Transgender/nonbinary pronouns

[polskajason]

In Slavic languages, which pronouns do nonbinary people use to refer to themselves? In English, its seems to have settled on "they/them" because "it" feels too impersonal, but wasn't sure if some pronouns (like ono) are preferable since there are personal antecedents (like for dijete, a neuter noun).

 

[Awwal12]

While in many languages 'ono' fundamentally can have human antecedents (e.g. Rus. дитя 'child' - poetic/elevated), it's still normally associated with something "less human than normal animals" (which you can put into the "he" or "she" category, at least generically - e.g. foxes by default will be "girls" in Russian). Typical animated neuter nouns will be "monster", "creature", "being" - not a pleasant company overall.

 

[Anemona61]

While in many languages 'ono' fundamentally can have human antecedents (e.g. Rus. дитя 'child' - poetic/elevated), it's still normally associated with something "less human than normal animals" (which you can put into the "he" or "she" category, at least generically - e.g. foxes by default will be "girls" in Russian). Typical animated neuter nouns will be "monster", "creature", "being" - not a pleasant company overall.

Same in Serbian. Using "ono" for a person is quite rude and offensive.

 

[jasio]

In Slavic languages, which pronouns do nonbinary people use to refer to themselves? In English, its seems to have settled on "they/them" because "it" feels too impersonal, but wasn't sure if some pronouns (like ono) are preferable since there are personal antecedents (like for dijete, a neuter noun).

I'm afraid that if you need a true answer, you might need to ask non-binary persons themselves.

Anyway, from my perspective, using a non-binary pronoun to describe oneself would sound awkward and unnatural, to say the least.

That's because unlike English, in Polish - and most, if not all, Slavic languages - verbs (at least in some tenses) and adjectives (always) are inflected to agree with the gender of the subject of the phrase. And in Polish, as well as in other languages I have a grasp of, only masculine and feminine gender verb forms exist for the first and second person singular, and the use of the second person singular neuter gender is pretty marginal. Leveraging the patterns for other persons and genders you can inflect the verbs to a neuter form of the first person singular*), but it would be a neologism.

To give you an example, let's take "to read" in the past tense:
1. ja czytałem (m), ja czytałam (f), - (n)
2. ty czytałeś (m), ty czytałaś (f), ty czytałoś(n)**) - extremaly rare, probably used only with "dziecko" (child), which is neuter gender noun)
3. on czytał (m), ona czytała (f), ono czytało (n)

While in English you have the same form ('read') across all the persons, so you may use any existing or invented pronoun you like.

As for the first person singular, typically the humans have identified themselves in a binary way, and usually one knows their own sex or gender (whatever they prefer to use). And the language reflects that. Even in the fairy tales a talking animal would use grammatical forms matching their true sex in the story (if it's known) or a grammatical gender of the animal name. Same for talking plants and inanimate objects.

With the adjectives it's somewhat easier, as they have all three gender forms, and don't have persons.

*) Actually, I've found a neuter gender first person form used once, for artistic purpose in a sci-fi short story by Stanislaw Lem. It was written from a perspective of an AI in a robotic body and it used first person neuter to describe its initial, blank state of mind. When it it confronted a group of humans and realized that it had a body of a woman it switched to regular feminine gender pronouns and verb forms. I wouldn't be surprised if it was the only use of this form in the history of Polish literature.

**) Normally you address someone using binary gendered forms of the verbs. If you address a child, it's possible to use 'dziecko' (child) as a sort of a pronoun (usually for emphatic reason), and, consequently, second person neuter verb form, to agree grammatically with the address. Like 'what have you done, child?!, Dziecko, coś ty zrobiło?!'. The only scenario, I could think of.

 

[Panceltic]

1. ja czytałem (m), ja czytałam (f), - (n)

I distinctly remember fairytales from my childhood where the Sun was speaking for example, and it said something like "dzisiaj rano wstałom" (in Slovenian of course) and it never struck me as odd. Is there no such thing in Polish?

 

[Awwal12]

I distinctly remember fairytales from my childhood where the Sun was speaking for example, and it said something like "dzisiaj rano wstałom" (in Slovenian of course) and it never struck me as odd. Is there no such thing in Polish?

