“We don’t have a gender-neutral pronoun [for people]… Agender people use feminine or masculine pronouns according to their personal preference. A version of this article appeared in The Establishment and is used here with permission. It’s important to distinguish between grammatical gender and natural gender. Finally, some languages, such as English and Afrikaans, have nearly completely lost grammatical gender (retaining only some traces, such as the English pronouns he, she and it ), and Bengali, Persian, Armenian, Assamese, Ossetic, Odia, Khowar, and Kalasha have lost it entirely. If I can’t use she or ze, this kind of sexist/gendered assumption can be even more difficult to notice and correct. But that’s maybe because the people I talk to in English are not native speakers. Asexual Finnish student Kati agrees, saying, “I’m so happy Finnish has only one [ungendered] pronoun. Pronouns in English don’t hurt me, as long as no one does it on purpose. To put it simply, choosing the right pronoun is a big deal. As such, language is a socially constructed phenomenon that has evolved over a period of time. In English, one can say they are a teacher with a partner, and no one’s gender is revealed; French and German lack that luxury. All rights reserved. All rights reserved, Verilaske: In Search of a Bloodletting Estonian Village, How Lithuanians Conquered the World: The Case for a Migration Museum, Between Two Shores: A Visual Love Letter to the Curonian Spit, An Eccentric Cold War Education: Revisiting the Lithuanian Gymnasium in Germany, Fiction: Saulius Šaltenis – Diary of a Jewish Girl, [S]peaking a gendered language as an agender person fuckin’ sucks, one can use female or other pronouns or nouns. If it seems like English-speakers are dissatisfied, the situation for speakers of gendered languages—which stipulate strict gender distinctions for both humans and objects—is far worse. Those in light blue have no gender system [Image: Wikiwand] “Natural gender” languages like English perpetuate the idea of a strict gender binary for humans—one can be either “he” or “she.”. Assumptions about the binary nature of gender and the status of masculinity seem to survive intact, even under genderless language conditions. In a 2016 survey—Bucking the Linguistic Binary—20% of monolingual, transgender English speakers said, yes, English gender-neutral language allows me to express my identity; 31% said no, it does not allow for adequate identity expression; and 19% said “yes and no.” 4% specified that they felt that it currently did not allow them to express their identities, but, “the situation was improving and that they were hopeful that time and advocacy would lead to increased acceptance of the language that would allow them to express their identities.” What if you spoke a language that didn’t even have separate words for “him” or “her,” like Estonian? A personal pronoun diagram for Russian and Estonian learning. Routledge Dictionary of Language and Linguistics, 1996. p.437, http://babel.ucsc.edu/~hank/105/Esperanto16.pdf, Biak: Description of an Austronesian Language of Papua, https://web.archive.org/web/20070904225112/http://www.latrobe.edu.au/rclt/StaffPages/aikhenvald%2Bdownloads/ClassifiersELL2published.pdf, https://scholar.harvard.edu/mpolinsky/files/Dyirbal.pdf, https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/data/UQ_11037/rpopt.pdf?Expires=1495704752&Signature=f5dJsIP1bJ4D3ICf4UTKiBehPDgx4Q8AUj~SIe4tL1-2n-fkAHl7fKtYDxYQ918mu0UUKM9OfGxw~DC3I-T~QRiGWHUhtl~RnJ4hH5TZNFO7RFouVpXeaBlRRd1fT0t8I7sTswoT9qjwZ3zqV3O-fGfOHUoblz4Aayl7U5IsPGK6sXpacpkketqOf~bXayFbg9C~kj~QJkm-naqsAdVeQkngzUw1~hymGbd2rNcVnGXxeq4g6S04aoF2idHVfE8JAlJ1ov6~MG83dp6BhqtRRzCxV396TyyUjc4AdHqUZrsvchvpYnjPBqNH5MKMfKD8CKGDG7Fgtf9fBgTAiBz2qg__&Key-Pair-Id=APKAJKNBJ4MJBJNC6NLQ, https://www.africa.upenn.edu/NEH/rwlanguage.htm, "The Augment in Kirundi: When Syntax Meets Phonology", https://www.researchgate.net/publication/324224169_The_Ha_Language_of_Tanzania_Grammar_Texts_and_Vocabulary, "Difficult Languages: Tongue Twisters - In search of the world's hardest language", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=List_of_languages_by_type_of_grammatical_genders&oldid=1019576519, Articles with unsourced statements from February 2019, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License. In some languages, gender signifies biological sex, whilst in other languages the meaning of a noun is irrelevant for its gender. Header image: Old Town of Tallinn, Estonia [Credit: maigi under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported Licence] In these languages, animate nouns are predominantly of common gender, while inanimate nouns may be of either gender. Certain language families, such as the Austronesian, Turkic and Uralic language families, usually have