Gender neutral language in French: Difference between revisions

Latest revision as of 12:04, 20 March 2026

Gender neutral language

The French language has two grammatical genders: feminine and masculine. Activists have started seeking solutions to degender the language as much as possible and, therefore, make it more inclusive. These solutions entail neologisms as well as non-neologisms.

Non-neologismsEdit

RefeminizationEdit

Prior to the 17th century, French, like Italian, Spanish, and other Romance languages, utilized feminine inflections to distinguish female and male professionals. However, for a range of reasons (both societal — such as misogyny^[1]^[2] — and linguistic^[3], as French was being standardized and dialect speakers were expected to learn standard French) grammarians ensured that these feminine designations were effectively removed from the language.^[1]

Today, many people refer to the contemporary introduction of feminine designations as féminisation ('feminization'), believing that these occupational titles are newly coined terms. However, this is not the case, as they are being revived from an earlier iteration of the French language, making reféminisation^[4] ('refeminization') a more accurate term.

Refeminization contributes to degendering French, as studies in various languages have demonstrated that generic masculine, despite being considered gender-neutral by French prescriptive grammar ("Selon Le Bon Usage de Maurice Grevisse, l'adjectif se met donc au 'genre indifférencié, c'est-à-dire au masculin'."),^[5] is not actually cognitively neutral.^[6]^[7] By incorporating the feminine form of a word, speakers acknowledge the presence of individuals of more genders than just one,^[8] and the interchangeability of the masculine versus feminine terms as a result of the growing similarity in their distributions contribute to decoupling biological sex, social gender/gender position or gender identity (cf. sex assignment) from the specific contexts they tend to be associated with.

Masculine	Feminine by the Académie	Refeminized
un auteur	une auteur(e)	une autrice
un professeur	une professeur(e)	une professeuse
un peintre	une peintre	une peintresse
un chirurgien	une femme chirurgien	une chirurgienne

DoubletsEdit

For example, « Nous prions les étudiantes et (les) étudiants de remettre leur copie à la personne responsable ». Some people don't enjoy the repetition,^[9] others consider that the doublets don't encompass all genders,^[10] others again are unsure which form to mention first, since the order conveys information about the value the speaker gives to each item.^[11]

Shortened doubletsEdit

The feminine suffix gets attached to the masculine suffix, rather than the whole word being repeated (as in classical doublets).^[9]^[10]


Middle dot	Dot	Parentheses	Slash	Dash
professionnel·les professionnel·le·s	acteur.rice	employé(e)	chanteur/euse	boulanger-ère

Morphologically invariant gender-specific nounsEdit

It should be noted that, because French systematically derives its agent nouns through the addition of gender-marked suffixes, it lacks the true common-gender nouns, i. e. Utrum (cf. also dual-gender nouns), found in English.

Some examples of morphologically — but not syntactically — invariant gender-specific nouns in French

Morphologically invariant gender-specific nouns
indefinite article	definite article	Example of usage	Commentary
un·e élève	l'élève	« Les élèves apprennent leur leçon. »	élève, starting with a vowel, stays morphologically epicene when combined with the singular definite article (la and le becoming shortened to l' if followed by a vowel)
un·e enfant	l'enfant	« L'enfant regarde la télévision. »	id.
un·e artiste	l'artiste	« Les artistes perdent leur travail. »	Notice the epicene agentive suffix -iste.
un·e juge	le/la juge	« Les juges ont pris leur décision. »	juge, starting with a consonent, can only stay morphologically epicene in combination with the plural — all epicene, by the way —articles.
un·e destinataire	le/la destinataire	« Les destinataires ne recevront pas leur colis à temps. »	Notice the epicene agentive suffix -aire.

As singular articles indicate gender ('la' and 'le'), this technique works best with plural forms. However, it also works with singular forms if the noun begins with a vowel, because the article automatically becomes l', which does not express gender. A drawback is that there are not morphologically invariant occupational titles for all professions or functions in regards to natural gender, i. e. Sexus, "a linguistic category for the sex of real life beings, both the biological sex of animals or the social identity of a person."^[12]

In certain Swiss-French varieties, as in the canton of Vaud, masculine and feminine words ending in <é> resp. <ée> are pronounced differently (e. g., une employée [ynɑ̃plwaje:]/[ynɑ̃plwaje:j] vs. un employé [ɛ̃nɑ̃plwaje]/[œ̃nɑ̃plwaje]). However, this linguistically conservative pronunciation is becoming increasingly marginal: it is primarily confined to Switzerland and, in major cities and among younger generations, the pronunciation is gradually converging with the standard French norm, meaning that the distinction between /e/ and /e:/ (or /e:j/, remnant from Franco-Provençal dialects spoken in the region before linguistic homogenization) is being neutralized, resulting in a single phoneme /e/ and causing employé and employée to be pronounced identically. As a result, here, these words are considered orally indistinguishable.

Fixed-gender epicenes and collective nounsEdit

While human collective nouns — such as l'auditoire ('the audience') or le public ('the public')— inherently carry the semantic feature [+human], their relationship to natural gender/Sexus diverges from that of individual personal nouns. Unlike fixed-gender epicenes (e.g., la sentinelle, 'the sentry'), where a specific individual referent does indeed posses a gender/Sexus that the noun's morphology simply ignores (rendering the form Sexus-independent), collective nouns denote a macro-entity. In formal semantics, a multitude functioning as a single constituent does not inherently possess a natural gender. Thus, in collective nouns, the semantic feature of Sexus is not merely omitted, but is rather structurally completely absent (∅). In this respect, human collective nouns operate similarly to inanimate objects (e.g., la chaise, 'the chair'): they are assigned a grammatical gender/Genus, but the semantic category of natural gender/Sexus is inherently inapplicable to them.

To classify the grammatical strategies for making French more gender-inclusive or gender-neutral, we need to distinguish between:

Sexus-applicable nouns referring to animates
1. Gender-specific nouns
  1. morphologically gendered nouns, where the noun gets its Sexus-specification through derivation from gender-marked agentive affixes (compare acteur vs. actrice).
  2. lexically gendered nouns, where the Sexus-specification is inherent to the lexeme (compare sœur, 'sister', or: mec, 'dude')
2. Fixed-gender epicene nouns, where the natural gender/Sexus of the agent noun gets "overwritten" by grammatical gender/Genus (cf.
Sexus-inapplicable nouns referring to animates
1. Collective nouns

This distinction is tripartite, comprising Sexus-dependent, Sexus-independent, and Sexus-inapplicable nouns, which underpins the morphological oppositions presented in the two following tables.

Individual *versus* collective nouns^[13]
Gender-specific nouns (Sexus) morphologically gendered nouns	Collective nouns (Genus)
Les auditrices et auditeurs sont attentifs.	L'auditoire est attentif.
Les spectateurs et spectatrices sont très calmes aujourd'hui.	Le public est très calme aujourd'hui.

Monogender nouns^[13]
Gender-specific nouns (Sexus) lexically gendered nouns	Fixed-gender epicenes (Genus) Sexus-independent
Je ne connais pas cet homme.	Je ne connais pas cette personne.
La mère de Jo ne parle pas le néerlandais.	Le parent de Jo ne parle pas le néerlandais.

Proximity agreementEdit

Up until the 18th century, the masculine gender did not always take precedence over the feminine in instances where the genders could theoretically be congruent: proximity^[14] and free-choice agreement coexisted alongside the masculine-over-feminine rule.^[2]^[3] For a significant portion of Old French history, proximity agreement was the most prevalent method for agreeing adjectives, past participles, etc. (cf. Anglade 1931:172).^[15] Today, this agreement could facilitate gender equality in grammar instead of the masculine-over-feminine hierarchy that was suggested in the 17th and 18th century by French grammarians such as Malherbe, Vaugelas, Bouhours and Beauzée:

« Le genre masculin, étant le plus noble, doit prédominer toutes les fois que le masculin et le féminin se trouvent ensemble. » (Claude Favre de Vaugelas, Remarques sur la langue française, 1647).^[1]
« Lorsque les deux genres se rencontrent, il faut que le plus noble l’emporte. » (Bouhours 1675).^[5]
« Le genre masculin est réputé plus noble que le féminin à cause de la supériorité du mâle sur la femelle. » (Beauzée 1767).^[5]


Masculine-prevails-over-feminine rule	Proximity agreement
Ces œillets et ces roses sont beaux.	Ces œillets et ces roses sont belles.
Les nombreux filles et garçons.	Les nombreuses filles et garçons.

NeologismsEdit

Methodological NoteEdit

In the accompanying tables, the most widely adopted neologisms are italicized. Unless explicitly noted and justified within the text, all neologisms and morphological rules discussed in this article are attested across French-speaking online communities and digital platforms. A comprehensive inventory of these primary sources is provided in the "Main Resources" section at the end of this article.

Personal pronounsEdit

Regarding its pronouns, French only distinguishes gender in the third-person (e.g.: 'elle', 'la', 'eux', etc.).

