inclusive language around the world

How inclusive are languages around the world?

Pronouns. You never think twice about them if you’re in a good place with your gender. For some, however, these pronouns are a big old mess

Photo by Hannah Olinger on Unsplash

With them being celebrated as ‘Word of the Year’ in 2019, acknowledging a huge success and step forward in gender conformity being torn apart, Herkind wondered where the rest of the world was with their own languages. 

Depending on the language, the gender normativity of people’s mother tongue can strongly reinforce the feeling of discomfort, or full-on self-hatred, some may have with their gender.

How gender clivéed (divided) are languages around the world? 
(Click on the sound box next to the examples for the pronunciation!)

LA FRANCE

When interviewing a gender-fluid French author, I quickly realised they felt rushed when I asked them their pronouns. Working mainly in English, it had become a norm for me to ask for preferred pronouns – because English especially gave people the freedom of using them/they, in norms that are also grammatically correct. 

To the person I was interviewing, French did not offer such an official alternative: they had to give me either she or her. So they refused to give me their pronouns, which made me wonder how limiting my native language would be if I wanted to talk about them. It’s only when we acknowledge that I’d be writing in English that they heartfully agreed to me using they/them. What would I have done if the article had been in French, however?

Inclusive writing is slowly being picked up in France, but the Academy – determining what is correct or not – is strongly against it. ‘It complicates things’, ‘Kids won’t be able to read anything’, ‘How am I even supposed to read this?’ would be typical arguments. Let’s unveil that a bit for you all. 

In French, people usually use ‘IL’ for ‘HE’ and ‘ELLE’ for ‘HER’, but has nothing for ‘THEY/THEM’, when in English, we’ve been using these pronouns for a while now – I remember reading with huge interest an article in The New York Times in 2016, articulating the rise and changes in pronouns in the English language. 

How do you pronounce il, elle or iel?

The use of non-gendered language in France emerged mostly in feminist and LGBTQ+ circles, where they introduced the merger of ‘il’ and ‘elle’, to create ‘iel’. Quick example: If you were to write, ‘They are an author’, you could write, ‘Iel est un.e auteur.ice’. The ‘dot’ and the female accord at the end of words introduced the inclusivity. 

Iel est un.e auteur.ice

Yet, this type of writing is not as popular as progressive circles would wish, making us wonder how far behind in normalisation the French language still is. 

AROUND THE WORLD WE GO

Turkish

Ilayda, a 23 year-old ally, explains, “In Turkish, for the 3rd singular subject, which is he/she/it in English, we have “O”. Just one pronoun, that indicates that person you are speaking of. Unless you tell the gender, or people ask about it, the ‘O’ does not refer to a specific gender. There’s also no sentence in Turkish such as “I am a he/she/they”. Directly translating, people would say, “I am a woman/man/…”. 

O benim arkadaşım. (He/She/It is my friend.)

Geçen gün onunla sinemaya gittik. (Yesterday we went to the cinema with her/him/it.)

Arabic

Reem, 21, explains, “In Arabic, everything is gendered, we add suffixes to words that will give the gender. For example, if we say ‘enta rassama”, we say “you (masculine) are an artist”. Or “enaha rassama” which means “she is an artist”, with the suffix “ha” determining the gender.” 

Here’s, for example, the words we’d use in Arabic (Lebanese dialect) for ‘you’ for each gender.

Thai

Grammar is quite different in Thai, explains Lucie, 23. For example, they don’t have plural. Translated literally, they’d say, “Give me orange”, then add the number to specify how many oranges they would like. They don’t exactly use him/her, or his/hers either. In a way, Thai appears genderless, as they would rather say ‘this female person’ instead of her, and ‘this male person’, instead of him.

“female person” // “male person”

Spanish

In a similar fashion to French, Spanish relies heavily on the gender of its language. Be it adjectives, nouns or articles – they will be declined with either side of the gender. ‘She’ is ‘ella’, when ‘he’ is ‘él’. Even the word “we” would depend on the constitution of the group: if men, it would be translated as ‘nosotros’, if women, as ‘nosotras’, and if 50 women and 1 men, would still be ‘nosotros’, as the masculine always wins.

Brocco Lee / CC BY-SA (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)

You might have seen variants of women, such as womxn, which we use on Herkind. Spanish activists slowly integrated the same style in their language, using ‘nosotr*s’ or ‘nosotr@s’, excluding the letter that would reveal the gender. Not quite applicable in conversation, though.

Similarly to French, they have suggested inclusive writing. For example the word niño or niña, which means young boy or young girl, would be written as niñæ.

So where are we?

Even if things are slowly developing, depending on the language and the way it has evolved, it can be really hard to make effective changes. Still, little by little, everyone is becoming a bit more attentive to this matter and popularising gender-neutral options.

Cynthia Gould, freelance writer and graphic designer, suggests, “When I host poetry readings or events, I change the typical ‘ladies and gentlemen’ to something like, ‘Welcome, Poetry People’ or ‘Welcome, Haiku Friends.’ Start the event by including everyone in the room.”

After all, as she concludes, “‘Ladies and gentlemen’ needs to retire.”

Herkind is a safe space for young LGBTQ+ womxn to explore and enjoy their identity – otherwise known as your big sis’.