Is there a language in existence that has gender-neutral Pronouns?
December 11, 2014 12:30 PM Subscribe
In English it is grammatically incorrect to be gender neutral. When speaking of an entity you must speak of them either in terms of female or male. It seems that most languages are like this.
If you are speaking of a doctor whos sex you don't know you can't say: "The doctor took their book with them." You have to use HIS and HIM even if you don't know the doctor's sex.
Reading up on ancient religions it's clear some cultures have Gods and Demons that are neither male nor female. They are just gender free Gods, but even in their languages these entities seem to be referred to as a "he" despite the fact that they are not male. Sometimes they use the word "it" as I suppose that is the closest english equivalent to genderlessness, but "it" downgrades the entity to a thing rather than a being. I'd like to know- Is there a language in which a sentence like the following can be translated:
"....and then he took up his mighty hand and projected himself onto the world."
into a way that makes it clear the person or entity being spoken of is neither male nor female?
If you are speaking of a doctor whos sex you don't know you can't say: "The doctor took their book with them." You have to use HIS and HIM even if you don't know the doctor's sex.
Reading up on ancient religions it's clear some cultures have Gods and Demons that are neither male nor female. They are just gender free Gods, but even in their languages these entities seem to be referred to as a "he" despite the fact that they are not male. Sometimes they use the word "it" as I suppose that is the closest english equivalent to genderlessness, but "it" downgrades the entity to a thing rather than a being. I'd like to know- Is there a language in which a sentence like the following can be translated:
"....and then he took up his mighty hand and projected himself onto the world."
into a way that makes it clear the person or entity being spoken of is neither male nor female?
If you just mean a language that has pronouns not marked by grammatical or natural gender, there are plenty (e.g. Persian).
Also, it might also be worth noting that your opening statement ("In English it is grammatically incorrect to be gender neutral") wasn't the case in the past and is increasingly untrue now (see Singular They).
posted by Paragon at 12:42 PM on December 11, 2014 [24 favorites]
Also, it might also be worth noting that your opening statement ("In English it is grammatically incorrect to be gender neutral") wasn't the case in the past and is increasingly untrue now (see Singular They).
posted by Paragon at 12:42 PM on December 11, 2014 [24 favorites]
This Wikipedia article may interest you. There are many, many languages (Chinese, Malay/Indonesian, Turkish, to name some big ones) where the pronouns are all gender-neutral by default.
posted by theodolite at 12:42 PM on December 11, 2014 [2 favorites]
posted by theodolite at 12:42 PM on December 11, 2014 [2 favorites]
Do you want to specify genderlessness, or just avoid specifying gender?
Many languages don't specify gender -- e.g. in Finnish, hän is used wherever English would use 'he' or 'she'. You can't use it to refer to things, only to refer to beings (to use your terminology).
posted by feral_goldfish at 12:43 PM on December 11, 2014 [3 favorites]
Many languages don't specify gender -- e.g. in Finnish, hän is used wherever English would use 'he' or 'she'. You can't use it to refer to things, only to refer to beings (to use your terminology).
posted by feral_goldfish at 12:43 PM on December 11, 2014 [3 favorites]
You could write that sentence in Japanese without using gendered pronouns or making the subject's gender clear in any way. That's partially because Japanese grammar is very different and "he/him" and "she/her" are rarely used, the way of showing possessiveness is gender-neutral, etc. (not going to try to explain in any more detail because I will mess it up!)
posted by chocotaco at 12:44 PM on December 11, 2014 [1 favorite]
posted by chocotaco at 12:44 PM on December 11, 2014 [1 favorite]
Another thing to consider with ancient texts is the gender biases in the translators themselves, and in those whom the text passed down through time.