Subject pronounsEdit

Up until the 12th century, French knew the neutral subject pronoun 'el'/'al'.^[16] Today, 'el' cannot be reintroduced from Old French as it would sound identical to 'elle', the current feminin subject pronoun. As for 'al', it sounds like 'elle' in spoken Canadian French.^[17] It could, however, still be a viable option for the rest of the Francophone community.^[18] Nowadays, according to the Guide de rédaction inclusive (2021:14) from the Laval University,^[13] the Guide de grammaire neutre et inclusive (2021:5) from Divergenres,^[4] the Petit dico de français neutre/inclusif (2018) from La vie en Queer,^[19] and Wiki Trans (2019),^[20] the most widely adopted subject (neo)pronoun is 'iel(le)'. It was added to the prestigious dictionary Le Robert in 2021.^[21] Alongside 'iel(le)', Canadian French also seems to use 'ille'.^[4]^[17] In metropolitan France, the pronoun 'al', proposed by linguist Alpheratz in their book Grammaire du français inclusif (2018), has gained some recognition. The table below presents the primary gender-neutral subject pronouns found in the French-speaking world.


	gender-neutral subject pronouns
Dominant usage	iel(le) [jɛl]	ille [ij]^[17]	al
Peripheral usage	ol	ul	ael

Object pronouns: clitics and tonic pronounsEdit

French distinguishes between clitic and tonic object pronouns. A clitic is a word that attaches in a syntactically rigid way to another word to form a prosodic unit with it, lacking prosodic as well as distributional autonomy.^[22] Currently, there is no prevailing gender-neutral clitic direct object personal pronoun; the most common ones are detailed below.

Clitic pronouns
Subject	Direct object	Indirect object
il	le, (l')	lui
elle	la, (l')	lui
iel	lae [lae] lea [ləa] lo lan^[23] li lu lia l' (standard French clitic used when the direct object precedes words that start with a vowel)	lui
ils	les	leur
elles	les	leur
iels	les	leur

Tonic pronouns are also called 'autonomous' because, in opposition to clitics, they form their own prosodic unit and can stand alone in the sentence, hence their distribution is not as fixed as the clitics' one.^[22] There are currently two competing systems:^[20]^[19]^[24] one consists in syncretizing (cf. analogical levelling)^[25] clitic and tonic pronouns, following the paradigm of standard French 'elle', which equates keeping the gender-neutral subject pronoun — be it 'iel', 'ille', 'al' or 'ol', etc. — as such; the other approach, exemplified in the table below with 'iel', supports differentiating (cf. analogical extension)^[25] clitics from tonic pronouns, thereby aligning with the paradigm of 'il'.

Analogical extension
Clitic subject pronoun	Tonic pronoun
il	lui
elle	elle
iel	ellui [ɛllɥi]
ils	eux
elles	elles
iels	elleux [ɛllø]

Analogical levelling
Clitic subject pronoun	Tonic pronoun
il	lui
elle	elle
iel	iel(le) [jɛl]
ils	eux
elles	elles
iels	iels(/ielles) [jɛl]

Indefinite pronouns and adjectivesEdit

Semantically, many indefinite pronouns (such as chacun or quelqu'un) share the [+human] trait of personal pronouns, functioning essentially as unspecified human referents. However, because they are quantificational rather than referential, they lack a specific natural gender/Sexus. Consequently, enforcing binary grammatical gender (Genus) on these forms forces a specific morphological marker onto an inherently unspecified referent, invariably defaulting to the masculine generic in standard French.

	Masculine	Feminine	Analytic gender-neutral	Synthetic gender-neutral
aucun·e	aucun [okœ̃]/[okɛ̃]	aucune [okyn]	aucueune [okœn]	aucan [okɑ̃]/[okan]
chacun·e	chacun [ʃakœ̃/[ʃakɛ̃]	chacune [ʃakyn]	chacueune [ʃakœn]	chacan [ʃakɑ̃]/[ʃakan]
certain·e	certain [sɛʁtɛ̃]	certaine [sɛʁtɛn]		certan [sɛʁtɑ̃]/[sɛʁtan]
tout·e	tout	toute		toude
tous/toutes	tous	toutes	toustes, touts [tuts]
quelqu'un·e	quelqu'un [kɛlkœ̃]/[kɛlkɛ̃]	quelqu'une [kɛlkyn]	quelqu'eune [kɛlkœn]	quelqu'an [kɛlkɑ̃]/[kɛlkan]

The indefinite pronoun 'quelqu'une' is extremely rare in modern French and its pendant 'quelqu'un' does not seem to be perceived as masculine by native French speakers,^[26] thus it is not clear how essential the degendering of this pronoun is.

DeterminersEdit

Grammatical noteEdit

Unlike articles, demonstrative or possessive adjectives, pronouns aren't technically determiners. For readability reasons, and because they form a relatively small paradigm compared to their corresponding adjectives, they're included in the determiners category because they're thematically coppled with the respective (demonstrative or possessive) adjectives.

Indefinite and definite articleEdit

In the discourse surrounding gender-inclusive language in French, the distinction between compounds that blend or concatenate gender-marked agentive suffixes (e.g.: directeurice) versus lexical (e.g.: sœur and frère → adelphe) and morphological substitutions (→ cognitive approach) respectively morphological derivations (→ structural approach), such as the epicene derivation 'directaire', are usually referred to as inclusif vs. neutre in queer-positive communities.

However, the concatenation of gender-marked agentive suffixes adds the missing gender, i.e. natural gender/Sexus sememe to the given personal noun, turn agent nouns from single-gender personal noun to dual-gender masculine/feminine personal noun.^[4] Accordingly, they could theoretically be cognitively interpreted as neutral, to the extent that these forms could theoretically be cognitively processed as genderneutral, i. e. neutre. Because the use of these neologisms remains peripheral in spoken French, psycholinguistic research has yet to disconfirm this possibility.

Conversely, agent nouns categorized as neutre — such as epicene derivations (e.g., coiffaire, which attaches the gender-unspecific suffix -aire to a verbal root) or lexical substitutions (e.g., Monestre, 'Mx'), as discussed higher — are inherently inclusive of all genders, making the label inclusif equally applicable to them. The pragmatic interchangeability of these labels renders them inadequate for differentiating the morphological mechanisms used to generate gender-inclusive neologisms in French. For this reason, the following table categorizes these strategies based on their structural properties — blend words being more analytic, and non blend words (epicene derivations; lexical substitions) being more synthetic.

In the following tables, the most widely adopted gender-inclusive forms are italicized. Beyond these specific instances, the majority of the forms presented have not achieved widespread currency in everyday usage. Consequently, the tables function primarily as an inventory of morphological proposals for the gender neutralization of French, highlighting the neologisms that have gained the most traction among inclusive language advocates, and LGBTQ+ communities in the Francophone world.

The underlining within the IPA transcriptions carries no phonetic or phonological significance. Rather, it is employed strictly as a visual heuristic to isolate the specific phonetic segments from the source feminine and masculine forms that have been integrated into these analytically constructed neologisms.

IPA vowel trapezium for standard French

Articles
	Masculine	Feminine	Analytic gender-neutral	Synthetic gender-neutral
Indefinite article	un [œ̃]/[ɛ̃]	une [yn]	eune [œn]	an [ɑ̃]/[an]
Definite article	le	la	lae [lae], lea [ləa]	lo, li, lu, lia

'an' is quite common, particularly in the [ɑ̃] pronunciation, where it shares a core feature with 'un': both consist solely of a nasal vowel. 'eune' [œn] combines the roundedness and degree of aperture of 'un' [œ̃] with the terminal nasal consonant [n] of 'une'. In metropolitan French, where 'un' is typically pronounced as [ɛ̃], 'eune' shares a phonetic characteristic with 'une' through the final [n], and one with 'un' through the similar degree of aperture of their vocalic nucleus.

A drawback of 'an' pronounced as [ɑ̃] is its nasality, a factor known for making vowels challenging to distinguish and learn, even for native French speakers.^[27] Consequently, [ɑ̃] might be perceived as a mispronunciation of 'un' or simply not distinct enough from 'un' to be recognized as a different morpheme.

Accordingly, regarding the morphing resp. non-morphing of the definite article with the prepositions 'de' and 'à', we'd have 'à lae' and 'de lae'.

Demonstrative adjectiveEdit

Masculine	Feminine	Analytic gender-neutral	Synthetic gender-neutral	Plural
ce/cet	cette		cèd	ces

La vie en Queer proposes 'cet', which sounds the same as the feminine 'cette'; Divergenres retains 'cèx', but notes that it sounds like the word 'sexe'. A third possibility would be to voice resp. to devoice the final consonant of the feminine word, for instance turning [t] to [d], or [g] to [k]. This would allow the word to remain easily recognizable while being distinct from both the masculine and the feminine forms. This approach would be advantageous in regards to minimizing misunderstandings and memorization effort.

Demonstrative pronounsEdit

	Masculine	Feminine	Analytic gender-neutral	Synthetic gender-neutral
Singular	celui [səlɥi]	celle [sɛl]	cellui [sɛlɥi]	ciel [sjεl]
Plural	ceux [sø]	celles [sɛl]	celleux [sɛlø]	ciels [sjεl], ceuxes [søks]

PossessivesEdit

Possessives adjectivesEdit

	Masculine	Feminine	Analytic gender-neutral	Synthetic gender-neutral
1SG	mon	ma	maon [maõ]	man [mɑ̃]/[man], mo, mi(ne), la/le mian [mjɑ̃]
2SG	ton	ta	taon [taõ]	tan [tɑ̃]/[tan], to, ti(ne)
3SG	son	sa	saon [saõ]	san [sɑ̃]/[san], so, si(ne)

The possessive adjectives 'mon', 'ton', and 'son', which are generally masculine, are also used as feminine possessive adjectives when combined with a feminine noun that begins (phonetically) with a vowel: 'mon amie', 'ton employée', 'son hôtesse', etc. Therefore, there is no need to use a possessive neologism in words starting with vowels, as the masculine and feminine gender are syncretized in this context.

