gender

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In languages with neuter gender, can you use neuter pronouns after your name and what does it mean when you do this?

youn, Tuesday, 3 January 2023 13:44 (one year ago) link

Sweden introduced a gender-neutral pronoun last decade

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hen_(pronoun)

paolo, Wednesday, 4 January 2023 08:46 (one year ago) link

xp: i don't really know what you mean, neuter as a grammatical gender and gendered pronouns (as prominent in english) are not really related

ufo, Wednesday, 4 January 2023 09:22 (one year ago) link

this might be of interest (source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_pronoun#Gender)

many languages do not distinguish female and male in the third person pronoun.
Some languages have or had a non-gender-specific third person pronoun:

Malay (including Indonesian and Malaysian standards), Malagasy of Madagascar, Philippine languages, Māori, Rapa Nui, Hawaiian, and other Austronesian languages
Chinese, Burmese, and other Sino-Tibetan languages
Vietnamese and other Mon–Khmer languages
Igbo, Yoruba, and other Volta-Niger languages
Swahili, and other Bantu languages
Haitian Creole
Turkish and other Turkic languages
Luo and other Nilo-Saharan languages
Hungarian, Finnish, Estonian, and other Uralic languages
Hindi-Urdu
Georgian
Japanese
Armenian
Korean
Mapudungun
Basque
Persian

Some of these languages started to distinguish gender in the third person pronoun due to influence from European languages. Mandarin, for example, introduced, in the early 20th century a different character for she (她), which is pronounced identically as he (他) and thus is still indistinguishable in speech (tā). Korean geunyeo (그녀) is found in writing to translate "she" from European languages. In the spoken language it still sounds awkward and rather unnatural, as it literally translates to "that female".

I know from personal experience that Chinese or Turkish speakers that have come to English (or, for instance, Dutch) later in life sometimes tend to exclusively use 'he' for the third person, regardless of the particular person's gender (or in some cases throw in a random 'she' sometimes, again regardless of the actual gender).

the shaker intro bit the shaker outro in the tail, hard (breastcrawl), Wednesday, 4 January 2023 10:57 (one year ago) link

Thanks for the link and sorry for the possible confusion. I think what I mean, and sorry for working this out here, is this: if gender in language is used to convey the gender of a person, in a language with a neuter gender, what does it mean when you put neuter gender pronouns with slashes in between in parentheses behind a name?

youn, Wednesday, 4 January 2023 11:37 (one year ago) link

Are there always male and female versions of nouns for gendered species in languages with gender and if there is not would it be wrong to use the masculine or feminine to refer to an instance that is not masculine or feminine respectively?

youn, Wednesday, 4 January 2023 11:43 (one year ago) link

(where gender identity is an issue and needs to be conveyed in language, I think it would be best to mark (recognize, signal, announce) in the first and second person.)

youn, Wednesday, 4 January 2023 12:22 (one year ago) link

(or first is where when has authority and second is where it is a priority to mark for communication and third is where what does not need to claim any knowledge)

youn, Wednesday, 4 January 2023 12:26 (one year ago) link

(third is where one does not need to claim any knowledge but perhaps being able to refer presumes knowledge in which case all persons bear responsibility)

youn, Thursday, 5 January 2023 08:12 (one year ago) link


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