posted by nickggully at 12:45 PM on December 11, 2014 [2 favorites]
posted by nickggully at 12:45 PM on December 11, 2014 [2 favorites]
More Wikipedia—List of languages by type of grammatical genders#No grammatical gender
posted by XMLicious at 12:47 PM on December 11, 2014 [1 favorite]
posted by XMLicious at 12:47 PM on December 11, 2014 [1 favorite]
In Chinese, the gender pronouns he, she, and it are written differently but all pronounced the same way. (There is also a way to write female-singular-you, although that's mostly no longer used.) So when you are speaking, people are often referred to by name, title, or relation to speaker or audience, rather than simply by using a pronoun. So it's very normal to say "the teacher... the teacher..." and so forth, without actually saying the gender of the teacher.
posted by ethidda at 12:48 PM on December 11, 2014
posted by ethidda at 12:48 PM on December 11, 2014
It's not grammatically incorrect. Singular they is accepted even by prescriptive grammarians, except for the most conservative.
If you want a pronoun that denotes neutral gender, rather than leaving gender unspecified, we don't have any yet in colloquial use. Some people are trying to introduce them, though. They've been in use by intersexed people for quite some time, and more popularly by trans* people lately, but there's no consensus yet on any one pronoun.
posted by tel3path at 12:48 PM on December 11, 2014 [16 favorites]
If you want a pronoun that denotes neutral gender, rather than leaving gender unspecified, we don't have any yet in colloquial use. Some people are trying to introduce them, though. They've been in use by intersexed people for quite some time, and more popularly by trans* people lately, but there's no consensus yet on any one pronoun.
posted by tel3path at 12:48 PM on December 11, 2014 [16 favorites]
XMLicious: That link is about grammatical gender, where nouns have inherent gender. (In French, "le" vs "la". In Spanish, "el" vs "la". It doesn't have anything to do with referring to a person by a gendered pronoun.)
posted by ethidda at 12:49 PM on December 11, 2014
posted by ethidda at 12:49 PM on December 11, 2014
Except in the context of the article that theodolite linked to, gender neutrality in genderless languages.
posted by XMLicious at 12:51 PM on December 11, 2014 [1 favorite]
posted by XMLicious at 12:51 PM on December 11, 2014 [1 favorite]
There's no "he" or "she" in Tagalog.
posted by humboldt32 at 12:54 PM on December 11, 2014
posted by humboldt32 at 12:54 PM on December 11, 2014
Hungarian has no grammatical gender, and the third person singular personal pronoun (ő) is not gender-marked at all.
(Some languages without grammatical gender do have gender-marked pronouns, most conspicuously English)
It's worth noting that the lack of gendered pronouns can make teasing out antecedents a bit more difficult; e.g. "John gave Mary the book, and then she explained the plot to him" is very difficult to translate properly into a genderless-pronoun context. Of course, an analogous sentence with two participants of the same gender has the same problem.
posted by jackbishop at 12:55 PM on December 11, 2014 [2 favorites]
(Some languages without grammatical gender do have gender-marked pronouns, most conspicuously English)
It's worth noting that the lack of gendered pronouns can make teasing out antecedents a bit more difficult; e.g. "John gave Mary the book, and then she explained the plot to him" is very difficult to translate properly into a genderless-pronoun context. Of course, an analogous sentence with two participants of the same gender has the same problem.
posted by jackbishop at 12:55 PM on December 11, 2014 [2 favorites]
If you are speaking of a doctor whos sex you don't know you can't say: "The doctor took their book with them."The doctor took their book with them."
As others have noted, the singular they is a thing, so you totally can! I do it ALL THE TIME.
posted by pullayup at 12:55 PM on December 11, 2014 [5 favorites]
As others have noted, the singular they is a thing, so you totally can! I do it ALL THE TIME.
posted by pullayup at 12:55 PM on December 11, 2014 [5 favorites]
Response by poster: That's a good question. I suppose I'll take either/or examples actually. Just so long as it's not somehow implied that the entity has a specific gender. I would prefer something that implies genderlessness, but if that doesn't exist I will take those that simply avoid specifying gender.