The pronunciation [sɑ̃] of 'san' is a homophone of 'sang' ('blood'). Alpheratz proposes 'mu(n)', 'tu(n)', 'su(n)'^[18] as synthetic forms. However, 'tu(n)' is a homophone of the subject pronoun 'tu', and <u> — i. e. [y] — is a linguistically marked phone.^[28]^[29] Alternative forms could be 'mi(ne)', 'ti(ne)', 'sine', as only the roundness parameter (cf. [y] and [i] in the IPA) distinguishes them from the original neologisms suggested by Alpheratz. 'si(ne)' could be pronounced with an '-ne' ending to avoid homophony with 'si' (i. e. 'if'). Similar-sounding possessives can be found in Spanish ('mi'), in English ('my'), in Swedish ('min', 'din', 'sin', the last one being a gender-neutral reflexive possessive pronoun),^[30] in Norwegian,^[31] in Swiss-German,^[32] and in other Germanic languages. As 60% of of humans are multilingual,^[33] cross-linguistic influence could be used to facilitate the memorization and adoption of neologisms.^[34]^[35]

Possessive pronounsEdit

	Masculine	Feminine	Analytic gender-neutral	Synthetic gender-neutral
Singular	le mien [lə mjɛ̃]	la mienne [la mjɛn]	lae mienn [lae mjɛ̃n]	lo miem
Plural	les miens [le mjɛ̃]	les miennes [le mjɛn]	les mienns [le mjɛ̃n]	les miems

Currently, there is no established combination of definite article and possessive pronoun. In this table, the definite article "lae" is simply paired with the possessive pronoun "mienn" for morphological reasons, as both words are of the analytic gender-neutral type. This also applies to the definite article "lo" and the possessive pronoun "miem", both of which are of the synthetic type.

Nota bene: Germanic languages encode the gender of the possessor in their third person singular — Romance languages do not. Only the gender of the possessed object is marked through flexion.

Grammatical note on English versus French possessives
English	French	Genus of possessed object
That's her bike. That's hers.	C'est son vélo. C'est le sien.	le vélo (masculine)
That's her car. That's hers.	C'est sa voiture. C'est la sienne.	la voiture (feminine)
That's his cake. That's his.	C'est son gâteau. C'est le sien.	le gâteau (masculine)
That's his watch. That's his.	C'est sa montre. C'est la sienne.	la montre (feminine)
That's Avery. Their[sing.] favorite dish is pizza. It's theirs.	Ça, c'est Avery. Son plat préféré, c'est la pizza. C'est le sien.	le plat (masculine)
That's Avery. Their[sing.] house is green. It's theirs.	Ça, c'est Avery. Sa maison est verte. C'est la sienne.	la maison (feminine)

Nouns and adjectivesEdit

Words such as 'professionnel' and 'professionnelle', which are orally epicene and, thus, indistinguishable in speech, are not included; the use of their shortened doublet form enables inclusivity and gender-neutrality in written language.

Endings from Latin '-or' and '-rix'Edit

Endings from Latin '-or' and '-rix'
	Masculine	Feminine	Analytic gender-neutral	Synthetic gender-neutral
-eur/-euse	enquêteur	enquêteuse	enquêteureuse	enquêtaire
-eur/-rice	acteur	actrice	acteurice	actaire
-eur/-_resse¹	docteur	doctoresse^[36]	docteuresse	doctaire
-eur/-_resse²	enchanteur	enchanteresse	enchanteuresse	enchantaire
-e/-esse	maître	maîtresse	maîtré/maîtrè (or maîtræ)	maîtrexe
-ard/-asse	connard	connasse	connarsse	connarde

The analytic gender-neutral forms derived from words that originate from Latin '-or' and '-rix' are already being used,^[37] although they have not been officially recognized by any French dictionary yet. Some podcasts where you can hear them are Les Couilles sur la table, Parler comme jamais and Papatriarcat.

Synthetic gender-neutral forms have the advantage of preserving the original syllable number of the word, making them less cumbersome than analytic forms. Moreover, the '-aire' suffix does already exist in contemporary French, forming epicene nouns like 'un·e destinataire', 'un·e secrétaire', 'un·e volontaire', 'un·e bibliothécaire', etc. However, several psycholinguistic studies conducted in French^[38]^[39] and in German^[40] have found that "gender-unmarked forms are not fully effective in neutralizing the masculine bias"^[41] and that "contracted double forms [such as acteur·ice] are more effective in promoting gender balance compared to gender-unmarked forms."^[41] Regarding this issue, specifically, analytic gender-neutral forms could then be a more effective solution than synthetic ones.

Endings with '-x' in the masculineEdit

Endings from latin '-ōsus'^[42]
	Masculine	Feminine	Analytic gender-neutral	Synthetic gender-neutral
-eux/-euse	amoureux	amoureuse	amoureuseux	amoureuxe [amuʁøks] amoureusse amouré·e
-eux/-esse	dieu	déesse	dieuesse, dieusse	dieuxe

Endings with '-x' (♂︎) and '-[s]' (♀︎)
	Masculine	Feminine	Analytic gender-neutral	Synthetic gender-neutral
-x/-sse	roux	rousse		rouxe
-x/-ce	doux	douce		douxe

The synthetic gender-neutral forms in which the silent consonant of the masculine form becomes audible mantain the original number of syllables. They have an audible suffix, like the feminine forms do, without that suffix being the same as the feminine. Additionally, the fact that the audible consonant in gender-neutral form matches the consonant in the masculine suffix could facilitate the learning of these neologisms for literate French speakers. However, in cases where the masculine does not contain a silent <x> and the feminine has a distinctive suffix, such as with 'dieu, déesse', adopting the analytic approach may be more consistent in terms of spelling and inclusivity (see previous paragraph).

Endings with nasal vowels in the masculine formEdit

Endings with nasal vowels in the masculine form
	Masculine	Feminine	Analytic gender-neutral	Synthetic gender-neutral
-ain/-aine	écrivain [Ekʁivɛ̃]	écrivaine [Ekʁivɛn]		écrivan [Ekʁivɑ̃]/[Ekʁivan]
-ain/-ine	copain [kɔpɛ̃]	copine [kɔpin]	copaine [kɔpɛn]	copan [kɔpɑ̃]/[kɔpan]
-in/-ine	cousin [kuzɛ̃]	cousine [kuzin]	cousaine [kuzɛn]	cousan [kuzɑ̃]/[kuzan]
-an/-anne	paysan [pɛizɑ̃]	paysanne [pɛizan]		paysaine [pɛizɛn]
-ien/-ienne	citoyen [sitwajɛ̃]	citoyenne [sitwajɛn]		citoyan [sitwajɑ̃]/[sitwajan]
-un/-une¹	brun [bʁœ̃]/[bʁɛ̃]	brune [bʁyn]	breune, brunn [bʁœ̃n]/[bʁɛ̃n]	braine, bran [bʁɑ̃]/[bʁan]
-un/-une²	opportun [ɔpɔʁtœ̃]/[ɔpɔʁtɛ̃]	opportune [ɔpɔʁtyn]	opporteune, opportaine [ɔpɔʁtɛn]	opportan [ɔpɔʁtɑ̃]/[ɔpɔʁtan]
-on/-onne	mignon [miɲõ]	mignonne [miɲɔn]	mignonn [miɲõn]	mignaine, mignan [miɲɑ̃]/[miɲan]

The '-aine' suffix has gained popularity. However, its use in monosyllabic words like 'brun·e' may hinder comprehension, which could explain why 'bran', a form that preserves the nasality of the final vowel while only changing its place of articulation, is more widespread. Words with a '-ien/-ienne' (and obviously also '-ain/-aine') suffix cannot form a synthetic gender-neutral form with '-aine', as this would result in a word pronounced exactly the same way as the feminine one (cf. 'citoyenne'). Here, the synthetical neutral forms created with '-an' only retain masculine phonetic traits (i. e. its manner of articulation — vocalic — and its nasality trait — which is positive). Theoretically, this could lead to similar issues as discussed in the Endings from Latin '-or' and '-rix' subchapter. The same could be true with synthetic gender-neutral forms ending in '-aine', but this time in favour of the feminine. However, even though the suffix '-aine' could sound feminine, the resulting form is still easily distinguishable from the original one, since the vowels implied are oral and not nasal, and can therefore be less easily mistaken for mispronunciations — while 'écrivan', 'citoyan' and 'bran' could be (for more information, see the Indefinite and definite article subchapter).

The use of "-iste" is always genderneutral, like "feministe".

Endings with silent consonant X in the masculine and audible consonant X in the feminineEdit

Endings with silent (♂︎) and audible (♀︎) consonant
	Masculine	Feminine	Analytic gender-neutral	Synthetic gender-neutral
-t/-te	pâlot	pâlotte		pâlode, pâlat, pâlasse
-d/-de	grand	grande		grante, granxe, gransse
-al/ale	principal	principale		principèl, principalx, principalz
-iet/iète	inquiet	inquiète		inquiède
-g/gue	oblong	oblongue		oblonk
-ier/-ière	premier [pʁəmje]	première [pʁəmjɛʁ]	premiérère, premiér [pʁəmjeʁ]
-c/-che	blanc	blanche		blank
-s/-se	antillais	antillaise		antillaisse
-s/-che	frais	fraîche	fraîchais	fraisse
-s/-sse	bas	basse	babasse	base

As the table demonstrates, no approach has achieved widespread acceptance among this category of nouns and adjectives. As discussed in the Demonstrative adjective subchapter, one intuitive approach to creating a gender-neutral form involves making the silent consonant of the masculine form audible in the neologism while voicing or devoicing it, so that its pronunciation is different from the feminine form — e. g.: 'palôt' → 'palôte' (sounds like 'pâlotte') → 'pâlode' . However, masculine words ending in a silent <s> pose a challenge: when put in the feminine form, the <s> can either become a voiced sibilant [z] or a voiceless sibilant [s] (the outcome [ʃ] is irrelevant in this issue). This inconsistency means that the silent <s> of the masculine form can represent either a voiced or a voiceless sound. While the silent consonants of other words can simply be transformed into their voiceless resp. voiced counterparts to differentiate them from the feminine, creating gender-neutral forms from words like "antillais·e" and "bas·e" requires more careful consideration. If the feminine form is pronounced with a [s], the pronunciation of the gender-neutral form must be [z] to avoid homophony; conversely, if the feminine form is pronounced [z], the gender-neutral form's pronunciation must be [s] to maintain distinctiveness.

