Gender neutrality in languages with gendered third-person pronouns
A third-person pronoun is a pronoun that refers to an entity other than the speaker or listener. Some languages, such as Slavic, with gender-specific pronouns have them as part of a grammatical gender system, a system of agreement where most or all nouns have a value for this grammatical category. A few languages with gender-specific pronouns, such as English, Afrikaans, Defaka, Khmu, Malayalam, Tamil, and Yazgulyam, lack grammatical gender; in such languages, gender usually adheres to "natural gender", which is often based on biological sex. Other languages, including most Austronesian languages, lack gender distinctions in personal pronouns entirely, as well as any system of grammatical gender.
In languages with pronominal gender, problems of usage may arise in contexts where a person of unspecified or unknown social gender is being referred to but commonly available pronouns are gender-specific. Different solutions to this issue have been proposed and used in various languages.
Overview of grammar patterns in languages
No gender distinctions in personal pronouns
Many languages of the world do not have gender distinctions in personal pronouns, just as most of them lack any system of grammatical gender. In others, such as many of the Niger–Congo languages, there is a system of grammatical gender, but the divisions are based on classifications other than sex, such as animacy, rationality, or countability. In Swahili, for example, the independent third person pronoun yeye 'she/he' can be used to refer to a female or male being. What matters in this case is that the referent belongs to the animate class as opposed to an inanimate class. Since pronouns do not distinguish the social gender of the referent, they are considered neutral in this kind of system.Grammatical gender
In other languages – including most Indo-European and Afro-Asiatic languages – third-person personal pronouns intrinsically distinguish male from female. This feature commonly co-exists with a full system of grammatical gender, where all nouns are assigned to classes such as masculine, feminine and neuter.In languages with grammatical gender, even pronouns which are semantically gender-neutral may be required to take a gender for such purposes as grammatical agreement. Thus in French, for example, the first- and second-person personal pronouns may behave as either masculine or feminine depending on the sex of the referent; and indefinite pronouns such as quelqu'un and personne are treated conventionally as masculine, even though personne as a noun is only feminine regardless of the sex of the referent. There are both direct and indirect options for nonbinary referents, although the use of some forms is contested.
Example of agreement in a language with grammatical gender
Les tomates, elles sont encore vertes. Formal French
'The tomatoes, they are still green.' FP,
C'est que chacun, il a sa manière de... Swiss spoken French
'Everyone has his own way of...'
Gender distinctions only in third-person pronouns
A grammatical gender system can erode as observed in languages such as Odia, English and Persian. In English, a general system of noun gender has been lost, but gender distinctions are preserved in the third-person singular pronouns. This means that the relation between pronouns and nouns is no longer syntactically motivated in the system at large. Instead, the choice of anaphoric pronouns is controlled by referential gender or social gender.Example of agreement in English
Maryi described Billj to herselfi.''
Johnj came in and hej was wearing a hat.''
Issues concerning gender and pronoun usage
Issues concerning gender and pronoun usage commonly arise in situations where it is necessary to choose between gender-specific pronouns, even though the sex of the person or persons being referred to is not known, not specified, or mixed. In English and many other languages, the masculine form has sometimes served as the default or unmarked form; that is, masculine pronouns have been used in cases where the referent or referents are not known to be female. This collective masculine is also the case in ancient languages, like Classical Greek and Biblical Hebrew and have influenced the modern forms. This leads to sentences such as in English, and in French.Example of gender-neutral masculine: English
a. If anybody comes, tell him. masculine him used to refer to a person of unknown sex
b. *If anybody comes, tell her. feminine her is not used to refer to a person of unknown sex
Example of collective masculine: French
a. Vos amis sont arrivés — Ils étaient en avance.
'Your friends have arrived - they were early.'
Note: plural masculine ils used if group has men and women
b. Vos amies sont arrivées — Elles étaient en avance.
'Your friendsFEM have arrivedFEM - theyFEM were early.'
