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French is even more gendered and attempts to introduce a neutral pronoun basically failed. Now - English is for us a very different language that does not have

French is even more gendered and attempts to introduce a neutral pronoun basically failed. Now - English is for us a very different language that does not have declination so whatever construct there is inside is taken at face value. This is maybe why there are no particular problems using they/them for a single person. Maybe that the closer distance between German and English is one of the reasons for what you described? (wildly guessing)

bloak 3y ago
There is at least one fully specified proposal for gender-neutral German: geschlechtsneutral.net. I don't know whether there's anything like that for French. In both languages there's a lot more to it than just personal pronouns: there are also other gendered pronouns (relative, demonstrative, interogative, ...), nouns and adjectives. At least in German the endings on adjectives and nouns are fairly distinct so you can specify them separately. In French the ending can be fused with the root, so you have, for example: * Je suis nouveau (I am new; masculine speaker) * Je suis nouvelle (I am new; feminine speaker) The first-person pronoun "je" is the same for both genders, but the adjective is modified in a semi-regular way. What does a non-binary speaker say? If someone can point me at a fully specified proposal I'll have something to read this weekend! (Just joking: I already have lots to read.)
- BrandoElFollito 3y ago
  What I meant is that in German there is die, der and das (neutral) which at least gives an idea of something neither masculine nor feminine. In French we indeed have "je" (I) and "tu" (you) that is non-gendered but as you noted the sentence still holds the genre. The idea to introduce "iel" (and contraction of "il" (he) and "elle" (she)) did not catch and I think I never saw it being used in practice. Now, your last point is very interesting - there is no way to say "I am new" in a non-gendered way in French (I have not seen anyone discussing this, actually)

bloak 3y ago

There is at least one fully specified proposal for gender-neutral German: geschlechtsneutral.net. I don't know whether there's anything like that for French. In both languages there's a lot more to it than just personal pronouns: there are also other gendered pronouns (relative, demonstrative, interogative, ...), nouns and adjectives. At least in German the endings on adjectives and nouns are fairly distinct so you can specify them separately. In French the ending can be fused with the root, so you have, for example: * Je suis nouveau (I am new; masculine speaker) * Je suis nouvelle (I am new; feminine speaker) The first-person pronoun "je" is the same for both genders, but the adjective is modified in a semi-regular way. What does a non-binary speaker say? If someone can point me at a fully specified proposal I'll have something to read this weekend! (Just joking: I already have lots to read.)

BrandoElFollito 3y ago
What I meant is that in German there is die, der and das (neutral) which at least gives an idea of something neither masculine nor feminine. In French we indeed have "je" (I) and "tu" (you) that is non-gendered but as you noted the sentence still holds the genre. The idea to introduce "iel" (and contraction of "il" (he) and "elle" (she)) did not catch and I think I never saw it being used in practice. Now, your last point is very interesting - there is no way to say "I am new" in a non-gendered way in French (I have not seen anyone discussing this, actually)