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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.
by 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 agoWhat 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)