Hello, sorry for bothering, but I can't find a trustworthy source on the web, so decided to ask you: what is the analog for they/them pronoun in portuguese? In my native language it would be the same as using plural, and I would like to know how would a nonbinary character be adressed
No bother at all I always love babbling about language
This got really long oops
I can only speak of brazilian portuguese, things may very well be different in other portuguese speaking countries. Please portuguese speakers who use gender neutral pronouns feel free to chime in/correct me.
The thing about romance languages, as you may know, is that they are heavily gendered. Determiners, quantifiers, adjectives, all have to agree with the gender of the noun.
At least in Brazil, the concept of neutral language is kinda new. (not new new but like.. this was entirely unknown for people who weren't using english internet/didn't study gender ten years ago, while now your 50 yo uncle vaguely knows about this). In recent years, with non-binary/gnc people gaining more visibility, the language is starting to Adapt. I was just looking some stuff up, because even for me, a native speaker, things aren't super clear, and I found that some companies and universities are putting out manuals to educate staff on the use of neutral languages, which is very cool.
SO, gendered pronouns in portuguese are ele (him) and ela (her). Not listing all the determiners because there are entirely too many, but o, a, os, as are the definite articles. Most adjectives have masculine and feminine forms, with the masculine ending with an o and the feminine ending with an a. There are gender neutral adjectives, which end with an e.
So the sentences she is my friend, he is my friend, they are my friends:
Ela é minha amiga (fem)
Ele é meu amigo (masc)
Elas são minhas amigas (plural, fem)
Eles são meus amigos (plural, masc)
As far as I know there are four different sets of gender neutral pronouns: elu/delu (this is the one I'm the most familiar with, probably the most widespread), ile/dile, ilu/dilu, el/del. The good news is that adjectives and determiners seem to work the same for all four. So the sentences above:
Elu é minhe amigue, elus são minhes amigues
(like I said, entirely too many determiners)
For adjectives, since gender neutral adjectives already end on an e, we change the gendered ones to end on an e also. For example:
orange (the color): laranja (neutral despite ending on an a) (but the fruit orange is a feminine noun)
-
That all being said, older non-binary people I've met before gender neutral language was starting to become widespread (by older I mean older millennials and older) would ask people to simply switch between feminine and masculine when talking to/referring to them, similar to how in English you would talk about a person whose pronouns are any pronoun.
-
Oh, non-binary is usually não-binarie, like they are non-binary = elu é não-binarie. But you will come across pessoa não-binária (non-binary person) and indivíduo não-binário (non-binary individual).
Why is the default for a neutral person I’ve heard is ‘friend’? (Hi, friend! Bye, friends! What’s up, friend? Hey, friend, got a minute? My friends, I need your attention for a sec for directions.)) Like, it’s been multiple unrelated people who don’t know one another in multiple situations.
I don’t know you? Who are you to call me your friend? I’m not your friend. One of y’all is my sister? Did I stop being a sibling and now I’m friend? Why was that switch made?
You guys probably don't understand it but this is the funniest shit ever. [source]
Ok, so what is happening is: This is an article talking about neutral pronouns and language (aka. the Portuguese equivalent to singular "they/them" and neopronouns), and as many words in Portuguese are naturally gendered in opposition to English--i.e. "Doctor", which is neutral, translates to either "Doutor" [he/him version] or "Doutora" [she/her version]--then this article is also explaining how to apply "they/them" to these words as well, following the rules of the language (aka making a they/them version of Doutor/Doutora).
There is a thing in Portuguese that we call a gendered ending, yes? It is usually the -a or the -o, and we put them in words like "boy/girl", that are very similar, but have different endings to imply the gender: Menino (menin + -o) and menina (menin + -a). The neutral gendered ending in Portuguese would be -e, making the neutral boy/girl equivalent "menin + -e". You get me?
Anyways, in this image we have the words "Doctor" (as in healthcare profissional and not a person with a doctor's degree), "Tecnic", "Autentic" and "Transphobic", each one with the -o and then the -a gendered ending, separated by a slash as you can see, followed by the neutral version with the -e gendered ending.
