendered pronouns at all. So nothing to change or indeed campaign for. I’m fascinated to learn how trans people cope there with not being able to force changed pronouns on others there, but I don’t know any Hungarians

[quote HPFA]In Turkish the pronoun "O" refers to men, women, animals and things. You also have onun for his/her/its and ona for to him/her/it. Nouns are not gendered either.

There's an article here about the different languages and genders.

deepbaltic.com/2018/03/20/being-non-binary-in-a-language-without-gendered-pronouns-estonian/[/quote]
Yup. And one irregular verb, one partially irregular noun and no relative pronouns at all. I've often thought Turkish should be the world language.

@lazylinguist 100% agree. I also gently said that the language rules don't exist to cause offence, but both pupil had that glazed, controlled insistence that the language needs to change with the times. I closed the conversation because I just felt something simmering beneath the surface and, at the back of my mind was "I haven't heard the last of this."

LittleEsme

I think I know the language you mean, and I have to say, I would be entertained to see them put their point to a couple of native speakers on how they wanted to change the language.

I'd prefer to watch from outside through a window though.

I’ve often thought about this because I live in Japan and Japanese is much less dependent on pronouns than English. In fact, you can get by without using pronouns at all. Instead of he/she, you just refer to someone by their name. Titles are also unisex - no Ms/Mr, etc, just San or Sama to show respect.

“You” and “me/I” can be gendered but there are neutral versions too. Everything is much easier in Japanese!

@BuffaloCauliflower

I discovered recently in a similar conversation that in Hungarian there are no gendered pronouns at all. So nothing to change or indeed campaign for. I’m fascinated to learn how trans people cope there with not being able to force changed pronouns on others there, but I don’t know any Hungarians

The same is true of Finnish. Supposedly some Finnish nonbinaries put English 'they' pronouns in their emails. I am not sure what else being nonbinary might entail as to me it sounds the way most people actually are, so yes, I wonder what they do instead of the push for pronouns.

Really interesting. Thank you. I'll also curious how transpeople in Hungary deal with the lack of pronouns. Or maybe it's just not a big deal there...
I also wonder if other languages are being pushed to erase or change the definition of woman. Do other countries have heath campaigns for people with cervixes or people who menstrate?