so i recently met someone who uses they/them pronouns and since we communicate in english, there is no problem in direct communication. however, english isn’t my first language and i frequently speak two other languages depending on who i’m with, one of which doesn’t have a gender neutral pronoun of any kind (and is heavily gendered so there’s no creative ways around it either). yet this person plays a big enough role in my life that i might also want to talk about them to people i speak that language with. would it be most respectful to ask this person what they would prefer me to use in that language? i feel like i’d essentially be forcing them to choose between binary genders with that question, which is not something i want to impose on them. i’ve heard people say that if you’re going to misgender someone when they’re not around, it’s best not to tell them because it’s bad enough you misgender them - letting them know will just further hurt their feelings. would it in that sense be better not to let them know, because ignorance is bliss? if anyone who uses pronouns other than he/him or she/her has any input, i’d be forever grateful!
My native language don't have gender-neutral pronouns, I have trans friends but none coming from my native country so the common language is English, if I was to talk about them in my native language I would probably use both gender specific pronounces " He/She lives a few hours away from me." And then would explain why I am using both, and how annoying it is that there is no gender neutral pronouns in our language.
I think my situation's a bit different. My first and second languages only have gender neutral pronouns so using them to refer to non-binary people would be pretty easy. But I'm forced to revert back to English for people who don't speak either of them, which is pretty common in my country. Going back to your problem, I think it really depends on how flexible your native languages are with pronouns. My friend's family friend is a French national who identifies as 'they'. I speak basic French as my fourth language and they told me they'd like to be referred to in third person as the pronoun 'Ils'. This pronoun is used for a group of men but also for a mixed gender group, so they'd like to be identified as the latter. But I only started using it after consulting with them so you should do the same with your friend. Alternatively, Linning's method seems pretty useful but it depends on whether your friend identifies as both genders or neither of the two. These topics can get confusing so as long as you approach the topic carefully, it shouldn't offend them. After all, you're simply trying to respect their own gender identify.
I've seen "iel" used in French (for "il+elle" -- "he+she"). But it's difficult. My language is pretty much gendered, the only neutral pronoun we have is reserved for objects and not for human beings, so...
It's interesting because "ils" while it can mean either a group of men or a group of both men and women, can only really be perceived as slightly gender neutral if written. While spoken,"il" (he) and "ils" are pronounced the exact same so if someone was talking about one person while using the word "ils" I would just hear "il" and assume the person is male. Even if you were to conjugate the entire sentence in plural I would just assume you are talking about a group of people or that French isn't your first language because "Mon ami(e) ne mangeront pas avec nous ce soir" (My friend (they) won't eat with us tonight), would sound awfully wrong gramatically and sometimes it wouldn't even work a all because you couldn't hear the difference for ex with : " Ils travaillent à Paris" (they work in Paris) and "il travail à Paris " (he works in Paris) sound exactly the same and so it would require specific context and explanations and I think unfortunately it's generally easier to just use "il/elle" or "iel" like the person's suggested or more simply the person's name (though of course if someone prefers to be refered to as "ils" then of course.) I wonder if there will ever be a gender neutral pronoun in languages like French where it would actually require a total re-think of the language and its structure.
My thoughts exactly when they told me. Not to mention how the French conjugate even adjectives to specify gender. But yeah it's their choice which might have something to do with the fact that they were born biologically male. Thankfully they only suggested the pronoun as a formality because I don't really talk to anyone about them in French. And of course I only use second person when talking to them in person which doesn't happen too frequently either because they're fluent in English and I can't speak French as fast as them. It's really tough maintaining fluency in a foreign language when you barely use it at all. And my parents keep bugging me to further perfect my mother tongue and second language which have two completely different writing systems. Why? Because 'anything foreign would pollute our heritage'. Sadly I've already begun to forget my French verbs.