Endings with a rounded vowel in the masculine and '-_(l)le' in the feminineEdit

Endings with a rounded vowel (♂︎) and '-_(l)le' (♀︎)
	Masculine	Feminine	Analytic gender-neutral	Synthetic gender-neutral
-eau/-elle	jumeau	jumelle	jumelleau, jumeaulle	jumal^[43]
-ou/-olle	fou	folle	follou, foulle
-aux/-ales	spéciaux	spéciales	spécialaux, spéciaules
-eux/-lle	vieux/vieil	vieille	vieilleux, vieuille

The pronunciation of /a/ as [ɔ] in Canadian French can lead to ambiguity in gender-neutral forms like 'spéciaules', as they could be interpreted as the feminine singular and plural, or masculine singular form of 'spécial·e'.

Endings with consonant X in the masculine and consonant X with phonetic change triggered by presence of final '-e' in the feminineEdit

Masculine consonant X and feminin consonant X modified by '-e'
	Masculine	Feminine	Analytic gender-neutral	Synthetic gender-neutral
-c/-che	sec	sèche	seckèche, sèchec
-f/-ve	naïf	naïve	naïfive, naïvif

Florence Ashley argues that the order in which the feminine and masculine morphemes are combined does not matter.^[17] Usage, intelligibleness and personal preference ultimately determine which forms will gain traction. However, the prosodic sequencing of syllables in French can impact intelligibility. For instance, in the pronunciation of 'naïvif' (neutral form) as [na'i'vif], contrary to 'naïfive', the end of the word is acoustically identical to 'vif' (i. e. 'vivacious') and can thus lead to confusion.

Gender-neutral suggestions for some gender-specific nouns (natural gender/Sexus)Edit

Gender-specific nouns (*Sexus*) and current gender-neutral suggestions
Masculine	Feminine	Analytic gender-neutral	Synthetic gender-neutral
roi	reine	roine
héros	héroïne	héroïnos	héroan [Eʁoɑ̃]/[Eʁoan], héroal
frère	sœur	frœur, srère	adelphe
Monsieur	Madame		Monestre

DiscussionEdit

According to linguist Roswitha Fischer, citing Renate Bartsch,^[44] the adoption of neologisms into a language's lexicon depends on three factors:

Prestige: The neologism must be championed by a group of influential individuals who hold social, political, and economic power.
Written Usage: The neologism must gain traction in written communication, becoming accepted in literature, media, and formal communication.
Linguistic Contact: The neologism must circulate in areas where multiple dialects and varieties of the language converge, fostering mutual understanding and assimilation.^[45]

Currently, gender-neutral French neologisms lack widespread adoption, even within LGBT and nonbinary communities. Their presence is marginal in written form,^[46]^[47] and their usage in spoken language limited. However, the Internet serves as an area for these neologisms to reach a global audience of Francophone speakers from Africa, America, Europe, and minority language communities all around the world. Additionally, descriptive approaches to language (cf. Le Robert), contrary to prescriptive approaches (cf. L'Académie), have lead to the acceptance of one of them — 'iel' — in written discourse.

For neologisms to gain wider adoption, they must be learnable and user-friendly. This means they should be easy to understand and easy to remember (due to morphological motivation); easy to pronounce while adhering to the phoneme inventory and phonotactics of the language; familiar to the target audience; and responsive to a genuine need.^[45] If these criteria are met, neologisms will start being adopted by avant-garde language users. As these avant-garde figures gather large online communities, the frequency of usage of these neologisms will increase, fostering familiarity among the Francophone community. From then, some of these neologisms could potentially enter the standard vocabulary.

Main resourcesEdit

★La vie en Queer (2018): Petit dico de français neutre/inclusif. Online at: https://lavieenqueer.wordpress.com/2018/07/26/petit-dico-de-francais-neutre-inclusif/.★
Divergenres (2021): Guide de grammaire neutre et inclusive. Québec. Online at: https://divergenres.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/guide-grammaireinclusive-final.pdf.
Wiki Trans (2019): Comment parler d'une personne non binaire ? Online at: https://wikitrans.co/2019/12/25/comment-parler-dune-personne-non-binaire/.
Wiki LGBTQIA FR (2023): Néopronoms. Online at: https://lgbtqia.fandom.com/fr/wiki/Neopronoms.
Alpheratz (2018): Genre neutre.TABLEAUX RÉCAPITULATIFS de mots de genre neutre (extraits). Online at: https://www.alpheratz.fr/linguistique/genre-neutre/.

