#nonbinary pronouns

[lgbtqiatext]

[epochryphal]

Has anyone else talked yet about alternatives to the word "neopronouns." What about ancient pronouns. What about ancestral pronouns. What about non-trinary pronouns (outside they/she/he) or non-quaternary pronouns (outside it/they/she/he). What about exobinary pronouns (also outside coinages meant to combine she+he, such as sie/hir)

I mean, for English alone, the damn timescale goes back nigh the start of the language. Here's some time-sourced epicene/neuter/gender-neutral pronouns:

2010s: fae

2000s: yo

1990s: ze

1980s: hu

1970s: xe, co, ve, per, ey

1920: ae

1890: e (not spivak, which was 1990)

1858: thon

1789: ou

1375: singular they

1300s: a (not the indefinite article, an actual third-person pronoun)

from Etymonline, an excellent linguistic source for etymologies:

The paradigm in Old English was:

MASCULINE SINGULAR: he (nominative), hine (accusative), his (genitive), him (dative);

FEMININE SINGULAR: heo, hio (nom.), hie, hi (acc.), hire (gen. and dat.);

NEUTER SINGULAR: hit (nom. and acc.), his (gen.), him (dat.);

PLURAL: (all genders) hie, hi (nom. and acc.), hira, heora (gen.), him, heom (dat.)

and let's remember the historical periods of English:

Old English circa 500-1100 C.E. - classics point of reference Beowulf

Middle English circa 1100-1500 C.E. - classics point of reference Chaucer

Early Modern English circa 1500-1800 C.E. - classics point of reference Shakespeare

Late Modern English circa 1800-today C.E. - classics point of reference Alcott (who stated "I am more than half-persuaded that I am a man's soul put by some freak of nature into a woman's body," see page 41 at this link)

Like, I get that we don't want to say "nonbinary pronouns" because nonbinary can also be a gender identity and let's not perpetuate pronoun = gender; maybe that problem extends to saying exobinary pronouns. I get that epicene and neuter and gender-neutral all also have various gender implications.

I hate the argument that singular they is the oldest in use, and thus most acceptable / least deviant / gets an exception from the category of "neo."

You can certainly hold the opinion it's unimportant, semantic, perhaps like -misia vs -phobia; we've established the word homophobia, bad faith actors will always nitpick. Fair enough. I would respond that we're largely practiced at breaking down arguments about "phobia = fear" and citing historical use. How many people can counter the common argument "neo = newfangled = contemporary (= fleeting)" with facts beyond "Chaucer used singular they"?

I try very hard to avoid saying "neopronouns" and to ask/tell people I do not consider my pronouns to be neopronouns, please don't describe them as such when specifically talking about me. It is rarely noticed even when I am explicit.

It's not that the word can't be unpacked and contextualized and used with understanding. But... it consistently isn't. Allyship is simple "neopronouns are valid!" Yes, no matter how recently coined. Who is that convincing or affirming, when you end there and do nothing to tie us to the community history of evolving language like and including pronouns?

(Aside, have we really settled on "user"? So-and-so is a ⭐️-pronoun user? Uses ⭐️ pronouns? Surely it's the people saying the pronouns to refer to So-and-so who are doing the using. It feels so "identifies as [gender]." Whatever happened to has ⭐️ pronouns? To pronouns are ⭐️?)

[nonbeans]

Thinking this nonbinary awareness week about how niche society still considers my Ze/zir pronouns.

I don't even demand my own friends and family use it. Even if I prefer it to They.

It took them years to learn "They".

A big feeling of being nonbinary is feeling like you aren't worth the work.

[ihasafandom]

So I keep thinking, they/them notwithstanding as a perfectly fine solution on its own, that English already has an existing unused pronoun set that could easily fill the nonbinary pronoun gap that we keep trying to fill with e/em and ze/hir and bun/bunself, if we wanted to resurrect it.

Cause most neopronouns have at least one of the following issues:

unintuitive or non-obvious pronunciation

homophone with other words

unintuitive tenses

not obviously a pronoun

doesn't really fit in with the other pronoun sets

and of course, getting everyone to know about and agree to use a certain set is the biggest one

And while I can't solve the latter, and we get the new problem of making Thor sound like he's never talking to you directly instead of just being overly familiar/condescending in an old-fashioned way, I think there is some merit to bringing back thee/thine but as a third person singular pronoun this time.

Everyone already knows it's a pronoun and has a decent idea of how to pronounce and conjugate it, it doesn't overlap with any other words in writing or speech, it fits with the extant pronouns, since it was originally meant to be there.

he / him / his / his / himself she / her / her / hers / herself it / it / its / its / itself they / them / their / theirs / themself thou / thee / thy / thine / thyself

or

thee / thee / thy / thine / thineself if we wanted to parallel the others more and simplify a little.

[msfcatlover]

Thinking about experimenting with pronouns.

I was trying to find as many fully conjugated non-binary English pronouns as possible for writing reasons, and after reading like 20 different webpages & articles and getting through what has to be several hundred combinations, ce/cir/cemself has been stuck turning over & over in my brain like a shiny coin.

I mean, my explanation for my gender for years has been “Cis woman in the same way wearing your pajamas all day is technically being dressed. Like, I could probably find something just as comfy that made me feel better about myself, but that sounds like a lot of work when I’m just fine with where I’m at, y’know?” But this was not extra work. And, tbh, if you read +300 different pronoun combos and only one stays stuck in your brain, I feel like that’s probably a sign of something?

I dunno. Still making up my mind on whether to commit to this.

[gaytransbimbo]

[de-rune]

HOLY FUCK I FOUND GENDER NEUTRAL FRENCH PRONOUNS EVERYONE SHUT THE FUCK UP AND LOOK /pos

Singular Form: ----- Plural Form:

Ael ------ Aels

Eil --------- Eils

Elil ------------ Elils

Ellui ----------- Elleux

ille ------------ illes

Ol -------------- Ols

Ul ---------------- Uls

i might work on a full set of these and example sentences i love this so much

heres where i got them

[amaliazeichnerin]

Free downloadable and printable LGBTIAQ+ pride color images, some also with English and German pronouns, in my Deviantart gallery. There are several square ones which are also suitable for round buttons: https://www.deviantart.com/amalias-dream/gallery/71965910/lgbtiaq-images