Neopronouns: Difference between revisions

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'''Neopronouns''' are any set of singular third-person [[pronouns]] that are not officially recognized in the language they are used in, typically created with the intent of being a gender neutral pronoun set. In English, and many other [[wikipedia:Indo-European languages|Indo-European languages]], third-person pronouns can be gendered. In English, "she/her" is most often used by women, "he/him" most often by men, and "they/them" by non-binary people, though some people [[Pronoun Non-Conforming|deviate]] from this convention.

Some people prefer using neopronouns as an alternative gender neutral pronoun set. This could be because they want to avoid singular "they" being confused with plural "they",because neopronouns express something about them or their gender (like [[Xenogender|xenogenders]]), or because they feel more comfortable using neopronouns over any of the standard pronoun options.

Some regional dialects of English historically had or still have gender neutral pronouns that were or are not used outside of their respective dialects. All of these pronouns have only been recorded in their nominative form. As far as linguists know, there are no other forms of these words (possessive, reflexive, etc.), although more forms could easily be created if desired.

These pronouns do not strictly fit the definition of neopronouns, as they developed naturally in the language and, as far as we know, were not created by a single person with the goal of creating a gender neutral pronoun.

In 1789, William H. Marshall documented the use of ''a'', used by 14th century English writer, John of Trevisa. Both the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) and Wright's English Dialect Dictionary confirm the use of "a" in place of "he," "she," "it," "they," and even "I." It is a reduced form of the [[wikipedia:Old English|Old English]] pronoun, "he," meaning "he" and "heo" meaning "she".<ref>https://web.archive.org/web/20100418022839/http://www.aetherlumina.com/gnp/history.html</ref> Some surviving British dialects still use this pronoun.<ref>http://web.archive.org/web/20080630041424/http://www.bartleby.com/64/C005/004.html</ref>

In addition to an interjection and greeting, ''yo'' is a gender-neutral pronoun in a dialect of [[wikipedia:African-American Vernacular English|African-American Vernacular English]] (AAVE) spoken by middle school students in Baltimore, Maryland, the student body of which is 97% African-American. These students had spontaneously created the pronoun as early as 2004, and commonly used it. A study by Stotko and Troyer in 2007 examined this pronoun. The speakers used ''yo'' only for same-age peers, not adults or authorities. The speakers thought of it as a slang word that was informal, but they also thought if it as just as acceptable as ''he'' or ''she''. ''Yo'' was used for people whose gender was unknown, as well as for specific people whose gender was known, often while using a pointing gesture at the person in question. The researchers only collected examples of ''yo'' used in the nominative form, finding no possessive forms such as ''*yo's'' and no reflexive forms such as ''*yoself''.<ref>https://dc.etsu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=https://nonbinary.wiki/&httpsredir=1&article=1203&context=honors</ref>

There have been many instances of people creating new pronouns to refer to a singular gender neutral person over the past 200 years. Particularly, several neopronouns showed up in the mid-late 20th century. Many new neopronouns were created in the age of the internet, as the existence of non-binary people becomes more widely known. While there is no way to list all possible neopronouns, this page attempts to list some of the most notable and most popular examples. Pronouns are listed in order of oldest to newest.

One of the first known instances of someone purposely creating a new gender neutral pronoun set in English is that of American composer Charles Crozat Converse who proposed the pronoun set thon/thons/thonself in 1858.<ref>https://www.dynamicchiropractic.com/mpacms/dc/article.php?id=43422</ref> It was based on a contraction of "that one". The ''thon'' pronoun was included in some dictionaries such as Webster's International Dictionary (1910), Funk & Wagnalls New Standard Dictionary (1913), and Webster's Second International (1959). The pronouns are not widely used in the present day. In the 2019 Gender Census, 18 (0.2%) people said that they were happy to be referred to by ''thon''.<ref name=":0">https://gendercensus.com/post/183832246805/gender-census-2019-the-full-report-worldwide</ref>

In his 1920 novel ''A Voyage to Arcturus'', David Lindsay invented the ''ae'' pronoun set for an alien race, which were born from air and of a third sex. These pronouns are still somewhat well known on the internet.

The ''ve'' pronoun set was created sometime in the early 1970s. It is unclear who originally invented this pronoun set or when, and it is possible that multiple people created it independently. The most well know usage of ''ve'' comes from Greg Egan, who used it in his books ''Distress (1995)'' and ''Diaspora (1998)''.<ref>http://www.urticator.net/essay/0/30.html</ref> Egan is sometimes credited with having created these pronouns, but this does not appear to be the case and he has never claimed to have done so. An earlier example is in the novel ''The Bone People (1984)'' by Keri Hulme.<ref>https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/1580481-gender-neutral-characters-and-pronouns</ref> The earliest known example of ''ve'' comes from the 1970 May issue of ''Everywoman''.<ref>https://web.archive.org/web/20070310130020/http://aetherlumina.com/gnp/listing.html</ref> This set is nearly-identical but is incomplete. It included ve/vir/vis, with no predicative possessive and reflexive recorded.