ReferencesEdit

↑ ^1.0 ^1.1 ^1.2 Becquelin, H. (no data): Langage en tout genre. Argument historique. Article on non discriminating language. University of Neuchâtel. Online at: https://web.archive.org/web/20231213005251/https://www.unine.ch/epicene/home/pourquoi/argument-historique.html (retrieved 12.12.2023).
↑ ^2.0 ^2.1 Viennot, E. (2023): Pour un langage non sexiste ! Les accords égalitaires en français. Online at: https://www.elianeviennot.fr/Langue-accords.html (retrieved 18.12.2023).
↑ ^3.0 ^3.1 Moreau, M.-L. (2019): L’accord de proximité dans l’écriture inclusive. Peut-on utiliser n’importe quel argument ? In: Dister, A./ Piron, S. (eds.): Les discours de référence sur la langue française (Presses de l’Université Saint-Louis), 351–378. 10.4000/books.pusl.26517.
↑ ^4.0 ^4.1 ^4.2 ^4.3 Divergenres (2021): Guide de grammaire neutre et inclusive. Québec. Online at: https://divergenres.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/guide-grammaireinclusive-final.pdf (retrieved 12.12.2023).
↑ ^5.0 ^5.1 ^5.2 Alchimy (2017): « Le masculin l’emporte sur le féminin » : Bien plus qu’une règle de grammaire. In: Usbek&Rica.
↑ Tibblin, J./Van De Weijer, J./Granfeldt, J./Gygax, P. (2023): There are more women in joggeur·euses than in joggeurs : On the effects of gender-fair forms on perceived gender ratios in French role nouns. In: J. Fr. Lang. Stud. 33, 28–51. 10.1017/S0959269522000217.
↑ Heise, E. (2003): Auch einfühlsame Studenten sind Männer: Das generische Maskulinum und die mentale Repräsentation von Personen [Even empathic students are men: The generic masculine and the mental representation of persons]. In: Verhaltenstherapie & Psychosoziale Praxis 35(2), 285–291.
↑ Schütze, Christin (2020): Comprehension of Gender-neutral forms and the pseudo-generic masculine in German: a visual world eye-tracking study – ‘It goes without saying’ that everyone is included?. Master thesis. University of Potsdam. Available at: https://publishup.uni-potsdam.de/opus4-ubp/frontdoor/deliver/index/docId/48415/file/schuetze_diss.pdf (accessed 2 March 2026).
↑ ^9.0 ^9.1 OMPI (2022): Guide de l’OMPI pour un langage inclusif en français. Online at: https://www.wipo.int/export/sites/www/women-and-ip/fr/docs/guidelines-inclusive-language.pdf (retrieved 12.12.2023).
↑ ^10.0 ^10.1 Ménard, J.-S. (2021): Pour un français neutre et une inclusion des personnes non binaires : une entrevue avec Florence Ashley. Longueuil: Cégep Édouard-Montpetit. Online at:https://www.cegepmontpetit.ca/static/uploaded/Files/Cegep/Centre%20de%20reference/Le%20francais%20saffiche/Une-entrevue-avec-Florence-Ashley.pdf (retrieved 12.12.2023).
↑ Pascal, G./Boschard, Μ./Cornet, G./Croci, M./Stegmann, N. (2021): Les outils - la (re)féminisation. Langage inclusif. Online at: https://web.archive.org/web/20231225213750/https://tube.switch.ch/videos/0xwYktNzRp, 00:50 (retrieved 12.12.2023).
↑ "Natural Gender". Wikipedia. Simple English: The Free Encyclopedia, Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., Last Modified Date: 14 March 2024, URL: https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_gender. Accessed 20 March 2026.
↑ ^13.0 ^13.1 ^13.2 Université Laval (2021): Guide de rédaction inclusive. Online at: https://www.ulaval.ca/sites/default/files/EDI/Guide_redaction_inclusive_DC_UL.pdf (retrieved 12.12.2023).
↑ EPFL (2023): L’accord de proximité. Online at:https://www.epfl.ch/about/equality/fr/langage-inclusif/guide/principes/accord/ (retrieved 12.12.2023).
↑ Anglade, J. (1931): Grammaire élémentaire de l'ancien français. Paris: Armand Colin, 157–196.
↑ Marchello-Nizia, C. (1989): Le neutre et l’impersonnel. In: Linx 21, 173–179. 10.3406/linx.1989.1139.
↑ ^17.0 ^17.1 ^17.2 ^17.3 Ashley, F. (2019): Les personnes non-binaires en français : une perspective concernée et militante. In: H-France Salon 11(14).
↑ ^18.0 ^18.1 Alpheratz (2018): Genre neutre.TABLEAUX RÉCAPITULATIFS de mots de genre neutre (extraits). Online at: https://www.alpheratz.fr/linguistique/genre-neutre/ (retrieved 15.12.2023).
↑ ^19.0 ^19.1 La vie en Queer (2018): Petit dico de français neutre/inclusif. Online at: https://lavieenqueer.wordpress.com/2018/07/26/petit-dico-de-francais-neutre-inclusif/ (retrieved 15.12.2023).
↑ ^20.0 ^20.1 Wiki Trans (2019): Comment parler d'une personne non binaire ? Online at: https://wikitrans.co/2019/12/25/comment-parler-dune-personne-non-binaire/ (retrieved 15.12.2023).
↑ Radio Télévision Suisse (2021): L'entrée du pronom "iel" dans Le Robert provoque des remous. Online at: https://www.rts.ch/info/monde/12651159-lentree-du-pronom-iel-dans-le-robert-provoque-des-remous.html (retrieved 15.12.2023).
↑ ^22.0 ^22.1 Michel, L./Levet, D. (2017): La catégorie de la personne. Saint-Denis: MSH Paris Nord. Online at: https://web.ac-reims.fr/casnav/enfants_nouv_arrives/aide_a_la_scolarisation/LGIDF/LGIDF.LA%20PERSONNE.02.03.17.pdf (retrieved 15.12.2023).
↑ Wiki LGBTQIA FR (2021): Al/lan. Online at: https://lgbtqia.fandom.com/fr/wiki/Al/lan (retrieved 11.01.2024).
↑ Spencer-Hall, A./Gutt, B. (eds)(2021): Trans and Genderqueer Subjects in Medieval Hagiography. Amsterdam University Press. DOI: 10.2307/j.ctv1ks0cj4. French cultural and linguistic translation from Maillet C. online at: https://d1wqtxts1xzle7.cloudfront.net/88291459/Maillet_Trad_Terminologie_20pour_20les_20e_3Ftudes_20trans_20et_20non_20binaire_2021-libre.pdf?1657042694=&response-content-disposition=inline%3B+filename%3DTerminologie_pour_les_etudes_trans_et_no.pdf&Expires=1704980549&Signature=aHUqRbpWbQ8K1jtiqQoQV6cgYM~YTcaZmgDhb8U2KTMDILHd8PhO9peeR0SLWNPOlX5RCo1E7aQcCdQzxBeyKmzPDgp9QbYArmWmHSmtOH-QZRUvrjeFeEZSp6qzmIGyZD3ebRNlOH5aMrJViI1eQ32o53Bw2ghAge~D9upEEx~KXPQe9FIUArfFQo0ylInGK9jqh-OM60Qz2pXRc8llTJ3ovtnVPiL2cu2l1mcfBODJyb~IZZZ1MPczrVu-79y1RjeMr8f5BGtMbRD5nv8jtmLex6vWmIl1svtYZTpOaFPy8LwWBa70VogboWPqfAoOL1~CDZPuhlGuDmDErNknDA__&Key-Pair-Id=APKAJLOHF5GGSLRBV4ZA^{[Dead link}^] (retrieved 11.01.2024).
↑ ^25.0 ^25.1 Campbell, L. (1998): Historical Linguistics. An Introduction. First ed. Cambridge/Massachusetts: The MIT Press.
↑ Liam (2023): Coming out day. 11.10.2023. Mon vécu de coming out. In: ekivock.nb (Instagram account). Online at: https://www.instagram.com/p/CyP-j_Tobbj/?img_index=3.
↑ Sicard, E./Menin-Sicard, A./Rousteau, G. (2022): Oppositions de voyelles orales et nasales : identification des formants selon le genre. INSA Toulouse: ffhal-03826558v2f.
↑ Rice, K. (2007): Markedness in phonology. In: The Cambridge Handbook of Phonology, 79–98. 10.1017/cbo9780511486371.005.
↑ Carvalho, J. (2023): From binary features to elements: Implications for markedness theory and phonological acquisition. In: Radical: A Journal of Phonology 3, 346–384.
↑ Duolingo Wiki: Swedish Skills. Possessives. Online at:https://duolingo.fandom.com/wiki/Swedish_Skill:Possessives (18.12.2023).
↑ Norwegian University of Science and Technology (no data): 8 Grammar. Possessives. Online at: https://www.ntnu.edu/now/8/grammar (retrieved 18.12.2023).
↑ Klaudia, K. (2017): Schweizerdeutsch. Schlüssel zu den Übungen. Online at: https://silo.tips/download/schweizerdeutsch-schlssel-zu-den-bungen (retrieved 18.12.2023).
↑ McGibney, S. (2023): What Percentage of the World’s Population is Bilingual? Introduction to Bilingualism: Exploring the Global Language Diversity. Online at: https://www.newsdle.com/blog/world-population-bilingual-percentage (retrieved 18.12.2023).
↑ Van Dijk, C./Van Wonderen, E./Koutamanis, E./Kootstra, G.J./Dijkstra, T./Unsworth, S. (2022): Cross-linguistic influence in simultaneous and early sequential bilingual children: a meta-analysis. In: J. Child Lang. 49, 897–929. 10.1017/S0305000921000337.
↑ Van Dijk, C./Dijkstra, T./Unsworth, S. (2022): Cross-linguistic influence during online sentence processing in bilingual children. In: Bilingualism 25, 691–704. 10.1017/S1366728922000050.
↑ Doctoresse Joséphine Tornay. Online at: https://cm-latour.ch/team/josephine-tornay-medecine-interne-generale/ (retrieved 18.12.2023). 'Doctoresse' is a very common Swiss French denomination for female doctors.
↑ Viennot, E. (2023): Pour un langage non sexiste ! Acteurice, visiteureuse... Des néologismes de plus en plus employés. Online at: https://www.elianeviennot.fr/Langue-mots.html (retrieved 15.12.2023).
↑ Brauer, M./Landry, M. (2008): Un ministre peut-il tomber enceinte? L'impact du générique masculin sur les représentations mentales. In: L'Année Psychol. 108, 243–272. 10.4074/S0003503308002030.
↑ Xiao, H./Strickland, B./Peperkamp, S. (2023): How fair is gender-fair language? Insights from gender ratio estimations in French. In: J. Lang. Soc. Psychol. 42, 82–106. 10.1177/0261927X221084643.
↑ Stahlberg, D./Sczesny, S./Braun, F. (2001): Name your favorite musician: effects of masculine generics and of their alternatives in German. In: J. Lang. Soc. Psychol. 20, 464–469. 10.1177/0261927X01020004004.
↑ ^41.0 ^41.1 Spinelli, E./Chevrot, J.-P./Varnet, L. (2023): Neutral is not fair enough: testing the efficiency of different language gender-fair strategies. In: Front. Psychol. 14. 10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1256779.
↑ CNRTL (2012): -EUX, élément formant. Online at: https://www.cnrtl.fr/definition/-eux (retrieved 15.12.2023).
↑ Wiki LGBTQIA FR (2023): Néopronoms. Online at: https://lgbtqia.fandom.com/fr/wiki/Neopronoms (retrieved 11.01.2024).
↑ Bartsch, R. (1987): Sprachnormen: Theorie und Praxis: Studienausgabe. Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter. 10.1515/9783110935875.
↑ ^45.0 ^45.1 Fischer, R. (1998): Lexical Change in Present-Day English. A Corpus-Based Study of the Motivation, Institutionalization, and Productivity of Creative Neologism. Tübingen: Gunter Narr Verlag.
↑ Café aux étoiles. maison d'édition sereine et onirique (no data): Littérature. Online at: https://cafeauxetoiles.fr/litterature/ (retrieved 18.12.2023).
↑ Les Ourses à plumes. Webzine féministe (2022): Les elfes noirs ne sont jamais noirs (1) : enjeux de la représentation dans les fictions de l'imaginaire. Online at: https://lesoursesaplumes.info/tag/une/ (retrieved 18.12.2023).

[:1-1] 1.0 ^1.1 ^1.2 Becquelin, H. (no data): Langage en tout genre. Argument historique. Article on non discriminating language. University of Neuchâtel. Online at: https://web.archive.org/web/20231213005251/https://www.unine.ch/epicene/home/pourquoi/argument-historique.html (retrieved 12.12.2023).

[:12-2] 2.0 ^2.1 Viennot, E. (2023): Pour un langage non sexiste ! Les accords égalitaires en français. Online at: https://www.elianeviennot.fr/Langue-accords.html (retrieved 18.12.2023).

[:2-3] 3.0 ^3.1 Moreau, M.-L. (2019): L’accord de proximité dans l’écriture inclusive. Peut-on utiliser n’importe quel argument ? In: Dister, A./ Piron, S. (eds.): Les discours de référence sur la langue française (Presses de l’Université Saint-Louis), 351–378. 10.4000/books.pusl.26517.

[:0-4] 4.0 ^4.1 ^4.2 ^4.3 Divergenres (2021): Guide de grammaire neutre et inclusive. Québec. Online at: https://divergenres.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/guide-grammaireinclusive-final.pdf (retrieved 12.12.2023).

[:3-5] 5.0 ^5.1 ^5.2 Alchimy (2017): « Le masculin l’emporte sur le féminin » : Bien plus qu’une règle de grammaire. In: Usbek&Rica.

[6] Tibblin, J./Van De Weijer, J./Granfeldt, J./Gygax, P. (2023): There are more women in joggeur·euses than in joggeurs : On the effects of gender-fair forms on perceived gender ratios in French role nouns. In: J. Fr. Lang. Stud. 33, 28–51. 10.1017/S0959269522000217.

