Gender neutral language in Dutch

Gender neutral language

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Gender neutral language in Dutch. The Dutch language has three grammatical genders: masculine, feminine, and neuter, although the distinction between masculine and feminine has largely disappeared due to the fact they are grammatically equivalent in almost every aspect. The grammatical gender does not always line up with the natural gender of a word, for example, all diminutive forms are neuter.

Pronouns

The Dutch language does not have any official gender-neutral pronouns, although nonbinary people have adopted other sets of pre-existing pronouns, as well as neopronouns, to work around this issue. A survey by Transgender Netwerk Nederland (Transgender Network Netherlands) showed that hen / hen / hun ("they/them/theirs") is the most popular pronoun set, although the first hen can be replaced by die ("that/who"). Various other inflections can also be replaced by the corresponding form of "die", depending on the individual's preferences and how natural the sentence sounds in the person's regiolect.

Case	Dutch sample sentence
Nominative	Wanneer ik iemand een grap vertel, lacht die/hen.
Accusative	Wanneer ik een vriend begroet, geef ik die/hen een knuffel.
Pronominal possessive	Wanneer iemand niet naar de kapper gaat, wordt diens/hun haar lang.
Predicative possesive	Wanneer ik een GSM nodig heb, leent mijn vriend me die van hen.
Reflexive	Elk kind voedt zichzelf.

"Die" does not have predicative possessive or reflexive forms and thus these have not been included in the table.

Use of "ze"

Use of "ze" is also possible in most cases, its use generally considered informal. It works the same as "they" in English, you use it as if you were referring to a group of people and conjugate the verb accordingly.

Case	Dutch sample sentence
Nominative	Wanneer ik iemand een grap vertel, lachen ze.
Accusative	Wanneer ik een vriend begroet, geef ik ze een knuffel.
Pronominal possessive	Wanneer iemand niet naar de kapper gaat, wordt hun haar lang.
Predicative possesive	Wanneer ik een GSM nodig heb, leent mijn vriend me die van ze.
Reflexive	Elk kind voedt zichzelf.

Family terms

Parent

• Ouder. Neutral, formal.

Siblings

• Sibbe. Neutral Dutch for sibling.

• Brus. Neutral Dutch for sibling, combination of broer (brother) and zus (sister).

• Brusje. Diminutive of the above. Informal, mainly used for a younger sibling.

Child

• Baby. Standard neutral word for very young offspring or very young people.
• Jonkie. Standard, somewhat slang-y neutral word for young people.
• Kind. Standard gender neutral word for a young person or an offspring. Implied age isn't adult, but may be.
• Kleintje. Literally "little one", neutral word for a very young child or young offspring.
• Peuter. Neutral word for a baby. (Child of ~1 to ~3 years old.)
• Kleuter. Neutral word for a toddler. (Child of ~3 to ~6 years old.)
• Tiener. Neutral word for a teenager. (Child of ~10 to ~18 years old.)
• Volwassene. Neutral word for an adult. (Person of ~18 to ~65 years old.)
• Senior. Neutral word for a senior. (Person of ~65 to often the end of their lifespan.)

Other terms

• Vriend. Neutral word for platonic friend. Has masculine connotations.
• Lief. Neutral word for romantic partner. Casual.
• Partner. Neutral word for (romantic, wedded, or otherwise) partner. More formal.

See also

• Gender neutral language
• Glossary of Dutch gender and sex terminology
• Pronouns

External links

• nl.pronouns.page, a website about gender neutral pronouns in Dutch