Note: plural feminine elles used if group has only women;
noun is feminine, as is past participle
As early as 1795, dissatisfaction with the convention of the collective masculine led to calls for gender-neutral pronouns, and attempts to invent pronouns for this purpose date back to at least 1850, although the use of singular they as a natural gender-neutral pronoun in English has persisted since the 14th century.
Gender-neutral pronouns in modern standard English
The English language has gender-specific personal pronouns in the third-person singular. The masculine pronoun is he ; the feminine is she ; the neuter is it. The third-person plural they are gender-neutral and can also be used to refer to singular, personal antecedents, as in.Where a recipient of an allowance under section 4 absents themself from Canada,
payment of the allowance shall...
Generally speaking, he refers to males, and she refers to females. When a person has adopted a persona of a different gender, pronouns with the gender of the persona are used. In gay slang, the gender of pronouns is sometimes reversed.
He and she are normally used for humans; use of it can be dehumanizing, and, more importantly, implies a lack of gender even if one is present, and is usually, thus, inappropriate. It is sometimes used to refer to a baby or a child in a generic sense as in response to the question What is it? when a baby has been born: -It's a girl/boy. However, when talking to parents of intersex babies, some doctors are advised to use your baby instead. It is often used for non-human animals of unknown sex, but he or she is frequently used for a non-human animal with a known sex. He or she are also for a non-human animal who is referred to by a proper name, as in where Fido is understood to be the name of a dog. At least one grammar states that he or she is obligatory for animals referred to by a proper name.
Fido adores his blanket.
The other English pronouns do not make male–female gender distinctions; that is, they are gender-neutral. The only distinction made is between personal and non-personal reference.
She is sometimes used for named ships and countries; this may be considered old-fashioned and is in decline. In some local dialects and casual speech she and he are used for various objects and named vehicles. Animate objects like robots and voice assistants are often assumed to have a gender and sometimes have a name with a matching gender.
For people who are transgender, style guides and associations of journalists and health professionals advise use of the pronoun preferred or considered appropriate by the person in question. When dealing with clients or patients, health practitioners are advised to take note of the pronouns used by the individuals themselves, which may involve using different pronouns at different times. This is also extended to the name preferred by the person referred to. LGBTQ+ advocacy groups also advise using the pronouns and names preferred or considered appropriate by the person referred to. They further recommend avoiding gender confusion when referring to the background of transgender people, such as using a title or rank to avoid a gendered pronoun or name.
For English, there is no universal agreement on a gender-neutral third-person pronoun which could be used for a person whose gender is unknown or who is a non-binary gender identity; various alternatives are described in the following sections.
Singular ''they'' as a gender-neutral pronoun
Since at least the 14th century, they has been used with a plural verb form to refer to a singular antecedent. This usage is known as the singular they, as it is equivalent to the corresponding singular form of the pronoun.There's not a man I meet but doth salute me
As if I were their well-acquainted friend
<
instead of: As if I were his well-acquainted friend
This is the generalized usage in third person. To imply 'his' is incorrect.
Every fool can do as they're bid.
<
instead of: Every fool can do as he's bid.
Both sisters were uncomfortable enough.
Each felt for the other, and of course for themselves.
<'
instead of: Each felt for the other, and of course for herself.
Prescription against singular they has historically impacted more formal registers of writing. Conversely, to the present day, singular they continues to be attested in both speech and less formal registers of writing in British and American English. Recent corpus data suggest that English dialects in Hong Kong, India, and Singapore use this epicene less than British English. The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language and the Merriam-Webster Dictionary include the following examples among the possible uses of singular they, which they note is not universally adopted by all speakers.
Anyone who arrives at the door can let themself in using this key.
I knew certain things about... the person I was interviewing...
They had adopted their gender-neutral name a few years ago,
when they began to consciously identify as nonbinary...
While many speakers recognize the need for gender neutral pronouns, they nevertheless deem referential singular they, as in, ungrammatical or unfit for the job due to the ambiguity it can create in certain contexts. New pronouns such as ve and ze/hir have been proposed in order to avoid the perceived limitations of singular they. Currently, these new pronouns are only used by a small percentage of speakers while singular they''' remains the most widely selected option.