[7] Heise, E. (2003): Auch einfühlsame Studenten sind Männer: Das generische Maskulinum und die mentale Repräsentation von Personen [Even empathic students are men: The generic masculine and the mental representation of persons]. In: Verhaltenstherapie & Psychosoziale Praxis 35(2), 285–291.

[8] Schütze, Christin (2020): Comprehension of Gender-neutral forms and the pseudo-generic masculine in German: a visual world eye-tracking study – ‘It goes without saying’ that everyone is included?. Master thesis. University of Potsdam. Available at: https://publishup.uni-potsdam.de/opus4-ubp/frontdoor/deliver/index/docId/48415/file/schuetze_diss.pdf (accessed 2 March 2026).

[:10-9] 9.0 ^9.1 OMPI (2022): Guide de l’OMPI pour un langage inclusif en français. Online at: https://www.wipo.int/export/sites/www/women-and-ip/fr/docs/guidelines-inclusive-language.pdf (retrieved 12.12.2023).

[:4-10] 10.0 ^10.1 Ménard, J.-S. (2021): Pour un français neutre et une inclusion des personnes non binaires : une entrevue avec Florence Ashley. Longueuil: Cégep Édouard-Montpetit. Online at:https://www.cegepmontpetit.ca/static/uploaded/Files/Cegep/Centre%20de%20reference/Le%20francais%20saffiche/Une-entrevue-avec-Florence-Ashley.pdf (retrieved 12.12.2023).

[11] Pascal, G./Boschard, Μ./Cornet, G./Croci, M./Stegmann, N. (2021): Les outils - la (re)féminisation. Langage inclusif. Online at: https://web.archive.org/web/20231225213750/https://tube.switch.ch/videos/0xwYktNzRp, 00:50 (retrieved 12.12.2023).

[12] "Natural Gender". Wikipedia. Simple English: The Free Encyclopedia, Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., Last Modified Date: 14 March 2024, URL: https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_gender. Accessed 20 March 2026.

[:11-13] 13.0 ^13.1 ^13.2 Université Laval (2021): Guide de rédaction inclusive. Online at: https://www.ulaval.ca/sites/default/files/EDI/Guide_redaction_inclusive_DC_UL.pdf (retrieved 12.12.2023).

[14] EPFL (2023): L’accord de proximité. Online at:https://www.epfl.ch/about/equality/fr/langage-inclusif/guide/principes/accord/ (retrieved 12.12.2023).

[15] Anglade, J. (1931): Grammaire élémentaire de l'ancien français. Paris: Armand Colin, 157–196.

[16] Marchello-Nizia, C. (1989): Le neutre et l’impersonnel. In: Linx 21, 173–179. 10.3406/linx.1989.1139.

[:5-17] 17.0 ^17.1 ^17.2 ^17.3 Ashley, F. (2019): Les personnes non-binaires en français : une perspective concernée et militante. In: H-France Salon 11(14).

[:13-18] 18.0 ^18.1 Alpheratz (2018): Genre neutre.TABLEAUX RÉCAPITULATIFS de mots de genre neutre (extraits). Online at: https://www.alpheratz.fr/linguistique/genre-neutre/ (retrieved 15.12.2023).

[:6-19] 19.0 ^19.1 La vie en Queer (2018): Petit dico de français neutre/inclusif. Online at: https://lavieenqueer.wordpress.com/2018/07/26/petit-dico-de-francais-neutre-inclusif/ (retrieved 15.12.2023).

[:7-20] 20.0 ^20.1 Wiki Trans (2019): Comment parler d'une personne non binaire ? Online at: https://wikitrans.co/2019/12/25/comment-parler-dune-personne-non-binaire/ (retrieved 15.12.2023).

[21] Radio Télévision Suisse (2021): L'entrée du pronom "iel" dans Le Robert provoque des remous. Online at: https://www.rts.ch/info/monde/12651159-lentree-du-pronom-iel-dans-le-robert-provoque-des-remous.html (retrieved 15.12.2023).

[:8-22] 22.0 ^22.1 Michel, L./Levet, D. (2017): La catégorie de la personne. Saint-Denis: MSH Paris Nord. Online at: https://web.ac-reims.fr/casnav/enfants_nouv_arrives/aide_a_la_scolarisation/LGIDF/LGIDF.LA%20PERSONNE.02.03.17.pdf (retrieved 15.12.2023).

[23] Wiki LGBTQIA FR (2021): Al/lan. Online at: https://lgbtqia.fandom.com/fr/wiki/Al/lan (retrieved 11.01.2024).

[24] Spencer-Hall, A./Gutt, B. (eds)(2021): Trans and Genderqueer Subjects in Medieval Hagiography. Amsterdam University Press. DOI: 10.2307/j.ctv1ks0cj4. French cultural and linguistic translation from Maillet C. online at: https://d1wqtxts1xzle7.cloudfront.net/88291459/Maillet_Trad_Terminologie_20pour_20les_20e_3Ftudes_20trans_20et_20non_20binaire_2021-libre.pdf?1657042694=&response-content-disposition=inline%3B+filename%3DTerminologie_pour_les_etudes_trans_et_no.pdf&Expires=1704980549&Signature=aHUqRbpWbQ8K1jtiqQoQV6cgYM~YTcaZmgDhb8U2KTMDILHd8PhO9peeR0SLWNPOlX5RCo1E7aQcCdQzxBeyKmzPDgp9QbYArmWmHSmtOH-QZRUvrjeFeEZSp6qzmIGyZD3ebRNlOH5aMrJViI1eQ32o53Bw2ghAge~D9upEEx~KXPQe9FIUArfFQo0ylInGK9jqh-OM60Qz2pXRc8llTJ3ovtnVPiL2cu2l1mcfBODJyb~IZZZ1MPczrVu-79y1RjeMr8f5BGtMbRD5nv8jtmLex6vWmIl1svtYZTpOaFPy8LwWBa70VogboWPqfAoOL1~CDZPuhlGuDmDErNknDA__&Key-Pair-Id=APKAJLOHF5GGSLRBV4ZA^{[Dead link}^] (retrieved 11.01.2024).

[:9-25] 25.0 ^25.1 Campbell, L. (1998): Historical Linguistics. An Introduction. First ed. Cambridge/Massachusetts: The MIT Press.

[26] Liam (2023): Coming out day. 11.10.2023. Mon vécu de coming out. In: ekivock.nb (Instagram account). Online at: https://www.instagram.com/p/CyP-j_Tobbj/?img_index=3.

[27] Sicard, E./Menin-Sicard, A./Rousteau, G. (2022): Oppositions de voyelles orales et nasales : identification des formants selon le genre. INSA Toulouse: ffhal-03826558v2f.

[28] Rice, K. (2007): Markedness in phonology. In: The Cambridge Handbook of Phonology, 79–98. 10.1017/cbo9780511486371.005.

[29] Carvalho, J. (2023): From binary features to elements: Implications for markedness theory and phonological acquisition. In: Radical: A Journal of Phonology 3, 346–384.

[30] Duolingo Wiki: Swedish Skills. Possessives. Online at:https://duolingo.fandom.com/wiki/Swedish_Skill:Possessives (18.12.2023).

[31] Norwegian University of Science and Technology (no data): 8 Grammar. Possessives. Online at: https://www.ntnu.edu/now/8/grammar (retrieved 18.12.2023).

[32] Klaudia, K. (2017): Schweizerdeutsch. Schlüssel zu den Übungen. Online at: https://silo.tips/download/schweizerdeutsch-schlssel-zu-den-bungen (retrieved 18.12.2023).

[33] McGibney, S. (2023): What Percentage of the World’s Population is Bilingual? Introduction to Bilingualism: Exploring the Global Language Diversity. Online at: https://www.newsdle.com/blog/world-population-bilingual-percentage (retrieved 18.12.2023).

[34] Van Dijk, C./Van Wonderen, E./Koutamanis, E./Kootstra, G.J./Dijkstra, T./Unsworth, S. (2022): Cross-linguistic influence in simultaneous and early sequential bilingual children: a meta-analysis. In: J. Child Lang. 49, 897–929. 10.1017/S0305000921000337.

[35] Van Dijk, C./Dijkstra, T./Unsworth, S. (2022): Cross-linguistic influence during online sentence processing in bilingual children. In: Bilingualism 25, 691–704. 10.1017/S1366728922000050.

[36] Doctoresse Joséphine Tornay. Online at: https://cm-latour.ch/team/josephine-tornay-medecine-interne-generale/ (retrieved 18.12.2023). 'Doctoresse' is a very common Swiss French denomination for female doctors.

[:14-37] Viennot, E. (2023): Pour un langage non sexiste ! Acteurice, visiteureuse... Des néologismes de plus en plus employés. Online at: https://www.elianeviennot.fr/Langue-mots.html (retrieved 15.12.2023).

[38] Brauer, M./Landry, M. (2008): Un ministre peut-il tomber enceinte? L'impact du générique masculin sur les représentations mentales. In: L'Année Psychol. 108, 243–272. 10.4074/S0003503308002030.

[39] Xiao, H./Strickland, B./Peperkamp, S. (2023): How fair is gender-fair language? Insights from gender ratio estimations in French. In: J. Lang. Soc. Psychol. 42, 82–106. 10.1177/0261927X221084643.

[40] Stahlberg, D./Sczesny, S./Braun, F. (2001): Name your favorite musician: effects of masculine generics and of their alternatives in German. In: J. Lang. Soc. Psychol. 20, 464–469. 10.1177/0261927X01020004004.

[:15-41] 41.0 ^41.1 Spinelli, E./Chevrot, J.-P./Varnet, L. (2023): Neutral is not fair enough: testing the efficiency of different language gender-fair strategies. In: Front. Psychol. 14. 10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1256779.