I suppose it's there, much like in Russian, but, well, the Sun is the Sun; what other gender could it use if it were alive?

 

[Panceltic]

I suppose it's there, much like in Russian, but, well, the Sun is the Sun; what other gender could it use if it were alive?

Yeah, I know, but it is funny how whenever this topic comes up, Polish speakers are always up in arms saying "you literally CAN'T say "byłom", it is impossible and non-existent" even though there are (marginal) cases when it can be construed

 

[Awwal12]

even though there are (marginal) cases when it can be construed

Yes, but not when the speaker is human. The Sun is clearly not human or humanoid, so there is no problem.

 

[ciraki]

It should be kept in mind that Slavic countries are pretty conservative compared to west Europe and especially USA. So, the number of people who openly identify as non-binary is very very small, and in most cases I'd say there just isn't enough people who would be concerned with the topic to result in some consensus. I've read an article on such pronouns in Croatian, and it showed how NB people propose very diverse solutions, all rather unpredictable.
'Ono' is certainly very awkward because it sounds as if you're referring to an object, not a person.
I've heard one Croat use plural 'oni' when talking about some foreign NB person. It's an imitation English 'they', but in Croatian that plural form is gendered too (masc. 'oni', fem. 'one', neu. 'ona'), and also lacks the traditional basis of English gender-neutral usage of 'they'.

Trans people on the other hand just want the ordinary on/ona pronouns, from what I've seen.

Yes, but not when the speaker is human. The Sun is clearly not human or humanoid, so there is no problem.

I'd say the key part here is that Slavic 'sun' is usually (if not always) neutrum: sunce, sonce, slunce, солнце... If the antropomorphised object were grammatically in some other gender, the character would use that gender instead, e.g. moon (mjesec, месяц...) would refer to itself as masculine, and so on, regardless of their (in)animacy and biological sex.

 

[jasio]

I distinctly remember fairytales from my childhood where the Sun was speaking for example, and it said something like "dzisiaj rano wstałom" (in Slovenian of course) and it never struck me as odd. Is there no such thing in Polish?

It's possible, even though I can't remember it myself. Nevertheless, Słońce is grammatically neuter, does not have neither sex nor identity gender, so these awkward forms are only possible.

Besides, a talking Sun is not that common, even in fairy tales, and the sun talking about its own past is even more exotic.

 

[jasio]

Yeah, I know, but it is funny how whenever this topic comes up, Polish speakers are always up in arms saying "you literally CAN'T say "byłom", it is impossible and non-existent" even though there are (marginal) cases when it can be construed

I didn't wrote 'you literally can't'. I wrote that it sounds awkward - and it does. 🤷🏻‍♂️

Besides, using neuter gender does not entirely solve the case. In English, if you don't want to identify with those non-binaries who use a specific pronoun, you can always invent a new one and the grammar stays in place. You may have distinct pronouns for any possible group of people, and even for any individual person, albeit I'd use personal names of it was the case. Nevertheless, the grammar stays in place, regardless.

In Polish, and in Slavic languages it simply does not work this way, because of the grammar rules. In Spanish, you can at least write amig@s, peregrin@s, educad@s and hope that it would satisfy non binary persons as well. How would you define a non binary version of 'przyjaciel'? Or 'друг' for that matter? How would you fit non binary persons into male-personal Vs. Non-male-personal distinction in plural in Polish?

And yes, I've already heard a person claiming that the gender distinction in plural in Polish was discriminatory, because of the usage rules. So it's not a hair splitting.

In many languages confusing grammar genders with gender identities is simply a can of worms, that's all.

 

[Awwal12]

How would you define a non binary version of 'przyjaciel'? Or 'друг' for that matter?

I'm afraid you're wandering into word formation here, which is a pretty much separate topic.
As a matter of fact, Rus. друг can have female referents (usually just as a nominal predicate, though) and its relationships with подруга (which will often contextually mean 'girlfriend') is markedly asymmetrical. When masculine professional nouns (автор, адвокат, космонавт etc.) started to denote women in the early 20th century, they simply ceased to agree with predicates in gender grammatically; the gender of the predicates, if present, is then decided semantically. But the problem obviously stands, as you're still obliged to use one of the three genders tops in the predicate (at least whenever it's singular adjectival and/or singular past tense), you still cannot use some arbitrary gender there, and the attempt to use neuter would be connected with all the problems described in the post #2.

