Non-binary pronouns in Irish
In honor of Pride month (despite this post being a couple days late), I did a little bit of research into non-binary pronouns in Irish, with the goal being able to tell you all how to use them.
The first instinct for English speakers would be to useΒ βtheyβ or siad/iad, but siadΒ is only ever used to talk about multiple people. Anybody who doesnβt already know that youβre talking about someone who uses non-binary pronouns would just get confused.
The research I did showed a few non-binary pronouns, but nothing official or widely used.
duΓ βΒ comes from the Irish word forΒ βpersonβ, duine, but doesnβt intuitively makeΒ sense to someone that doesnβt know it
siΓΊΒ β apparently originates from Duolingo, and was created as a pronoun to bear resemblance to sΓ©/sΓ, and may be useful in spoken Irish (it sounds similar to a pronoun, so someone who doesnβt know what youβre talking about may be more likely to understand you)
sinΒ β from what Iβve seen online, sinΒ (literally βthatβ) is actually in use for some non-binary native speakers, but it still isnβt very prevalent (it would probably be understood by most people speaking Irish)
sé β this is the masculine pronoun, but it is also used in situations where the gender of the subject is unknown (or doesnβt exist), the only problem is that using binary pronouns is often exactly what non-binary people are trying to avoid
If none of these (rather unappealing) options appeal to you, I did find an example online of someone who lives in Ireland, and occasionally speaks Irish with non-binary people. They acknowledge that Irish doesnβt have any non-binary pronouns, and talk about the system that they and their friends use in Irish. Simply, they make a nickname into a pronoun. It isnβt a great solution, but it apparently works in practice.
Finally, Iβm going to talk a bit about the use of the autonomous tense in Irish. There exists a tense in Irish thatβs most similar to the passive tense in English. From what Iβve read online, though, the autonomous tense can stand on its own, and also (unlike English), specifically implies that there is someone doing the actions. Iβve seen it translated more accurately as using the word βoneβ in English (ex. one finds it difficult to find information about the autonomous tense online). Iβve read that this is used when someone doesnβt know the gender of the subject. This seems like a decent suggestion, but from my understanding of non-binary identities, some people identify more as specifically non-gendered (which this tense may be good for), but some people specifically prefer to identify as a non-binary gender and may prefer to use one of the above. All in all, there arenβt great choices for non-binary pronouns in Irish, but there are choices nonetheless. I hope this can serve as a helpful resource for those who need it.