Non gendered pronouns in other languages

[spesh]

Finnish: hän = he or she

hän rakastaa häntä = he loves him, she loves her, she loves him, he loves her.

And there is no grammatical gender.

Nice and simple for them then !

Have you seen the rest of their language?

Finnish grammar is rather memetastic.

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/8b/8d/82/8b8d82fe504737354f8c75ffa10b67bd.png

https://stancarey.files.wordpress.com/2016/02/scandinavian-grammar-swedish-danish-norwegian-icelandic-finnish-kitten-cat-tiger-alien-godzilla.jpg

[citoyen]

I think everyone missed the point.

No, it's just that everyone disagrees with you.

[citoyen]

Finnish: hän = he or she

hän rakastaa häntä = he loves him, she loves her, she loves him, he loves her.

And there is no grammatical gender.

Nice and simple for them then !

Have you seen the rest of their language?

No wonder they're all drunk all the time.

[Jurek]

They bought you Nokia.
Look at what happened to that.

[hellymedic]

Don't the Poles have gendered surnames?
Must be awkward for non-binary/transitioning people...

[hellymedic]

They bought you Nokia.
Look at what happened to that.

They had to rebrand their tyres to avoid confusion with the phones IIRC...

[citoyen]

Don't the Poles have gendered surnames?
Must be awkward for non-binary/transitioning people...

Likewise Iceland.

[Jurek]

Don't the Poles have gendered surnames?
Must be awkward for non-binary/transitioning people...

They do.
'Ski' suffix for his.
'Ska' suffix for hers.
Or ones like mine, which doesn't play ball: Blaszczak (a good hit if you get it on a triple word score in Scrabble thobut)

[Cudzoziemiec]

Czech surnames (some at least) are not only gendered but differ by family "position" so mother and daughter or father and son can have different "declensions" of the same surname.

[Jurek]

If I remember correctly, Lithuanian surnames can indicate whether a woman is married or not.

[Tim Hall]

Don't the Poles have gendered surnames?
Must be awkward for non-binary/transitioning people...

Likewise Iceland.

Isn't Iceland more complicated than that? Patronymic (or sometimes matronymic) surnames, rather than a simple family name with a gendered end (although the point about transitioning people still stands I guess).
My father was David, so I'd be Tim Davidson, my sister Lucy Davidsdottir while The Boy (my son ) would be The Boy Timson.

(as eny fule kno, Magnus Magnusson is Icelandic for Robert Robinson)

[hellymedic]

Don't the Poles have gendered surnames?
Must be awkward for non-binary/transitioning people...

They do.
'Ski' suffix for his.
'Ska' suffix for hers.
Or ones like mine, which doesn't play ball: Blaszczak (a good hit if you get it on a triple word score in Scrabble thobut)

<OT pedant> Foreign, proper noun you'd need a blank for one of the 'z's and stretching to 9 letters would be a challenge...   

[Jurek]

Don't the Poles have gendered surnames?
Must be awkward for non-binary/transitioning people...

They do.
'Ski' suffix for his.
'Ska' suffix for hers.
Or ones like mine, which doesn't play ball: Blaszczak (a good hit if you get it on a triple word score in Scrabble thobut)

<OT pedant> Foreign, proper noun you'd need a blank for one of the 'z's and stretching to 9 letters would be a challenge...   

We're playing 'Jurek's rules' 

[Cudzoziemiec]

Yebbut wotabout an Ł?

[Jurek]

Yebbut wotabout an Ł?

I've two of those in my full name.

[Mr Larrington]

Don't the Poles have gendered surnames?
Must be awkward for non-binary/transitioning people...

Likewise Iceland.

Isn't Iceland more complicated than that? Patronymic (or sometimes matronymic) surnames, rather than a simple family name with a gendered end (although the point about transitioning people still stands I guess).
My father was David, so I'd be Tim Davidson, my sister Lucy Davidsdottir while The Boy (my son ) would be The Boy Timson.

(as eny fule kno, Magnus Magnusson is Icelandic for Robert Robinson)

There are a few Icelanders who don’t do it that way.  Sigur Rós' bassist is Georg Hólm rather than Georg Haukursson though he's still “Georg” rather than “Mr Hólm”in general usage.

[Rod Marton]

As far as I am aware, around 10% of Icelanders have surnames. The rest use patronymics.

Russians have both patronymics and surnames, patronymics are always gendered but surnames only if they have an adjectival ending (-ov/in/-skiy/-ny in the masculane form, -ova/-ina/-skaya/-naya in the feminine form). There are rather complicated social rules as to which you use and when.