 

[Rosett]

In Russian, there’s a simple way to talk about a non-binary person by using the plural pronoun «они» or to address them in the 2nd person plural — which would be very polite anyway when addressing a single person. More information on the subject can be found by following the link below.

Предпочтительно использовать местоимение «они». Так нужно, чтобы убрать из фразы гендерную окраску. Лучше всего добавлять нейтральные обращения – без отсылок к гендеру. Jun 27, 2022
Гол.ру: новости и статьи о спорте, культуре, кино, музыке, экономике и технологиях › materials › 19209-n...
Кто такие небинарные персоны и как корректно с ними общаться - Гол.ру

 

[jasio]

In Slavic languages, which pronouns do nonbinary people use to refer to themselves? In English, its seems to have settled on "they/them" because "it" feels too impersonal, but wasn't sure if some pronouns (like ono) are preferable since there are personal antecedents (like for dijete, a neuter noun).

I have an afterthought that if a non-binary person refers to themselves, they may (and probably do) use the first person singular personal pronoun, as everybody else. After all, 'I' in English, 'ja' in Polish, 'я' in Russian, and in other languages respectively, are used regardless of the sex or gender of the person in question. The same goes for second person singular personal pronoun ('thou', 'ty', 'ты'), as well as first and second person plural pronouns.

Only third person pronouns are gender-specific: singular in English and Russian, ie. 'he'/'she', 'он'/'она', and in Polish both singular ('on'/'ona') and plural ('oni'/'one'). So probably the original question is not correctly phrased, because by definition the third person pronouns are not used by people referring to themselves, but by people speaking to someone else ABOUT yet another person. Polish is an exception here, as we use third person grammatical forms instead of the second person - not the pronouns though - to express politeness, ie. when speaking TO the person directly. The word used in such situation is also binary ('Pan'/'Pani'), and indeed I've heard about a non-binary person requesting a special form of addressing, albeit the issue can often be circumvented by using indirect forms.

This remark does not invalidate the point that in the Slavic languages it's not only a matter of the personal pronouns, because a lot of grammatical forms are inherently binary*), like the past tense verb forms (except for the languages in which aorist is used), present perfect in Bulgarian, compound future tense to some extent, conditional, conjunctive mood, agreement of the adjective forms with the gender of the subject, and what not.


*) ok, strictly speaking it's tertiary, but utrum does not exist in the Slavic languages, and neuter form of the verbs is used with the people only in specific situations.

 

[polskajason]

So probably the original question is not correctly phrased, because by definition the third person pronouns are not used by people referring to themselves, but by people speaking to someone else ABOUT yet another person.

That's right, I goofed with the question as I wrote it. I meant how would a nonbinary person want to be referred to in the third person.

On/ona (and its declined forms) wouldn't work. Ono would be too degrading, as others have mentioned (like English "it"). Oni and one are gendered, unlike English "they". Maybe ona (neuter plural)?

 

[Awwal12]

Oni and one are gendered, unlike English "they"

Not in all Slavic languages. Basically, the East Slavic languages have lost any traces of gender in plural. The pre-revolutionary Russian literary standard still differentiated between они and онѣ, but it was basically an artificial distinction induced by Church Slavonic. No Russian dialect differentiates genders in plural; even if the dialect uses оне as a 3p.pl. pronoun, it simply uses it as the sole 3p.pl. personal pronoun regardless of the gender. The same happened with Bulgaro-Macedonian dialects; те/тие is used regardless of the gender or animacy of the referents.

However, as far as Russian is concerned, using plural pronouns to refer to individual persons would be strongly associated with the pre-revolutionary forms of reverence towards members of the ruling classes.

 

[jasio]

That's right, I goofed with the question as I wrote it. I meant how would a nonbinary person want to be referred to in the third person.

On/ona (and its declined forms) wouldn't work. Ono would be too degrading, as others have mentioned (like English "it"). Oni and one are gendered, unlike English "they". Maybe ona (neuter plural)?