I have an old picture of a God in front of me that is I think is an old Indo-European one, I'm not sure yet, but I was curious to know what language would be best to communicate the idea that
"She/He/It sunk his/her/its teeth and ejected venom from himself/herself/itself to retrieve the pearl that belonged to him/her/it."
posted by rancher at 12:55 PM on December 11, 2014 [1 favorite]
I have an old picture of a God in front of me that is I think is an old Indo-European one, I'm not sure yet, but I was curious to know what language would be best to communicate the idea that
"She/He/It sunk his/her/its teeth and ejected venom from himself/herself/itself to retrieve the pearl that belonged to him/her/it."
posted by rancher at 12:55 PM on December 11, 2014 [1 favorite]
I think English "it" is actually close to what you want. If I read of a demon that "it sunk its teeth and ejected its venom to retrieve its pearl" I'd take a strong hint that it's gender was either unknowable or nonexistent. Especially if the demon was not just some beast briefly encountered but a major character in a story who was consistently referred to as "it."
The problem with languages that routinely make no distinction of gender in their pronouns is that there would be no implication of genderlessness in their references to the demon. It might be the most decidedly masculine demon imaginable and they might want you to have that clearly fixed in your mind as you read the story but they're still going to refer to it by that label.
posted by yoink at 1:02 PM on December 11, 2014 [1 favorite]
The problem with languages that routinely make no distinction of gender in their pronouns is that there would be no implication of genderlessness in their references to the demon. It might be the most decidedly masculine demon imaginable and they might want you to have that clearly fixed in your mind as you read the story but they're still going to refer to it by that label.
posted by yoink at 1:02 PM on December 11, 2014 [1 favorite]
Both Russian and German (and I'm sure there are more) have three genders - masculine, feminine, and neuter. Although I have no idea if it's been done, I don't see why you can't use the neuter pronoun to refer to people. Maybe it sounds weird.
posted by microcarpetus at 1:09 PM on December 11, 2014 [1 favorite]
posted by microcarpetus at 1:09 PM on December 11, 2014 [1 favorite]
"Id" sunk their teeth and ejected venom from themself to retrieve the pearl that belonged to them
Sounds completely normal to me. ("Id" was the name I gave your god/demon because you hadn't). Singular they works very well for me in professional and personal contexts for a long, long time. I think it may be a cultural thing, this gender-free language is mirrored back to me and gendered language is *immediately* called out. My children also automatically use gender-free language because to them, that is the norm.
posted by saucysault at 1:13 PM on December 11, 2014 [1 favorite]
Sounds completely normal to me. ("Id" was the name I gave your god/demon because you hadn't). Singular they works very well for me in professional and personal contexts for a long, long time. I think it may be a cultural thing, this gender-free language is mirrored back to me and gendered language is *immediately* called out. My children also automatically use gender-free language because to them, that is the norm.
posted by saucysault at 1:13 PM on December 11, 2014 [1 favorite]
WALS (World Atlas of Language Structure) has a section on gender in pronouns. The information in the Atlas is a bit coarse and there are some issues with some of the data, but even so, 254 languages in their database make no gender distinctions in pronouns at all. That's over twice as many as languages that do. Here's a map- just look at all that white!
posted by damayanti at 1:45 PM on December 11, 2014
posted by damayanti at 1:45 PM on December 11, 2014
Do you want "it" in the sense of ungendered, or in the sense of inanimate? Because some languages (used to) separate by animate/inanimate, and if you include noun classes within genders (not uncommon), then it's quite common.
Also I will point out that "The doctor took their bag with them" is generally considered grammatical in colloquial English and some formal contexts.
posted by jeather at 2:05 PM on December 11, 2014 [2 favorites]
Also I will point out that "The doctor took their bag with them" is generally considered grammatical in colloquial English and some formal contexts.
posted by jeather at 2:05 PM on December 11, 2014 [2 favorites]
Yes, given that your claims of the 1st and 2nd paragraphs about English are completely wrong, I can name one such language: English.