Czech surnames are always gendered, if they don't have an adjectival ending they make one up by putting -ová on the end to make a feminine. This can even extend to foreign names: on my first visit there I listened to a news report about Margaret Thatcherová (it was a long time ago). I'd not come across different family members having different versions of the surname, but I wouldn't put it past the Czechs: they have the most insanely complicated language. I tried learning it once, I gave up when I realised it wasn't worth the effort.

[grams]

Portuguese is interesting because saying "I am (adjective)" requires conjugating the adjective with the gender of the speaker, and there is no neuter gender. This extends to their equivalent of "thank you" - obrigado or obrigada for a male and female speaker.

Which means we need to know how Demi Lovato says Thank You in Portuguese. Googling suggests you use male conjugation when a gender is unknown, and that's the best you can do.

[Davef]

Portuguese is interesting because saying "I am (adjective)" requires conjugating the adjective with the gender of the speaker, and there is no neuter gender. This extends to their equivalent of "thank you" - obrigado or obrigada for a male and female speaker.

Which means we need to know how Demi Lovato says Thank You in Portuguese. Googling suggests you use male conjugation when a gender is unknown, and that's the best you can do.

Perhaps it will morph into the “specifically female” and the “generic” and the specifically female version will fall from usage like actresses.

[Cudzoziemiec]

Czech surnames are always gendered, if they don't have an adjectival ending they make one up by putting -ová on the end to make a feminine. This can even extend to foreign names: on my first visit there I listened to a news report about Margaret Thatcherová (it was a long time ago). I'd not come across different family members having different versions of the surname, but I wouldn't put it past the Czechs: they have the most insanely complicated language. I tried learning it once, I gave up when I realised it wasn't worth the effort.

Margaret Thatcherova and Carol Thatcherovna, I think. Doubtless there's another form for referring to both together and a fourth for the whole Thatcher family.

[Rod Marton]

Czech surnames are always gendered, if they don't have an adjectival ending they make one up by putting -ová on the end to make a feminine. This can even extend to foreign names: on my first visit there I listened to a news report about Margaret Thatcherová (it was a long time ago). I'd not come across different family members having different versions of the surname, but I wouldn't put it past the Czechs: they have the most insanely complicated language. I tried learning it once, I gave up when I realised it wasn't worth the effort.

Margaret Thatcherova and Carol Thatcherovna, I think. Doubtless there's another form for referring to both together and a fourth for the whole Thatcher family.

Thatcherovna sounds like some strange patronymic (or matronymic, possibly, in this case). And you are quite right, the two of them would be Thatcherovy and the whole family Thatcherovi.

[T42]

Portuguese is interesting because saying "I am (adjective)" requires conjugating the adjective with the gender of the speaker, and there is no neuter gender. This extends to their equivalent of "thank you" - obrigado or obrigada for a male and female speaker.

Which means we need to know how Demi Lovato says Thank You in Portuguese. Googling suggests you use male conjugation when a gender is unknown, and that's the best you can do.

Same as French. And a table undergoes a sex-change when it goes from France to Germany.

There's a move here to render adjectives neutral by adding the feminine ending after a full stop, e.g. bon becomes bon.ne and mauvais beomes mauvais.e.

Funnily enough, merdique remains unchanged.

[pcolbeck]

Portuguese is interesting because saying "I am (adjective)" requires conjugating the adjective with the gender of the speaker, and there is no neuter gender. This extends to their equivalent of "thank you" - obrigado or obrigada for a male and female speaker.

Which means we need to know how Demi Lovato says Thank You in Portuguese. Googling suggests you use male conjugation when a gender is unknown, and that's the best you can do.

Same as French. And a table undergoes a sex-change when it goes from France to Germany.

There's a move here to render adjectives neutral by adding the feminine ending after a full stop, e.g. bon becomes bon.ne and mauvais beomes mauvais.e.

Funnily enough, merdique remains unchanged.

That raises the question of what is the difference in pronunciation of "bon.ne" versus "bonne" ? That is what does the full stop get reflected in the way its pronounced?

[Auntie Helen]

German does this as the gendered nouns make problems in job ads, etc.

Der Sachbearbeiter
Die Sachbearbeiterin
If you want to show both you write
Sachbearbeiter*in

I also saw this today:
Leiter:in Kundenservice und Büromanagement

But it is very awkward in spoken usage.

Angela Merkel is the Kanzlerin, the previous ones were all Kanzler.

[Cudzoziemiec]

Similarly, the Australians (supposedly at least) invented "waitron" to avoid specifying waiter/-ress. To me it sounds like some sort of robot, but it's perhaps less clumsy than "wait staff". Logically we should then have eg "actron" but instead we seem to have adopted actor for everyone. I have heard or seen of a "conductress" (presumably train as buses haven't had them for decades) but mercifully it hasn't caught on.