What happens with they / them pronouns in France / French language?

[Lessofallthisunpleasantness]

They don't really have them do they? It was mentioned briefly on a radio program today in the context of the new Primeminister in France who is female and they were discussing whether she would be described in the feminine per her sex (which I think she is) or the masculine, per the descriptor of the word Prime MInister and as a female Prime Minister in France had been in the past. Or something like that. They said that all vocations had a masculine and feminine version and no middle or non gender version. So what do they do? I wonder. Anyone know?

This is nothing to do with pronouns, it's about gendered nouns, so like the actor/actress debate in English. Or to be more precise - in this case the masculine and feminine forms of the noun actually are the same, so gender is only denoted by the article and it's about which form of the article to use. It's actually a longstanding debate in the case of ministers, you could have madame le ministre or madame la ministre (and quite a few female ministers have preferred the former). Premier ministre of course is just the compound noun so same discussion.

To add, there was a similar if very short-lived debate in Germany after the election of Angela Merkel as the first female chancellor. In the event she used the feminine gendered title Bundeskanzlerin. Led to all kinds of jokes on her succession- faux naive questions on whether a man could be Bundeskanzlerin. Of course that would never have happened with the ostensibly neutral "generically masculine" form of the title.

The best thing English ever did was lose linguistic gender. Or maybe case endings.

That's a good question. French only has 'ils / elles' for 'they' so there is no gender neutral third-person plural. German at least has 'sie' which works for both male and female 'they' (although confusingly that is the same as the singular third person female pronoun equivalent to 'she').

I know in German, plural nouns are also gendered and used to use the plural male noun for both male and female until equality advocates suggested changing this around the 1990s so now there is a gender neutral form of the plural noun.

For example:
A male student = 'ein Student'
A female student = 'eine Studentin'
Students = 'Studenten' (now only means the male plural but used to be all students, male and female)
Female students = Studentinnen
Students (inclusive term) = 'StudentInnen' (with an upper case 'I' in the middle)

Languages can always change and adapt but I'm so sure how things are in France as the Academie Française frowns on neologisms and imported loan words.

'studenten& studentinnen' have been replaced with 'studierende' to avoid this issue in german.

from twitter profiles it seems that english pronouns are used.

There's some use of the neologism "iel" as a gender-neutral pronoun (and plenty of others), but this doesn't enable gender neutral language on its own because the rest of the sentence still has to be gendered, e.g. one has to choose between ‘iel est content’ (masculine) or ‘iel est contente’ (feminine). In written French, it's possible to cover both bases e.g.‘ iel est content·e’. Of course that doesn't work in spoken French.

As you would expect, l'Académie Française is not in favour.

theconversation.com/inclusivity-putting-french-language-in-mortal-danger-claims-lacademie-francaise-87408

That's a good question. French only has 'ils / elles' for 'they' so there is no gender neutral third-person plural.

I was taught that the default is 'ils' if you don't know or are talking about a mixed gender group.

Apologies, that first para above was quoting @HeirloomTomato

Slightly off topic, but in Swedish they have the same as english: he/him, she/her and they/them. These could easily be used as we do in the whole pronoun debate (ie replacing he/she with they).

But they took a different route and actually invented a new word for the non-identified gender of person. So instead of hon (she) or han (he), hen is used (note that it not "neutral" - that is det (it)). It has been taken up in the media and people use it with no fuss (very Swedish - just get on with things!).

I believe there are multiple pronoun options - all a nightmare for me because they include too many consecutive vowels!

And l'Académie Française has forbidden their use in schools saying it's too complicated (and not French!).

The best example of the articles le/la not being male or female is that it is "le vagin" and "la vulve".

This is an interesting article about it, including the problem of what to call a female French president (not la Presidente..).

frenchly.us/can-french-ever-be-truly-gender-neutral/

I see 'iel' quite a lot on Twitter. I think it's much neater and less confusing than 'they'.

Not sure whether it is used just for non-binaries or also gender neutral and whether that matters.

But they took a different route and actually invented a new word for the non-identified gender of person. So instead of hon (she) or han (he), hen is used (note that it not "neutral" - that is det (it)). It has been taken up in the media and people use it with no fuss (very Swedish - just get on with things!).

They had it easy though - an ungendered language, and they could follow the lead of their superior Finnish neighbours.

But pity the poor Finnish gender-specials. Finnish only has the neutral "hän" (he/she), or "se" (it). ("Se" is actually used more for people than "hän" in common speech in most dialects.)

How is a non-binary supposed to signal their non-binariness when everyone is using gender-neutral pronouns?

Or, indeed, how is a trans person supposed to indicate their opposite-genderedness? Complaints of "misgendering" due to lack of gendered pronouns occur. English speakers can pick up that someone is supposed to be a "transwoman" by people using "she" about them, but I can imagine there's more scope for transness going unnoticed in the absence of people dropping pronoun hints.

Apparently it's not uncommon for gender-special Finns to list their English pronouns. LOL. It's the only way they can try to make pronouns a thing.

And they have to try to make it a thing because it's one of the rituals of the group belief system, even in a context where it makes no sense whatsoever.

their superior Finnish neighbours

Finnish i assume? 😉

Very interesting to learn about pronouns in the finnish language.

Icelanders though have it lucky - I assume they change their surnames from eg Magnussen to Magnusdottir with much trumpeting!

I wonder if children of Icelandic transitioners might be asked to change name though? If Magnus isn't Magnus anymore can the son still be Magnusson?

Ain't that the truth.

I'm haunted by the hours I spent on case conjugation tables in Sweet's Anglo-Saxon Primer!