One hates to be obvious in one's examples, but ascribing gender is hardly necessary.
posted by IAmBroom at 2:13 PM on December 11, 2014 [3 favorites]
One hates to be obvious in one's examples, but ascribing gender is hardly necessary.
posted by IAmBroom at 2:13 PM on December 11, 2014 [3 favorites]
Akan languages of Ghana don't have gendered pronouns.
posted by ramix at 2:27 PM on December 11, 2014
posted by ramix at 2:27 PM on December 11, 2014
Gender isn't the same as Sex when it comes to languages.
Microcarpetus, German is an interesting case. Grammatically, if you add the diminuitives -chen or -lein to any noun, it become neuter. You use das as an article and es ("it") as a pronoun to refer to it.
Which leads to the strange cases of mädchen and fraulein, both of which are used to describe attractive young women. (They're derived from mädel and frau.) Technically if you describe a gorgeous babe as a Fraulein you should thereafter refer to her as "it". (But I don't think anyone does.)
Language gender in most languages is a form of error checking, not literally a reference to sex. A lot of things have gender which don't have sexes, and you use (in German) er, sie, or es as pronouns (and der, die, or das as articles) when referring to them to reduce ambiguity. English sloughed off that part of the Germanic languages for the most part, and in English gender really does mostly map to sex, which is unusual. (But we still sometimes refer to ships as "she".)
Latin had three genders but Vulgar Latin reduced that to two by eliminating the neuter gender, so all the modern Romance languages (which evolved from Vulgar Latin) now have two genders, and no neuter case. Which means that everything has a gender even when it obviously has no sex.
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 2:52 PM on December 11, 2014 [1 favorite]
Microcarpetus, German is an interesting case. Grammatically, if you add the diminuitives -chen or -lein to any noun, it become neuter. You use das as an article and es ("it") as a pronoun to refer to it.
Which leads to the strange cases of mädchen and fraulein, both of which are used to describe attractive young women. (They're derived from mädel and frau.) Technically if you describe a gorgeous babe as a Fraulein you should thereafter refer to her as "it". (But I don't think anyone does.)
Language gender in most languages is a form of error checking, not literally a reference to sex. A lot of things have gender which don't have sexes, and you use (in German) er, sie, or es as pronouns (and der, die, or das as articles) when referring to them to reduce ambiguity. English sloughed off that part of the Germanic languages for the most part, and in English gender really does mostly map to sex, which is unusual. (But we still sometimes refer to ships as "she".)
Latin had three genders but Vulgar Latin reduced that to two by eliminating the neuter gender, so all the modern Romance languages (which evolved from Vulgar Latin) now have two genders, and no neuter case. Which means that everything has a gender even when it obviously has no sex.
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 2:52 PM on December 11, 2014 [1 favorite]
Estonian has only one third person singular pronoun, which is genderless and used for he, she, and it (tema, often shortened to ta).
It's related to Finnish and (more distantly) Hungarian, both mentioned above.
And another vote from me for the genderless their being quite normal English usage. "Whoever was just sitting here left their gloves behind," is much more normal and correct to my ear than "...left his or her gloves behind."
posted by penguin pie at 3:11 PM on December 11, 2014 [1 favorite]
It's related to Finnish and (more distantly) Hungarian, both mentioned above.
And another vote from me for the genderless their being quite normal English usage. "Whoever was just sitting here left their gloves behind," is much more normal and correct to my ear than "...left his or her gloves behind."
posted by penguin pie at 3:11 PM on December 11, 2014 [1 favorite]
Not only does Estonian not have gendered pronouns, it doesn't have the future tense either. Hence the saying: "Estonians: no sex, no future."
