I’ve been helping my 72 year old bilingual (Spanish) mother come to terms with one of her nieces having transitioned.

She’s been remarkably progressive about it, but she did bring up some good questions that I didn’t have answers for.

(I have my own set of annoyances for pronouns in English. Using a third person plural for single individuals has been leading to confusion, especially amongst my English L2 friends and family. But pronouns are some of the most conservative parts of speech in any language so I’m not going to tilt at that particular windmill. )

As a question for my LGBTQ+ kith, what have you been seeing/using as pronouns in different languages? Romantic languages are generally still heavily gendered, as are some Germanic. Does that interfere with non-binary language patterns? What about Turkish, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese, Arabic, etc?

Have there been any instances of novel pronouns created?

And, not to pry open old wounds, but has anybody noticed new slurs or other intentionally hurtful epithets?

The first question is an effort to answer questions that I hadn’t even thought to ask. I’m actually pretty proud of the older generation making an effort to live in the modern world.

The rest is pure personal curiosity and possible conversation material.

Huge thank you to everybody taking time out of their day to answer.

  • Frell@beehaw.orgEnglish
    5·
    1 year ago

    For Spanish, contrary to what conservatives say, the “white liberals in California” did not invent what we call inclusive language/pronouns. The @ and the X were being used by people like me some 20 years ago, within Latin American communities.

    Yeah, it’s really infuriating seeing people act like this stuff is new. I grew up in south america, a couple of blocks from a state Faculty of Psychology, the student body was like 80% female and there was a strong presence of feminist advocacy groups (regular marches, public events, ever-present banners and posters, etc). I remember reading sings using “TOD@S” or “TODXS” decades ago.