The Elverson pronouns were created by Christine M. Elverson of Skokie, Illinois to win a contest to create an alternative to the singular ''they'' in 1975. They were formed by dropping the first two letters from ''they'' and its inflections.

It is unclear what sort of lexical agreement these pronouns would take. The pronouns can only be used as singular pronouns, so they could presumably be conjugated the same way as other singular pronoun sets (ie: "Ey ''was'' eating.") However, since these pronouns were based off the ''they'' set, it may feel more natural for English speakers to say "Ey ''were'' eating." It is unclear which conjugation was intended, so either can be used. Most other neopronouns based on "e" or "ey" face the same problem.

^†Pronunciation is assumed to match that in 'human' both for the theme and to distinguish it from the word 'who'.

The "Spivak pronouns" were created in 1990 by Michael Spivak. They were used in his manual ''The Joy of TeX'' so that no person in his examples had a specified gender. The pronouns became somewhat well-known on the internet because they were built into the popular multi-user chat LambdaMOO in 1991. The pronouns then became a common feature of other multi-user chats made throughout the 1990s. In the 2019 Gender Census, 5.2% of participants indicated they were happy with Spivak pronouns being used to refer to them.<ref name=":0" /> Spivak is credited with creating this set of pronouns, although his book does not claim that they are his own invention. It is not known whether Spivak was inspired by the other "E" pronouns that have existed or by the similar Elverson pronouns.

Similar to the ''xe'' pronoun set, there are several different versions of this pronoun set. ''Ze'' is also pronounced the same way as ''xe''. It was likely based on the German plural 3rd person pronoun ''sie''. The first known case of ''ze'' being used is in 1997, by Richard Creel, who proposed ze/zer/mer (reflexive form is not recorded).

[[File:It its pronouns.png|thumb|220x220px|It/Its Pronouns Flag by Geekycorn on DeviantArt]]''It'' is the pronoun for inanimate objects in English, though some people choose to use this as a non-gendered pronoun. Using ''it'' to refer to a non-binary person is considered offensive unless one is specifically told to use that pronoun.

Some people may consider ''it'' to be a neopronoun when used for people, while others do not. On the one hand ''it'' is a recognized pronoun in English, however, it is typically only used for inanimate objects. Being used to refer to people is not conventionally part of ''it''<nowiki/>'s usage.

''One'' is a gender neutral pronoun for a generic person in English. It is typically used in formal speech when talking about people in general or a hypothetical person. Some people use ''one'' as a singular alternative to ''they''.

Instead of using an alternative or gender neutral pronoun set, some people prefer an alternation between the binary-gendered sets. For example: "When ''he'' does not get a haircut, ''her'' hair grows long." Alternating pronouns are used in some legal documents to make them gender inclusive.

Also called non-pronouns, null pronouns, or [[Nullpronoun|pronounless]]. Some people prefer not to be referred to by third person pronouns of any kind. Instead of using pronouns, a person may be referred to by name, an epithet, or the sentence can be rephrased to omit pronouns, typically by using the passive voice.

[[Nounself Pronouns|Nounself]] pronouns are type of neopronoun that are derived a pronoun from an existing word. They are commonly, but not always, used by [[xenic]] people- commonly using a pronoun set that correspond with their xenogender, or some other aspect of themself. For example, someone who is [[catgender]] may use nya/nyan pronouns.

[[Emojiself Pronouns|Emojiself pronouns]] are a subcategory of nounself pronouns, which are pronouns that, instead of using letters, utilize emojis (ex: 💫/💫's/💫self). These pronouns are not intended to be pronounced out loud and are only intended for online communication. In spoken conversation one may or may not use pronouns that are based on the emoji (ex: 💀/💀s skull/skulls).

The green and orange neopronoun flag was designed by Tumblr user Ferns-Garden/Beanjamoose on or before Jul 1, 2019. The flag is used by the blog yourfave-uses-neopronouns.<ref>https://yourfave-uses-neopronouns.tumblr.com/post/185988230593/the-flag-and-meaning</ref> The color meanings are as follows: Green is for masculine-identifying people who use neopronouns. Blue is for older pronoun sets and the history behind them. White is for non-binary identifying people who use neopronouns. Yellow is for newer pronoun sets and the happiness that comes from them. Orange is for feminine-identifying people who use neopronouns.

The xe/xem flag and the it/its flag were designed by Tumblr user love-all-around1223 on April 14th, and April 15th, 2018 respectively.<ref>https://love-all-around1223.tumblr.com/post/172939520081/are-there-flags-for-pronouns</ref><ref>https://love-all-around1223.tumblr.com/post/172959084791/are-there-flags-for-pronouns</ref>

== Resources ==