:'(
posted by Pyrogenesis at 3:13 PM on December 11, 2014 [6 favorites]
:'(
posted by Pyrogenesis at 3:13 PM on December 11, 2014 [6 favorites]
There are a number of proposed gender-neutral pronouns in English which you might like better if you find the singular "they" awkward.
posted by lisp witch at 5:22 PM on December 11, 2014
posted by lisp witch at 5:22 PM on December 11, 2014
Pronouns in American Sign Language are inherently gender-neutral since they only involve pointing to a loci to reference someone or something.
posted by Conspire at 5:47 PM on December 11, 2014
posted by Conspire at 5:47 PM on December 11, 2014
Response by poster: I know that many people now use the singular they, -I use it myself in everyday speech and online- but grammar conservatives still consider the singular "they" as incorrect. When I was in school and even in college 10 years ago all the teachers would count that as an error.
"On the one hand, it is unacceptable to a great many reasonable readers to use the generic masculine pronoun (he) in reference to no one in particular. On the other hand, it is unacceptable to a great many readers either to resort to nontraditional gimmicks to avoid the generic masculine (by using he/she or s/he, for example) or to use they as a kind of singular pronoun. Either way, credibility is lost with some readers.[2]
With the 14th edition (1993), the Manual briefly revised its neutral stance to actually recommend "singular use of they and their", noting a "revival" of this usage and citing "its venerable use by such writers as Addison, Austen, Chesterfield, Fielding, Ruskin, Scott, and Shakespeare."[3] However, regret regarding that printing is expressed at their website; and with the current 15th edition (2003), they have returned to their original neutral position.[4]"
-Source: Princeton University archive
So it seems that there is debate as to whether this usage is acceptable or not. I suppose I was hoping to find a singular usage somewhere in a language where such usage would not be debatable. A single usage out there that specifically implied genderlessness as in- No gender. Seeing as how several cultures seemed to have gods with no gender I thought there might be words that referred to that. But from what I gather, I should instead look into the various examples given of languages that would simply avoid specifying gender. Based on the responses there seem to be quite a few for me to look into.
posted by rancher at 6:52 PM on December 11, 2014
"On the one hand, it is unacceptable to a great many reasonable readers to use the generic masculine pronoun (he) in reference to no one in particular. On the other hand, it is unacceptable to a great many readers either to resort to nontraditional gimmicks to avoid the generic masculine (by using he/she or s/he, for example) or to use they as a kind of singular pronoun. Either way, credibility is lost with some readers.[2]
With the 14th edition (1993), the Manual briefly revised its neutral stance to actually recommend "singular use of they and their", noting a "revival" of this usage and citing "its venerable use by such writers as Addison, Austen, Chesterfield, Fielding, Ruskin, Scott, and Shakespeare."[3] However, regret regarding that printing is expressed at their website; and with the current 15th edition (2003), they have returned to their original neutral position.[4]"
-Source: Princeton University archive
So it seems that there is debate as to whether this usage is acceptable or not. I suppose I was hoping to find a singular usage somewhere in a language where such usage would not be debatable. A single usage out there that specifically implied genderlessness as in- No gender. Seeing as how several cultures seemed to have gods with no gender I thought there might be words that referred to that. But from what I gather, I should instead look into the various examples given of languages that would simply avoid specifying gender. Based on the responses there seem to be quite a few for me to look into.
posted by rancher at 6:52 PM on December 11, 2014
"I suppose I was hoping to find a singular usage somewhere in a language where such usage would not be debatable."
this might be less of a theoretical issue than you think it is! i have a coworker who uses singular they*. using he or she pronouns for them wouldnt be up for debate, it would just be wrong.
*they're agender, and they've actually mentioned how it sucks that there isn't a better thing than singular they to imply genderlessness.
posted by thug unicorn at 7:43 PM on December 11, 2014 [1 favorite]
this might be less of a theoretical issue than you think it is! i have a coworker who uses singular they*. using he or she pronouns for them wouldnt be up for debate, it would just be wrong.