no grammatical genders (see genderless language). Find out more at our Patreon page. Finally in this study the effects of sex and gender on first language acquisition and second language acquisiton are defined. These are typically borrowed words like кафе (cafe) that do not take a masculine or feminine case. I use masculine pronouns, even though they don’t suit me very well. Romanian uses a masculine-feminine-neuter classification, which, as… Many languages have this system of organising nouns into different classes, but equally many manage without it. Broadly speaking, there are three kinds of languages: © Deep Baltic 2018. Agender people have the hardest time expressing their identity in highly gendered languages, but genderless languages are not the utopia one may imagine. English doesn’t really have a grammatical gender as many other languages do. Unlike the aforementioned languages, Romanian has preserved the neuter gender from Latin, but it is mostly used for objects or collective entities. These terms are undoubtedly beneficial, helping to allow for expression of gender fluidity. “I planted him in the forest, where he will grow very tall!” A table, for instance, is a feminine noun in French— “She is a lovely table!”—while a tree is a masculine noun in German. In my own family, it’s been difficult for most of them, though my friends, mother, and grandmother easily adjusted to using masculine pronouns to refer to me. Marking Gender in Languages. Many Australian languages have a system of gender superclassing in which membership in one gender can mean membership in another. This article lists languages depending on their use of grammatical gender. Which other languages are without gender in nouns (as with English)? On November 2017, France was caught in the middle of a heated debate over the future of its own language. 1 Grammatical gender 1.1 Typically gendered words in English and non-gendered alternatives. This pronoun is not typically applied to people; instead it is used only for objects with neuter noun names. I also speak English, and I use the ‘they/them’ in English. So people would default to ‘she’, which was unbearable to me. In some languages, grammatical gender is more than just Faced with that level of discrimination, the use of pronouns can seem far down the list of priorities. In addition, it is mentioned the relationship between language and gender. The use of gender-neutral language may seem unnecessary to some writers. If an internet search doesn’t turn up the person’s actual name, try “Dear Admissions Committee,” or just “Admissions Committee Members”. For example, Seroe Fioletovoe [Gray Violet]—a transgender Russian activist who is part of the artist collective Война [War], best known for spawning punk activists Pussy Riot—uses “оно” to describe themself. The same pattern of results also emerged in entirely nonlinguistic tasks (e.g., rating similarity between pictures). English is a "natural gender" language, meaning that speakers use gender-specific pronouns, but nouns do not have gender. Friends and close acquaintances call me ‘Paul,’ which I really like to be called. Turns out that genderless languages can include “seemingly gender-neutral terms” that do in fact have a sneaky male bias, just like natural and gendered languages. A table and tree are it, and only people are he or she. Tosha, a young Russian who identifies as agender, told me: German, Dutch, and the Slavic languages are just a few examples. Despite its evolution and progression one aspect of language seems to be constant, that is, its role in stimulating gender inequality. I'd love to hear your comments :) It’s worth noting that the issue isn’t widely discussed [yet] in Russia, because in my opinion society isn’t ready to accept gender on a spectrum. Russian is a gendered language that does feature a neuter third-person pronoun, оно [it]. Misgendering in a gendered language was explained by another respondent: requesting ‘he’ instead of ‘she’). In Gender Outlaws: The Next Generation, authors Kate Bornstein and S. Bear Bergman emphasize the politics of language itself and of having “the agency to have our own words and definitions of them, and insist upon them to linguistic passers-by.” A natural gender language with a history of borrowed words, like English, has the flexibility to create pronouns to suit how a person feels inside. A few gender pioneers, however, have co-opted it. A young Estonian agender person interviewed for this article who prefers the name Paul does find “tema,” the genderless Estonian pronoun, helpful. in written forms. It is a spectrum. While most Romance languages today only have the male-female distinction, there are many other languages that have introduced the additional neuter gender. For example, the word lakimies (literally lawman or lawyer) in Finnish is what is called a false generic. Please consider making a monthly donation – help support our writers and in-depth coverage of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. *Natural gender languages, including English and Swedish, don’t typically categorize non-human, non-animal nouns into male or female categories. So gendered language is commonly understood as language that has a bias towards a particular sex or social gender. But there is an option to challenge these parameters: the use of gender-neutral terms. Maybe someday I could use them, though. We don’t have gendered pronouns, so a regular person might call a cis man a she by accident, and not be corrected, because we are not native speakers.”. Language Quiz / Languages without Grammatical Gender Random Language or Clickable Quiz But are they enough? Global languages fall into three categories with respect to gender: gendered languages like Spanish (where nouns and pronouns have a gender), genderless languages such as … This was true even though all testing was done in English, a language without grammatical gender. Gender Across Languages Volume 4, published in 2015, notes the appearance of the term tema-ke or ‘little him/her,’ in use in newspapers and online to force a feminine aspect; the 2013 Spike Jonze movie Her, for example, is called Temake in Estonian. Paul writes: “Usually people use the gender-neutral ‘tema’ [when] talking about any person, and because it’s the most common way to refer to a person, there is no issue with which pronoun to use. In this video, we discuss how our language use changes depending upon which gender we are talking about and talking to. In Estonian there is no gender in pronouns, but there are marker words like ‘tüdruk’ (girl), ‘preili’ (Ms.), or ‘neiu’ (a young woman) that I don’t identify with, but which are used by older people addressing me. When you look around, you might notice that for the most part, masculinity and feminity are represented in a number of different ways. So ‘he’ felt lots safer to me since it was farther away from ‘they’ and easier for people to wrap their minds around.” I lack usable and easy to learn/apply pronouns and descriptions of myself. Plural or ‘neuter’ cases in Russian aren’t comfortable for me. “I think after some time I’ll be able to do the same for myself [in Russian].”, It’s clear that, not surprisingly, natural gender and gendered languages pose problems for identity expression. Those who answered “yes and no” detailed both positive and negative aspects. In addition, the “-ke” ending in Estonian denotes a diminutive, something small and cute. A member of Babbel's Didactics team explains how and why languages are evolving to reflect the different ways people experience gender. 'Guys' is one of the most common ways of addressing groups of people in the English language; we use it often in everyday conversation without giving much thought to its impact. There are three variations in the ways that gender is marked in languages across the world (Stahlberg et al., 2007).First, in gendered languages, nouns and pronouns are gendered (e.g., Spanish, Russian, Hebrew, Hindi).Because each noun is gendered, there are no gender-neutral terms that can be used to refer to persons. “For example, in English, there are multiple nouns that I can use to classify myself (partner, student) without making reference to gender, whereas in German I’m supposed to say the feminine form of many common categories into which I fit, like student (Studentin), and have to explain myself when I refuse.” Does it have masculine, feminine, neuter groups? Certain language families, such as the Austronesian, Turkic and Uralic language families, usually have no grammatical genders (see genderless language). Because of the language barrier, that doesn’t feel unnatural for me, and besides, [i]n Russian almost all the verbs and adjectives have gender, and in English it’s not like that. “When I was using gender-neutral pronouns in English, it was almost impossible to get anyone who wasn’t in the queer community to use ‘they’ for me consistently. However, the consistent use of masculine pronouns provides an impression that women are excluded from the group to which the writer is referring. That corresponds to my understanding. This is far from perfect—but it may be the best option yet for those who identify along a spectrum. But 'guys' can understandably be considered gender-specific, making it confusing or unappreciated when it's used to refer to a group that includes women. It makes some things so much easier…one does not need to make assumptions about gender when trying to address someone.” This was at an early stage of me asking them not to use ‘she’ (the pronoun I was ‘assigned’ at birth), so