I'm not 100% sure, but I have an impression that Polish is the only Slavic language in which you normally address a person in 3rd person. In the other languages 2nd person plural is used as a honorary address, and it's not gender marked anyway. 3rd person is used only if other people talk about you, but let's leave aside a discussion whether it's even appropriate to demand using special grammatical forms in such cases in the first place.

In Polish if you address a person honorary or formally, you don't use pronouns but a noun "Pan/Pani" depending on the gender of the person you address, or "Panowie/Panie/Państwo" in plural. You can roughly think of them as equivalents of Spanish "usted", except that they are not considered pronouns and that they are gender marked. As regular nouns, they are roughly equivalent of mister, sir, lord, my lord / madam, lady, milady - both in social and religious contexts (Lord in a sense of God is often expressed as Pan).

Historically this way of addressing comes from the forms used to address members of the gentry (as @Awwal12 referred to for Russian), so for the East Slavic ears it may sound as if we all wanted to be called "Lords", indeed.

I don't have a personal experience, but I have been reported a conversation with an apparently nonbinary person, who demanded that they were addressed as "Osoba" ('Person'). So instead of saying

Niech Pan usiądzie

a form

Niech Osoba usiądzie

was used, albeit it's also possible to say

Proszę usiąść

which is unmarked.

3rd person plural is used almost exclusively when addressing a group of people, with Panowie (Gents) and Panie (Madams) being used to address a group of people of one gender, and Państwo - a group of people of mixed gender (actually our potentially), or if the gender of the persons is unknown or irrelevant, like in a formal letter. In the latter case, it's also correct to use "Szanowni Państwo" address in plural, even if the addressee is a single person. This form is often used in official letters from organizations addressed to the customers, employees, citizens, etc., as well as to address (people representing) an organization. It's nothing like 'they are / they is' in English though.

 

[Awwal12]

Basically, the East Slavic languages have lost any traces of gender in plural.

P.S.: The only technical exception in Russian is, apparently, the forms of adjectives used in nominative/inanimate accusative numeral phrases headed by the numerals 2-4 (which phrases have a very peculiar internal syntax); with feminine dependent nouns, the related adjectives in the phrase may take nominative plural forms rather than genitive plural (три красивых студента vs. три красивых/красивые студентки).

 

[jasio]

P.S.: The only technical exception in Russian is, apparently, the forms of adjectives used in nominative/inanimate accusative numeral phrases headed by the numerals 2-4 (which phrases have a very peculiar internal syntax); with feminine dependent nouns, the related adjectives in the phrase may take nominative plural forms rather than genitive plural (три красивых студента vs. три красивых/красивые студентки).

Compare it to Polish:

• trzech ładnych studentów - for three male students
• trzy ładne studentki - for three female students
• troje ładnych studentów - for three students of both genders
• trójka ładnych studentów - unmarked

Apparently, even leaving aside an issue, whether adjective 'ładny' is appropriate in all cases (typically, 'przystojny' would be more adequate for males), we have a very anti-modernistic language.

 

[Panceltic]

Compare it to Polish:

• trzech ładnych studentów - for three male students

What about trzej ładni studenci?

 

[jasio]

What about trzej ładni studenci?

Also possible. Nevertheless, it's still binary.

 

[Awwal12]