*they're agender, and they've actually mentioned how it sucks that there isn't a better thing than singular they to imply genderlessness.
posted by thug unicorn at 7:43 PM on December 11, 2014 [1 favorite]
I don't speak Cree, but Tomson Highway does -- here's a video of him claiming that Cree doesn't have gender pronouns ("we are all he/shes"). He also talks about the problem of the male-gendered God in European languages.
posted by monkeymonkey at 7:44 PM on December 11, 2014 [2 favorites]
posted by monkeymonkey at 7:44 PM on December 11, 2014 [2 favorites]
Swedish has hen, officially since July this year (according to Wikipedia). It used to be very political, but is getting more and more mainstream. Very exciting!
posted by yonglin at 8:00 PM on December 11, 2014 [3 favorites]
posted by yonglin at 8:00 PM on December 11, 2014 [3 favorites]
You could write that sentence in Japanese without using gendered pronouns or making the subject's gender clear in any way. That's partially because Japanese grammar is very different and "he/him" and "she/her" are rarely used, the way of showing possessiveness is gender-neutral, etc.
I believe it would be written something like:
お医者さんは本を持っていきました。
O-isha-san wa hon wo motte ikimashita.
(Honorific)-doctor-(polite) regarding book obj. carry away.
Japanese also uses often uses "ano hito/ ano kata" (literally, that person) in places where we use "he" or "she" in English. Both terms serve the function of pronouns and are gender neutral, but kata is more polite. You can add, ano otoko no hito or ano onna no hito if you need to specify gender.
There's also jibun, which is an all-purpose reflexive pronoun. So you could insert it into the above sentence (O-isha-san wa jibun no hon wo motte ikimashita) to make it crystal clear that the doctor is taking away his own book, and not someone else's.
Japanese does have the gender-specific pronouns kare (he/him) and kanojo (she/her), but my understanding is that it's possible to completely refrain from their use without being ungrammatical or even sounding forced in the way that English tends to sound forced if you try to rely only on singular "they" or the gender-avoidance phrase "my friend." This is the source of occasional conflict in Japanese romantic comedies where for example a guy assumes his crush is talking about spending all night with her lover but she was talking about her besty all along, haha.
posted by xigxag at 8:04 AM on December 12, 2014 [1 favorite]
I believe it would be written something like:
お医者さんは本を持っていきました。
O-isha-san wa hon wo motte ikimashita.
(Honorific)-doctor-(polite) regarding book obj. carry away.
Japanese also uses often uses "ano hito/ ano kata" (literally, that person) in places where we use "he" or "she" in English. Both terms serve the function of pronouns and are gender neutral, but kata is more polite. You can add, ano otoko no hito or ano onna no hito if you need to specify gender.
There's also jibun, which is an all-purpose reflexive pronoun. So you could insert it into the above sentence (O-isha-san wa jibun no hon wo motte ikimashita) to make it crystal clear that the doctor is taking away his own book, and not someone else's.
Japanese does have the gender-specific pronouns kare (he/him) and kanojo (she/her), but my understanding is that it's possible to completely refrain from their use without being ungrammatical or even sounding forced in the way that English tends to sound forced if you try to rely only on singular "they" or the gender-avoidance phrase "my friend." This is the source of occasional conflict in Japanese romantic comedies where for example a guy assumes his crush is talking about spending all night with her lover but she was talking about her besty all along, haha.
posted by xigxag at 8:04 AM on December 12, 2014 [1 favorite]
Seeing as how several cultures seemed to have gods with no gender I thought there might be words that referred to that.
So ... the obvious question: in what languages do these cultures talk about their gods?
posted by feral_goldfish at 7:49 PM on December 13, 2014
So ... the obvious question: in what languages do these cultures talk about their gods?
posted by feral_goldfish at 7:49 PM on December 13, 2014
This thread is closed to new comments.
So, just to be clear, you're not looking for "gender neutral" pronouns (like "on" in French, for example). You're looking for pronouns that specifically mark the person being described as non-gendered. That is, you don't want a pronoun which leaves it unclear whether the god/demon is male or female. You want a pronoun that makes it clear that the god/demon is neither male nor female. Correct?
posted by yoink at 12:33 PM on December 11, 2014 [6 favorites]