hi! so the mods here at qla have decided that since not all our readers are native english speakers, it would be in everyone’s best interests to start a collection of gender-neutral pronouns across all languages. if you don’t see your language or pronouns on the list (within reason, for accessibility purposes we can’t include every english variant of a pronoun), please let us know and include conjugations if possible! thank you!
for further expansions on grammar you can check the posts in the pronoun project tag:)
هما (they, originally dual, can work as a neutral singular third person)
انتما (second person dual)
bulgarian (български език)
те/тях/техен/им (generally used for a group of people, could be used as singular as in “they”)
то/него/негово/му (means “it”, informal)
mandarin/普通话: 他 or 她 (tā) - only the pronunciation is gender-neutral unfortunately, the characters are gendered
cantonese/广州话: 佢 (keoi5/keúih) - them/him/her/it
它 - also tā, but means “it”. ask before using as it could be derogatory
牠 - ta1, used for non-human animals
add 們 (men) to either for plural, add 的 (de) to make it possessive
那个人 (simplified) 那個人 (traditional) (na4ge4ren2- that person) and 这个人 (simplified) 這個人 (traditional) (zhe4ge4ren2- this person)
onikání, which was used in the past as gender-neutral pronoun when refering to someone of lesser status. it’s oni/je/jejich/se they/them/their/themself and the use is: Oni jsou moc milým člověkem. - They are a very nice person.
ze/hun/ze - (note: literal translation of they, but ze is often used as “she”)
Ŝli - combination of he/she, generally used like “they” in english
se/sen (means it, informal)
ol/mo - ex: ol s’appelle Bidule et c’est mo pote.
ille (referring to oneself), ceulle (referring to someone else)
eux (sometimes used as a subject-position instead of object-position)
ის / იმან / იმის (is / iman / imis) = they / them / their
αυτοί / εκείνοι ( are these the ones that mean it?? let me know so i can take them down)
αυτ@, εκείν@ (singular) φίλ@ς (plural) - not pronounceable, good for writing though
there aren’t actually any gender neutral pronouns in hebrew sadly. the first set is all male pronouns and the second one is all female. like the word ze (זה) is male for ‘it’ and it has a female form which is ‘zo’ (זו). atzmam (עצמם) is plural male (but it is used sometimes as neutral tbh). also the second set is only female pronouns for she, her, hers and herself
also about the plurals, you need to add either ם or ן to make these words plural either in a male or female form, like the plural words aren’t actual words it needs to be עצמם\שלהם\אותם\הם and it’s the male form you just need to replace it with ן to make it female but people use these as gender neutral pretty often because that’s the closest you would get
það - equivalent of “it”, ask before using, could be derogatory
hán/hán/háni/háns - mix of binary pronouns
when referring to an individual of an unspecified gender, use viðkomandi instead of hann/hún
ilokano/Ti Pagsasao nga Iloko
isuna (singular they), na (singular their), kaniana/kenkuana (singular theirs), isuda (plural they), da (plural their), kaniada/kadakuwada (plural theirs)
indonesian/bahasa indonesia
dia (third person singular), mereka (third person plural)
latvian/latviešu valoda/lettish
lithuanian/lietuvių kalba
Jie/Jų/Jiems/Juos/Jais/Juose
malay/bahasa melayu/bahasa malaysia
hen/hen(henom)/hens(henoms)
portuguese/lingua portuguesa/português
all pronouns are neutral (he/she: “uha usa” or ਉਹ ਉਸ; him/her: “usa” or “usanū” which is ਉਸ or ਉਸਨੂੰ; his/hers: “usadā” or ਉਸਦਾ). also, the pronouns “he” & “she” in english both translate to “vah” (वह) in hindi. however, the rest of the pronouns are gendered. verbs are also generally gendered.
oni/z njimi/njim (they/with them/to them). Now if you want to say: I want to help them - you don’t use ‘njim’ but ‘jim’. (Želim jim pomagati; Pomagati jim želim.)
spanish/español/castilano/castellano
Pronouns that can be written and pronounced:
Ella/la/-a (binary feminine): “Ella es la niña linda”
Él/el/-o (binary masculine): “Él es el niño lindo”
Elle/le/-e (neutral): “Elle es le niñe linde”
Ello/lo/-o (neutral, similarly to the english ‘it’ can be very offensive so please be careful and don’t use it unless you are told to do so): “Ello es lo niño lindo”
Elli/li/-i (neutral, cacophonic and uncommon): “Elli es li niñi lindi”
Ellu/lu/-u (neutral, cacophonic and uncommon): “Ellu es lu niñu lindu”
Pronouns that can be written but not pronounced:
Ellx/lx/-x: “Ellx es lx chicx lindx” (I don’t know who told you otherwise, but this can be used by both poc and white folks)
Ell*/l*/-*: “Ell* es l* niñ* lind*”
Ell@/l@/-@: “Ell@ es l@ niñ@ lind@”
Ell_/l_/-_: “Ell_ es l_ niñ_ lind_”
Ellæ/læ/-æ: “Ellæ es læ niñæ lindæ”
hen/hen(henom)/hens(henoms) - variations are in parentheses, gender-neutral third person personal pronouns
den/den/dens (dess) (means ‘it’)
Singular/Plural siya/sila (they) niya/nila (them/their) (sa) kanya/(sa) kanila (theirs/preposition them)