troje ładnych studentów - for three students of both genders

Ah, yes, you've reminded me of the numerals themselves, which are a story of their own. While Russian gendered predicates or attributive adjectives cannot give away the gender of the connected nouns in plural, numerals themselves do (sometimes even the biological gender of the referents; more below).
- compound numerals ending in "1" retain the grammatical gender of the noun in East Slavic languages and in BCS. While in all Slavic languages such numerals are grammatically singular, in the other Slavic languages the gender of the phrase (and, accordingly, of the connected gendered predicates) is shifted to generic neuter. Foreign learners must bear in mind that it concerns the grammatical gender only anyway, so "двадцать один человек вошёл в комнату" may theoretically imply that all the people were women, even though "человек" (Rus. "person", "human"; plural non-counting form "люди") is a masculine noun.
- "2" (and compound numerals involving it) still preserves the distinction between masculine/neuter and feminine forms (два vs. две), at least in the nominative/inanimate accusative case. In other languages the neuter form is often identical to the feminine one rather than the masculine one (which actually reflects the Proto-Slavic situation).
- finally, in Russian the original pronominal forms of Slavic 2-3 (the sources of Slovak animate masculine dvaja, Polish masculine personal dwaj etc.) have joined the older Slavic collective numerals in -*ero/-*oro (> двое, трое, четверо... десятеро; larger numbers are used with derived adverbs only, e.g. вдвадцатером). Aside from some side usages, all of them normally modify masculine animate nouns only (their very use is usually optional, but quite natural, and for some nouns combined with the numbers 2-4 they're strongly preferable: ??три мужчины sounds very strange, unlike трое мужчин; пять мужчин or три студента are all right). In theory they're also supposed to denote groups consisting of men only. The latter rule, however, is rather artificial, and you can even google search many examples of collective nouns modifying feminine nouns with female denotates outright (though it's generally considered poor Russian: "трое девушек", "четверо студенток").

 

[jasio]

What about expressing possibilities or wishes? Or, in fact, any other situation in which you would use the old active aorist participle (for a reason in Polish grammars it's typically referred to as 'the -ł form' or '3rd person singular past tense form', which is confusing like hell)? The said aorist participle is gender-marked.

For example the phrase 'I could go there' reads in Polish:

Mógłbym tam pójść (if the subject is a male)
Mogłabym tam pójść (if the subject is a female)
Mogłobym tam pójść (rather theoretical, as discussed above, even if it's a matter of being accustomed to the form)

This one is specifically important, as requires the subject to select a verb form to refer to themselves.


In the second person singular there's even a stronger connotation for neutral:

Mógłbyś tam pójść (if the object is a male)
Mogłabyś tam pójść (if the object is a female)
Mogłobyś tam pójść (the only scenario I can think of using this phrase is talking to a child and referring to it as such, rather than by their gender ('dziecko' is neutral) or name, so to me it sounds down-looking)

"I want you to go there": (isn't it a subjunctive mood)?

Chcę, żebyś tam poszedł. (M)
Chcę, żebyś tam poszła. (F)
Chcę, żebyś tam poszło. (N - again, sounds down-looking to my ears).

Unlike compound future tense you cannot replace the past participle with the infinitive form.

I already mentioned the numerals. There's also male-personal vs. non-male-personal distinction in plural, matching genders of the adjectives with the gender of the subject, and a whole lot of other binary-gendered language features.

Again: it's not that it's impossible to use neuter gender to refer to the non-binary persons, especially that how it is perceived is a result of typical use cases and might change in future towards neutral. However apparently the structure of the language is quite deeply binary-gendered, and in this context using gender-specific pronouns alone does not sound like a major issue.

 

[Drakonica]

This is very rare even in the LGBT community, but when nonbinary people talk about themselves, they most often use neutral declination of verbs and adjectives.

"Byłom zmęczone" - was tired
When someone other refers to them, he can use neutraln pronoun:
ono
and its dectlination forrm:
jego / go / niego
jemu / mu / niemu
je / nie
nim
nim

These forms are gramagically correct but rather not used refering to the persons.

Some examples:
Wolne Forum Transowe :: Zobacz temat - Nie ma nic pomiędzy kobietą a mężczyzną
Wolne Forum Transowe :: Zobacz temat - Po czym odróżnić androgynicznego cisa od osoby niebinarnej?
Jestem dumne, że byłom w więzieniu – Ali Kopacz, niebinarna osoba aktywistyczna - Replika Online

I more often see that forms in literature to describe post-sexual, post-human or non-human beings.
For example in the begining of Stanisław Lem's "Maska".

There is alsow form called "dukaizm" invented by Jacek Dukaj in a novel "Perfekcyjna niedoskonałość"
Dukaizmy – EverybodyWiki Bios & Wiki
onu
jenu / nu / nienu
jewu / wu
jenu / nu / nienu
num
num
whitch reffer to post-sexual beinsgs, who can chagne their sex as they can hange their hair color. But they are even more seldom, use for funn or as licentia poetica, or in SF literature.