Non-binary - pronouns in languages

[Droomvlucht]

Hi there,

 

Recently I read this very interesting article: https://deepbaltic.com/2018/03/20/being-non-binary-in-a-language-without-gendered-pronouns-estonian/ 

 

This made me wondering: to what extent defines language your identity? Would I consider/present myself easier non-binary if I spoke English because then I would have the 'their'-option. In Dutch people are start using 'die' but that's not a really good option (if you ask me) because 'die' sounds exactly like '(d/t)ie' (spoken form of hij (third form masculine, so 'he') so most people will consider 'die' as the masculine form when you're speaking. In text it works better though. And then they have the option 'hen' but that sounds just weird to me because normally that's the nominative of the plural zij (they). I get where they got the inspiration from but to me it just sounds really weird. Maybe I'll later get used to it, when they have figured out which option is better. At the moment no cis hetero-person would ever use either option except maybe when someone is asking them to to that, but even then, they will hesitate. Die/hen is not used in any media, it's not a neutral form, it's a form only used by and for non-binary people. In English this is different. I always didn't really like English (sorry) because I'm not good at it, but in this aspect English certainly is better. And some other languages may be even better like Estonian or Turkish where they don't even have gendered pronouns. I could imagine people would easier see themselves as people there because you're not gendering yourself and anyone else there. But then again, there are obviously other aspects as well like culture and stuff... 

 

How do you think about this? 

[tracy_j]

I cannot do more than give minor comment with other languages than English but I think  two major considerations in this are the 'context' the word or words are used in and 'intonation' of the speaker's voice. I think that they may be even more important than the actual words used. I imagine very many of us here have been far more irritated by the tone of someone's voice when they answer or talk about us than the actual words they used.

 

Tracy

[Droomvlucht]

1 hour ago, tracy_j said:

I think that they may be even more important than the actual words used. I imagine very many of us here have been far more irritated by the tone of someone's voice when they answer or talk about us than the actual words they used.

 

That's a perspective I hadn't think about. But I guess you are absolutely right, people have several ways of showing if they are accepting you, using the right pronoun is only one of them and maybe not the most important.

 

But what I meant to see (but wasn't clear about :)), is that when you live with a language that doesn't give you the words will affect the way you see yourselves. I don't think I would have ever considered myself non-binary if English hadn't had this concept. English has a lot of ways to describe your gender identity. In Dutch it's just man, woman, transwoman, transman and that's it. All else is borrowed from English. And oh, we're translating and introducing the concepts, but most of the people won't know what it all means and when I was younger I didn't ever hear about it. Maybe the same goes for English and it just seems that way, I realise not everyone is speaking the same English, each group has their own use of the language and so on. But still, Dutch is stricter than English because we don't have a neutral pronoun to begin with. 

[tracy_j]

I understand what you are saying but, although many of the words that you are thinking about have been added to the English language, I think in a setting such as where I live many people will not be familiar with them. It is maybe Ok online or in the city but in my rural setting such pronoun use will be rare. So rare that I noticed when I overheard one person talking to another about me saying that 'they have gender issues'. Correct but I am not sure what to make of it. It's one thing to have the language to describe yourself but yet another to have it understood and accepted. In this way I don't mean accepted in your trans status but just the description.

 

In English words have always been imported from othe languages when it suits. This is true with other languages too but I suppose it does depend greatly on circulation and just how strict people (at least those with influence) view the purity of the language. I imagine the Internet and world access is overwriting much of the opposition though.

 

Tracy

[Droomvlucht]

3 hours ago, tracy_j said:

I understand what you are saying but, although many of the words that you are thinking about have been added to the English language, I think in a setting such as where I live many people will not be familiar with them.

Yes. Maybe the other way round works as well: if people are more conscious of their gender identity and live in a setting where there is room to discover that, the language will change as well and words will be invented to describe people's gender identity better. But even then some languages are just more gendered than others. 

 

3 hours ago, tracy_j said:

It's one thing to have the language to describe yourself but yet another to have it understood and accepted. In this way I don't mean accepted in your trans status but just the description.

Yes!