You got it?
TL;DR: They made the word "transphobic" inclusive.
On inclusive language: by a nonbinary transmasculime person
"Ladies and gentleman", "boys and girls", "man and woman". Gendered language is everywhere, and if we want to pratice more inclusive language to represent more people and not be dumbass assholes, we gotta be thoughtful.
I see some people around trying to substitute "ladies and gentleman", with things like "ladies and gentleman and those of us who know better" etc and etc, but I'd like to offer the inight that maybe that's not themost inclusive language out there.
We are accidentally excluding questioning people, people who both "know better" and are a lady or a gentleman, etc etc.
But that would leave us down a rabbit hole, where we keep adding and adding specifics to include every person out there, and it wouldn't work.
The solution? Generalize.
When we try to substitute "women" in certain cases, like with people who have periods, we might feel prone to say "afab people" but wait! What about intersex afab people without uteruses or afab people who had their uteruses removed? What about amab people who have uteruses? What about afab people with uteruses that don't have periods for a variety of reasons? We couldn't possbly list them all in a practical sentence!
Unless we generalize. Say "people with periods". No need to specificate. That's what relevant for what you're talking about.
"Men and women?" Avoid "men and woman and nonbinary people and multigender people and questioning and...", try "people/human beings/mankind". What I've found extremely upsetting with inclusive language is when people take an outdated but generalized term (e.g. using Men to say Human kind) and specify it more to include more people ("men and women") but by taking the generalization away, you exclude so many people. That's why we should generalize.
Another example of overspecifying is in my language, with lots of gendered nouns (like president or doctor) who were usually used in a masculine looking form, are now being susbtituted by alternatives that include a masc and a fem form. O presidente + A presidenta. That includes she/hers but its not including everyone. Sometimes it includes less people, because it takes the generalization away. But does that mean we should go back? No! No, I say. We need to go further. Include more people by saying less.
That said, my favorite substitute for Ladies and Gentleman? "Beloved audience". It's classy, it sounds nice (unlike esteemed guests, for me dont judge me) and better, it's general.
The thread I was replying to got locked as I was typing this so I’m going to salvage most of it to turn it into a basic reminder of a post.
I will be referring to and debunking quite common arguments against neutral language.
I am a cis woman. There is nothing dehumanizing about pointing out that I have a uterus. It is part of my human body. I sure have it. (I sure experience many things specifically because I have it). Of course, it would be extremely dehumanizing to ignore my person and somehow treat me as nothing but a functional uterus but... most people don't do that, thankfully, lol. They usually figure out that I have a lot of personality for a uterus. These little bastards don’t even talk.
I believe that when you point out that “pregnant women are now being called pregnant people or uterus havers instead of being called women” (or such arguments) you are pointing out a problem that doesn't exist. If you are a pregnant woman, people will call you a pregnant woman. There is no influx of doctors forcing women to stop using those terms, that is simply not a thing. There are professional and scientific fields (as well as some social spaces) where it makes more sense to use more biological terms such has "person with a uterus" or "person who is pregnant", but pregnant women are still 100% being called pregnant women - just the way women are still being called she/her even though people who use neutral pronouns happen to also exist.
these people think they're so smart saying "'they/them' are for multiple or absent people, thats grammar" or whatever but they forgeting something about languages: they're always changing and adjusting to it's time. the language works for us, not the opposite
let me use a example to see if it gets easier to understand. the word "gay" in traditional english? yeah, it was a word for happy, but is not anymore, the word adjusted to us, thats how it is, we literally owns the language and we do what we want with it
The article about Gender neutral language in English is now less overwhelmingly messy! In the section of family (including partners and dates) terms, a purple box highlights the most common words. Check it out!
@a-christmas-spudgy, do you have any tips how to change a gendered term (aviatrix in this case, but there’ll be probably more to come) into a neutral one?