I think people were still getting used to the idea of any pronoun other than ‘she’ for me. There can also be situations where a woman can refer to herself in the masculine way grammatically and vice versa. “[S]peaking a gendered language as an agender person fuckin’ sucks. I’m constantly misgendered, or I’m misgendering myself in order to be understood.” That is because I am not really out as non-binary. To find out how one’s native language and gender identity intersect, I spoke with people from several countries who have come out as genderqueer, nonbinary— gender-questioning in some way—and their answers reveal the importance of grammar in the expression of gender identity. But I had the impression that people outside the queer world (not LGBT but ‘queer’ as in challenging gender binaries) had an even harder time with the idea of a gender-neutral pronoun than with the idea of someone ‘crossing’ gender lines (i.e. You can find more details in this … It doesn’t have a masculine or a feminine for nouns, unless they refer to biological sex (e.g., woman, boy, Ms etc). [Image courtesy of Eesti keele õppimiseks]. The third kind of language — which includes Indonesian, Finnish and Mandarin — is genderless. Or what if just about every noun in your world was masculine or feminine—seemingly at random, like in Russian? This page was last edited on 24 April 2021, at 03:56. Polina Ravlyuk, a Russian blogger who runs an information portal on gender and gender identification, wrote to me in an email: Gendered languages: Russian, German, and French are prominent examples of this kind of language, in which both people and objects are given a gender. but at least in English, one can use female or other pronouns or nouns to, as the book Gender Across Languages put it, “emphasize women’s [or other’s] presence in the world.” In a language that can’t grammatically distinguish between he, she, and ze, androcentricity—or male bias—can be even more insidious. Grammatical gender is a way of categorising nouns; it doesn’t necessarily match up with the “natural gender” of the person or object being described. Gendered language refers to any form of language which implies the gender identity of the person it is referring to. Genderless languages: Chinese, Estonian, Finnish, and other languages don’t categorize any nouns as feminine or masculine, and use the same word for he or she in regards to humans. Like what Deep Baltic does? Natural gender is simply the gender of a person, animal or character. One participant wrote: In the languages of the Bottom 20 gender equal countries, an overwhelming majority (16 of the 20) are 2-gender languages, while 4 are no gender languages, and none have 3 genders. “When I don’t know someone’s gender, I talk about them in the plural,” they say. Men are the standard and everything else is the exception. A school textbook promoting a more inclusive version of To start looking at the effects of language spoken on pronoun preferences, it’s important to understand grammatical gender, a method of categorizing nouns in a language, typically as masculine, feminine, or neuter. Half of millennials in the United States think that gender isn’t limited to male and female, and in the U.S., Facebook offers 56 custom options to select for gender. Though Estonian people using the term tema may not specifically picture a man or a woman, they invariably picture either a man or a woman, not anyone else in between. In English, these terms include they as a singular, ze/zir or zie/zir, ze/hir or other variations, and Mx. Some languages without noun class may have noun classifiers instead. But what if you needed all those choices because of the English language? The use of gender in the Romance languages is just the tip of the iceberg. You have probably encountered documents that use masculine nouns and pronouns to refer to subject(s) whose gender is Gender in European languages. All neuter nouns are masculine in the singular form and feminine in the plural, hence grammatical neuter does not necessarily equal neutrality from a non-binary language perspective. It doesn’t allow for a lack of gender; you always have to pick something. O ver the last few years, we’ve progressed significantly in our acceptance of gender … For people who don’t identify along the gender binary, these grammatical differences can be significant. Do you find it strange when you use English and you can't include this feature?! My native language Turkish is among them (Altaic, according to the latter classification.) These still have words for man and woman, and for other words that designate gender, like “mother,” but they have no pronouns or linguistic signals for male and female, in living beings or objects. That the language is very gendered is a big problem in my life.”