Someone made a list of gender neutral pronouns in languages other than English and I understand that some of them aren’t widely used or anything but here’s the link. (There is a slight error in the Irish as sibh is the plural you whereas siad is they) http://rabbitglitter.tumblr.com/post/98199671147/multilingual-pronouns-list
thanks for your responses! unfortunately the word for “they” (as in third person plural) is the same as for “she” so in this case, that’s not really a fix because obviously everyone is just going to think i’m just saying she. the list you (@Lacybi) linked does list that one as a gender neutral pronoun but if i used gender neutral pronouns myself i would absolutely hate for someone to use something that is the same as “she”.... kind of defeats the purpose, i guess? no one would see it as gender neutral anyway, they’d just assume i’m talking about a woman. i actually once saw this being used in subtitles for the show one day at a time, which features a character who uses they pronouns, and if i didn’t speak english i would never have known that character wasn’t a girl! that’s what i meant with a lack of creative solutions (the same goes for merging she+he into one new word, kind of like with english the two words are so similar that merging them would just turn them into “she” when said out loud) saying she/he (+explanation) would be a solution in some cases but this person is specifically making a political statement as well by using they, because they believe in abolishing gender, so using two gendered pronouns in one sentence kind of goes against that idea (does that make sense?). i’m also not sure how well this would work in spoken language, and i don’t really write in this language (except for stuff i would never mention this friend in anyway) i know that in this instance misgendering is next to impossible and the question is mostly whether or not to let this person know that i will unfortunately not really have a choice in this language (which they don’t speak so that also makes it harder, if they spoke it they could just tell me which word to use even if it’s not a “real” gender neutral pronoun). like i’m all for discussing these things to get an answer, i just wonder if it’s good for them to know i will be misgendering them? like... if i cared about my pronouns, and someone would be using the wrong ones to talk about me, but i would never know unless they told me... i think i’d prefer not to know? because then i also don’t have to think or feel bad about it... but yeah i don’t care about my pronouns which is why the input is necessary ugh! gendered languages that refuse to adopt new pronouns! boo you! why can’t you be more like english which has a gender neutral pronoun build into it (even though many people are eager to deny this as soon as nb people come up) or swedish which happily adopted a neutral pronoun when a demand for it developed!
I have seen some used in French, mainly ''iel'' and ''ille'', but frankly, they both sound terrible and look like an half-assed attempt to mix male and female pronouns together. I think it would work better if the gender neutral pronoun could stand on its own. Like, they in English is not a mix of he and she. But then, you don't just have the pronouns to worry about. In French, the adjectives and nouns are gendered as well. How do you describe a non-binary person if you can't use either form of the adjectives? Same for the nouns. There are nouns/adjectives that are neutral, but they're rarer and you would need some serious dedication and a way with words to only use them. Honestly, talking in a neutral way (without sounding like you want to create newspeak) is quite difficult in gendered language and people should try to make it sound and look more natural.
I'd ask your friend about their preference regarding gendered languages. I'm sure they know best. My native language also doesn't have an equivalent for "they", but personally I'm okay with either "he" or "she". Neither of them acknowledges that I'm non binary, but I haven't found a pleasing alternative yet (There are a few newly created words, though).
I love this topic, but I suspect my opinion qualifies me as a curmudgeon. We need new pronouns. "Ne, Ner" for example, as the neutral subject and object pronouns. Or whatever you like; repurposing old ones leads to ambiguity. E.g. the sentence "The waves hit the person and they retreated." Even though I do it myself, saying about some person of unknown gender "They didn't know what they were doing," and not even noticing. I'd suggest Esperanto but even they have a problem.
I have kind of the same problem. In Spanish I've heard people ending words in -e (instead of -a for female and -o for male) and the pronouns Elle instead of Él/Ella and Le instead of El/La. But noone uses that or know how to use it unless they are genderqueer or something. It is really hard all this stuff
I have kind of the same problem. In Spanish I've heard people ending words in -e (instead of -a for female and -o for male) and the pronouns Elle instead of Él/Ella and Le instead of El/La. But noone uses that or know how to use it unless they are genderqueer or something. It is really hard all this stuff So I use all pronouns depending on the moment and sometimes get called She and sometimes He
For my friend I ended up asking them and it turns out their native language has the same problem, so they were well-prepared to answer it. Thanks for your input everyone! Languages sure are complicated...
