1y ago

Pronouns in non-English Languages

I've been helping my 72 year old bilingual (Spanish) mother come to terms with one of her nieces having transitioned.

She's been remarkably progressive about it, but she did bring up some good questions that I didn't have answers for.

(I have my own set of annoyances for pronouns in English. Using a third person plural for single individuals has been leading to confusion, especially amongst my English L2 friends and family. But pronouns are some of the most conservative parts of speech in any language so I'm not going to tilt at that particular windmill. )

As a question for my LGBTQ+ kith, what have you been seeing/using as pronouns in different languages? Romantic languages are generally still heavily gendered, as are some Germanic. Does that interfere with non-binary language patterns? What about Turkish, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese, Arabic, etc?

Have there been any instances of novel pronouns created?

And, not to pry open old wounds, but has anybody noticed new slurs or other intentionally hurtful epithets?

The first question is an effort to answer questions that I hadn't even thought to ask. I'm actually pretty proud of the older generation making an effort to live in the modern world.

The rest is pure personal curiosity and possible conversation material.

Huge thank you to everybody taking time out of their day to answer.

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25 comments

I'm not a native speaker, but I've studied Japanese for more than a decade. There are no singular, non-gendered third person pronouns, so there is no equivalent of a singular they. Although there is an equivalent of a plural they, it's not completely gender neutral. The equivalent of him is kare, and the equivalent of her is kanojo. You can make them plural by ending "ra" on to the end of them. Kanojora is used only for groups of women/girls, and karera can be used for a group of men/boys, or a mixed-gender group. That makes the root meaning of karera male coded even if it's used in a gender neutral manner, so non-binary people might prefer not to use that.
This shouldn't however be a major issue for Japanese speakers, as first person pronouns are the only ones that are in frequent use. Unlike English, where you use pronouns to avoid repitition, you can completely omit them in Japanese, so instead of asking "Has Asami done her homework?" in English, you would ask "Has Asami done homework?" It's also preferable to use names instead of 2nd/3rd person pronouns. Instead of asking "How about you?", you'd ask "How about (person's name)?" It's probably much easier for a non-binary person to ask that no pronouns be used for them
- As you say, in casual conversation, the subject is often implied after its introduction. So after asking "How is Tomoko?" if you say, "Got yelled at by the boss again?", your listener would know that you would be asking about Tomoko's situation, without saying she get yelled at. In English it tends to default to you or I.

25 comments