[42] CNRTL (2012): -EUX, élément formant. Online at: https://www.cnrtl.fr/definition/-eux (retrieved 15.12.2023).

[43] Wiki LGBTQIA FR (2023): Néopronoms. Online at: https://lgbtqia.fandom.com/fr/wiki/Neopronoms (retrieved 11.01.2024).

[44] Bartsch, R. (1987): Sprachnormen: Theorie und Praxis: Studienausgabe. Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter. 10.1515/9783110935875.

[:16-45] 45.0 ^45.1 Fischer, R. (1998): Lexical Change in Present-Day English. A Corpus-Based Study of the Motivation, Institutionalization, and Productivity of Creative Neologism. Tübingen: Gunter Narr Verlag.

[46] Café aux étoiles. maison d'édition sereine et onirique (no data): Littérature. Online at: https://cafeauxetoiles.fr/litterature/ (retrieved 18.12.2023).

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@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
-{{WIP|Cmaass}}
 {{Gender neutral language}}
-Nowadays, French knows only two genders: feminine and masculine. Activists have started seeking solutions to degender the language as much as possible and, therefore, make it more inclusive. These solutions entail neologisms as well as non neologisms. Here we present the still ongoing quest for (grammatical) gender inclusivity in the French language.
+The French language has two grammatical genders: feminine and masculine. Activists have started seeking solutions to degender the language as much as possible and, therefore, make it more inclusive. These solutions entail neologisms as well as non-neologisms.
-== Non neologisms ==
+==Non-neologisms==
+===Refeminization ===
+Prior to the 17th century, French, like Italian, Spanish, and other Romance languages, utilized feminine [[wikipedia:Inflection|inflections]] to distinguish female and male professionals. However, for a range of reasons (both societal — such as misogyny<ref name=":1">Becquelin, H. (no data): ''Langage en tout genre. Argument historique''. Article on non discriminating language. University of Neuchâtel. Online at: https://web.archive.org/web/20231213005251/https://www.unine.ch/epicene/home/pourquoi/argument-historique.html (retrieved 12.12.2023).</ref><ref name=":12">Viennot, E. (2023): ''Pour un langage non sexiste ! Les accords égalitaires en français''. Online at: https://www.elianeviennot.fr/Langue-accords.html (retrieved 18.12.2023).</ref> — and linguistic<ref name=":2">Moreau, M.-L. (2019): L’accord de proximité dans l’écriture inclusive. Peut-on utiliser n’importe quel argument ? In: Dister, A./ Piron, S. (eds.): ''Les discours de référence sur la langue française (Presses de l’Université Saint-Louis)'', 351–378. 10.4000/books.pusl.26517.</ref>, as French was being standardized and dialect speakers were expected to learn standard French) grammarians ensured that these feminine designations were effectively removed from the language.<ref name=":1" />
-=== Refeminization ===
+Today, many people refer to the contemporary introduction of feminine designations as [https://vitrinelinguistique.oqlf.gouv.qc.ca/23983/banque-de-depannage-linguistique/la-redaction-et-la-communication/feminisation-et-redaction-epicene/synthese-sur-la-feminisation-lexicale-et-la-redaction-epicene ''féminisation''] ('feminization'), believing that these occupational titles are newly coined terms. However, this is not the case, as they are being revived from an earlier iteration of the French language, making ''reféminisation''<ref name=":0">Divergenres (2021): ''Guide de grammaire neutre et inclusive''. Québec. Online at: https://divergenres.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/guide-grammaireinclusive-final.pdf (retrieved 12.12.2023).</ref> ('refeminization') a more accurate term.
-Prior to the 17th century, French, like Italian, Spanish, and other Romance languages, utilized feminine inflections to distinguish female professionals. However, for a range of reasons — both societal, such as misogyny,<ref name=":1">Becquelin, Hélène: ''Langage en tout genre. Argument historique''. Université de Neuchâtel. Online at: https://www.unine.ch/epicene/home/pourquoi/argument-historique.html (12.12.2023).</ref><ref name=":12">Viennot, Eliane (2023): Pour un langage non sexiste ! Les accords égalitaires en français. Online at: https://www.elianeviennot.fr/Langue-accords.html.</ref> and linguistic<ref name=":2">MOREAU, Marie-Louise. ''L’accord de proximité dans l’écriture inclusive. Peut-on utiliser n’importe quel argument ?'' In : ''Les discours de référence sur la langue française'' [en ligne]. Bruxelles : Presses de l’Université Saint-Louis, 2019 (généré le 12 décembre 2023). Disponible sur Internet : <<nowiki>http://books.openedition.org/pusl/26517</nowiki>>. ISBN : 9782802802457. DOI : <nowiki>https://doi.org/10.4000/books.pusl.26517</nowiki>.</ref>, as French was being standardized and dialect speakers were expected to learn French — grammarians ensured that these feminine designations were effectively removed from the language.<ref name=":1" />
-Today, many people refer to the contemporary introduction of feminine designations as 'feminization,' believing that these occupational titles are newly coined terms. However, this is not the case, as they are being revived from an earlier iteration of the French language, making 'refeminization'<ref name=":0">Divergenres (2021): ''Guide de grammaire neutre et inclusive''. Québec. Online at: https://divergenres.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/guide-grammaireinclusive-final.pdf.</ref> a more accurate term.
+Refeminization contributes to degendering French, as studies in various languages have demonstrated that [https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generisches_Maskulinum generic masculine], despite being considered gender-neutral by French prescriptive grammar ("Selon Le Bon Usage de Maurice Grevisse, l'adjectif se met donc au 'genre indifférencié, c'est-à-dire au masculin'."),<ref name=":3">Alchimy (2017): ''« Le masculin l’emporte sur le féminin » : Bien plus qu’une règle de grammaire''. In: ''Usbek&Rica.''</ref> is not actually cognitively neutral.<ref>Tibblin, J./Van De Weijer, J./Granfeldt, J./Gygax, P. (2023): There are more women in ''joggeur·euses'' than in ''joggeurs'' : On the effects of gender-fair forms on perceived gender ratios in French role nouns. In: ''J. Fr. Lang. Stud.'' ''33'', 28–51. 10.1017/S0959269522000217.</ref><ref>Heise, E. (2003): Auch einfühlsame Studenten sind Männer: Das generische Maskulinum und die mentale Repräsentation von Personen [Even empathic students are men: The generic masculine and the mental representation of persons]. In: ''Verhaltenstherapie & Psychosoziale Praxis 35''(2), 285–291.</ref> By incorporating the feminine form of a word, speakers acknowledge the presence of individuals of more genders than just one,<ref>Schütze, Christin (2020): ''Comprehension of Gender-neutral forms and the pseudo-generic masculine in German: a visual world eye-tracking study – ‘It goes without saying’ that everyone is included?''. Master thesis. University of Potsdam. Available at: https://publishup.uni-potsdam.de/opus4-ubp/frontdoor/deliver/index/docId/48415/file/schuetze_diss.pdf (accessed 2 March 2026).</ref> and the interchangeability of the masculine versus feminine terms as a result of the growing similarity in their [https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distribution_(Sprachwissenschaft) distributions] contribute to decoupling [[wikipedia:Sex|biological sex]], [https://eige.europa.eu/publications-resources/thesaurus/terms/1335 social gender/gender position] or [[wikipedia:Gender_identity|gender identity]] (cf. [[wikipedia:Sex_assignment|sex assignment]]) from the specific contexts they tend to be associated with.
-Even though it seems paradoxical, refeminization is part of a movement to degender the French language, as studies in various languages have demonstrated that the generic masculine, despite being considered gender-neutral by French prescriptive grammar,<ref name=":3">Alchimy (2017): « Le masculin l’emporte sur le féminin » : Bien plus qu’une règle de grammaire. ''Usbek&Rica'': "Selon Le Bon Usage de Maurice Grevisse, l'adjectif se met donc au 'genre indifférencié, c'est-à-dire au masculin'."</ref> is not actually cognitively neutral.<ref>Tibblin, J., Weijer, J. van de, Granfeldt, J., & Gygax, P. (2023). There are more women in joggeur·euses than in joggeurs : On the effects of gender-fair forms on perceived gender ratios in French role nouns. ''Journal of French Language Studies, 33'', 28‑51. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0959269522000217.</ref><ref>Heise, E. (2003). Auch einfühlsame Studenten sind Männer: Das generische Maskulinum und die mentale Repräsentation von Personen [Even empathic students are men: The generic masculine and the mental representation of persons]. ''Verhaltenstherapie & Psychosoziale Praxis, 35''(2), 285–291.</ref> By incorporating the feminine form of a word, speakers acknowledge the presence of individuals of more genders than just one.
 {| class="wikitable"
@@ Line 17: / Line 15: @@
 !Refeminized
 |-
-|un auteur
+| un auteur
 |une auteur(e)
-|une autrice
+| une autrice
 |-
 |un professeur
@@ Line 34: / Line 32: @@
 |}
-=== Doublets ===
+===Doublets===
-For example, « Nous prions les <u>étudiantes</u> et (les) <u>étudiants</u> de remettre leur copie à la personne responsable ». Some people don't enjoy the repetition,<ref name=":10">OMPI (2022): ''Guide de l’OMPI pour un langage inclusif en français''. Genève. Online at: https://www.wipo.int/export/sites/www/women-and-ip/fr/docs/guidelines-inclusive-language.pdf.</ref> others consider that the doublets don't encompass all genders,<ref name=":4">Ménard, Jean-Sébastien (2021): ''Pour un français neutre et une inclusion des personnes non binaires : une entrevue avec Florence Ashley''. Longueuil. Online at:https://www.cegepmontpetit.ca/static/uploaded/Files/Cegep/Centre%20de%20reference/Le%20francais%20saffiche/Une-entrevue-avec-Florence-Ashley.pdf (12.12.2023), p. 13, p. 6.</ref> others again are unsure which form to mention first, since the order conveys information about the value the speaker gives to each item.<ref>Pascal Gygax, Manon Boschard, Geoffrey Cornet, Magali Croci, Natasha Stegmann (2021): ''Les outils - la (re)féminisation. Langage inclusif''. Online at: https://tube.switch.ch/videos/0xwYktNzRp, 00:50.</ref>
+For example, « Nous prions les <u>étudiantes</u> et (les) <u>étudiants</u> de remettre leur copie à la personne responsable ». Some people don't enjoy the repetition,<ref name=":10">OMPI (2022): ''Guide de l’OMPI pour un langage inclusif en français''. Online at: https://www.wipo.int/export/sites/www/women-and-ip/fr/docs/guidelines-inclusive-language.pdf (retrieved 12.12.2023).</ref> others consider that the doublets don't encompass all genders,<ref name=":4">Ménard, J.-S. (2021): ''Pour un français neutre et une inclusion des personnes non binaires : une entrevue avec Florence Ashley''. Longueuil: Cégep Édouard-Montpetit. Online at:https://www.cegepmontpetit.ca/static/uploaded/Files/Cegep/Centre%20de%20reference/Le%20francais%20saffiche/Une-entrevue-avec-Florence-Ashley.pdf (retrieved 12.12.2023).</ref> others again are unsure which form to mention first, since the order conveys information about the value the speaker gives to each item.<ref>Pascal, G./Boschard, Μ./Cornet, G./Croci, M./Stegmann, N. (2021): ''Les outils - la (re)féminisation. Langage inclusif''. Online at: https://web.archive.org/web/20231225213750/https://tube.switch.ch/videos/0xwYktNzRp, 00:50 (retrieved 12.12.2023).</ref>
-=== Shortened doublets ===
+===Shortened doublets===
-The feminine suffix is attached to the masculine, rather than the whole word being repeated (as in classical doublets).<ref name=":10" /><ref name=":4" />
+The feminine [[wikipedia:Suffix|suffix]] gets attached to the masculine suffix, rather than the whole word being repeated (as in classical doublets).<ref name=":10" /><ref name=":4" />
 {| class="wikitable"
@@ Line 56: / Line 54: @@
 |}
-=== Epicene person descriptions ===
+===Morphologically invariant [https://www.grammar-monster.com/glossary/gender-specific_noun.htm gender-specific nouns]===
-For instance, « <u>Les élèves</u> apprennent leur leçon. »; « <u>L'enfant</u> regarde la télévision. »; « <u>Les juges</u> ont pris leur décision. ». As singular articles indicate gender ('la' and 'le'), this technique works best with plural forms. However, it also works with singular forms if the noun begins with a vowel, because the article automatically becomes "l'...," which does not express gender. A drawback is that there are not epicene occupational titles for all professions or functions.<ref name=":0" />
+It should be noted that, because French systematically derives its agent nouns through the addition of gender-marked suffixes, it lacks the true [https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_gender common-gender nouns], i. e. ''[https://de.wiktionary.org/wiki/Utrum Utrum]'' (cf. also [[wikipedia:English_nouns|dual-gender nouns]]), found in English.
+Some examples of morphologically — but not syntactically — invariant gender-specific nouns in French
+{| class="wikitable"
+|+Morphologically invariant gender-specific nouns
+!indefinite article
+!definite article
+!Example of usage
+!Commentary
+|-
+|un·e élève
+|l'élève
+|« <u>Les élèves</u> apprennent leur leçon. »
+|''élève'', starting with a vowel, stays morphologically epicene when combined with the singular definite article (''la'' and ''le'' becoming shortened to ''l''' if followed by a vowel)
+|-
+|un·e enfant
+|l'enfant
+|« <u>L'enfant</u> regarde la télévision. »
+|''id''.
+|-
+|un·e artiste
+|l'artiste
+|« <u>Les</u> art<u>istes</u> perdent leur travail. »
+|Notice the epicene agentive suffix [https://fr.wiktionary.org/wiki/-iste -iste].
+|-
+|un·e juge
+|le/la juge
+|« <u>Les juges</u> ont pris leur décision. »
+|''juge'', starting with a consonent, can only stay morphologically epicene in combination with the plural — all epicene, by the way —articles.
+|-
+|un·e destinataire
+|le/la destinataire
+|« <u>Les</u> destinat<u>aires</u> ne recevront pas leur colis à temps. »
+|Notice the epicene agentive suffix [https://fr.wiktionary.org/wiki/-aire -aire].
+|}
+As singular [[wikipedia:Article_(grammar)|articles]] indicate gender ('la' and 'le'), this technique works best with plural forms. However, it also works with singular forms if the noun begins with a vowel, because the article automatically becomes ''l''', which does not express gender. A drawback is that there are not morphologically invariant occupational titles for all professions or functions in regards to [https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_gender natural gender], i. e. [https://www.plus.ac.at/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/Gender_in_German_MWerner.pdf ''Sexus''], "a linguistic category for the sex of real life beings, both the biological sex of animals or the social identity of a person."<ref>"Natural Gender". ''Wikipedia. Simple English: The Free Encyclopedia'', Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., Last Modified Date: 14 March 2024, URL: https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_gender. Accessed 20 March 2026.</ref>
+In certain Swiss-French varieties, as in the canton of Vaud, masculine and feminine words ending in <é> resp. <ée> are pronounced differently (e. g., ''une employée'' [ynɑ̃plwaj<u>e:</u>]/[ynɑ̃plwaj<u>e:j</u>] vs. ''un employé'' [ɛ̃nɑ̃plwaj<u>e</u>]/[œ̃nɑ̃plwaj<u>e</u>]). However, this linguistically conservative pronunciation is becoming increasingly marginal: it is primarily confined to Switzerland and, in major cities and among younger generations, the pronunciation is gradually converging with the standard French norm, meaning that the distinction between /e/ and /e:/ (or /e:j/, remnant from [[wikipedia:Franco-Provençal|Franco-Provençal dialects]] spoken in the region before linguistic homogenization) is being [[wikipedia:Neutralization_(linguistics)|neutralized]], resulting in a single phoneme /e/ and causing ''employé'' and ''employée'' to be pronounced identically. As a result, here, these words are considered orally indistinguishable.
+=== Fixed-gender [[wikipedia:Epicenity|epicenes]] and [[wikipedia:Collective_noun|collective nouns]] ===
+While human collective nouns — such as ''l'auditoire'' ('the audience') or ''le public'' ('the public')— inherently carry the semantic feature [+human], their relationship to natural gender/''Sexus'' diverges from that of individual personal nouns. Unlike fixed-gender epicenes (e.g., ''la sentinelle'', 'the sentry'), where a specific individual referent does indeed posses a gender/''Sexus'' that the noun's morphology simply ignores (rendering the form ''Sexus''-independent), collective nouns denote a macro-entity. In formal semantics, a multitude functioning as a single constituent does not inherently possess a natural gender. Thus, in collective nouns, the semantic feature of ''Sexus'' is not merely omitted, but is rather structurally completely absent (∅). In this respect, human collective nouns operate similarly to [[wikipedia:Animacy|inanimate]] objects (e.g., ''la chaise'', 'the chair'): they are assigned a [[wikipedia:Grammatical_gender|grammatical gender]]/''Genus'', but the semantic category of natural gender/Sexus is inherently inapplicable to them.
+To classify the grammatical strategies for making French more gender-inclusive or gender-neutral, we need to distinguish between:
+# '''''Sexus''-applicable nouns referring to animates'''
+## '''Gender-specific nouns'''
+### '''morphologically gendered nouns''', where the noun gets its ''Sexus''-specification through derivation from gender-marked agentive affixes (compare ''acteur'' vs. ''actrice'').
+### '''lexically gendered nouns''', where the ''Sexus''-specification is inherent to the [[wikipedia:Lexeme|lexeme]] (compare ''sœur'', 'sister', or: ''mec'', 'dude')
+## '''Fixed-gender epicene nouns''', where the natural gender/''Sexus'' of the agent noun gets "overwritten" by grammatical gender/''Genus'' (''cf''.
+# '''''Sexus''-inapplicable nouns referring to animates'''
+## Collective nouns
-=== Grammatically fixed gender nouns and impersonal formulations ===
+This distinction is tripartite, comprising Sexus-dependent, Sexus-independent, and Sexus-inapplicable nouns, which underpins the morphological oppositions presented in the two following tables.
-The table below shows gendered language on the left and neutral — i.e. grammatical gender that has nothing to do with biological sex or gender identity — language on the right.
 {| class="wikitable"
-|+Impersonal formulations<ref name=":11" />
+|+Individual ''versus'' collective nouns<ref name=":11" />
-!Inclusive gendered language
+!Gender-specific nouns (''Sexus'') '''<small>morphologically gendered nouns</small>'''
-!Inclusive neutral language
+!Collective nouns (''Genus'')
 |-
 |'''Les auditrices et auditeurs''' sont attentifs.
@@ Line 73: / Line 120: @@
 |}
 {| class="wikitable"
-|+Grammatically fixed gender nouns<ref name=":11" />
+|+Monogender nouns<ref name=":11" />
-!Explicit binary gender
+!Gender-specific nouns (''Sexus'') <small>lexically gendered nouns</small>
-!Grammatically fixed gender
+!Fixed-gender epicenes (''Genus'') <small>Sexus-independent</small>
 |-
 |Je ne connais pas '''cet homme'''.
@@ Line 84: / Line 131: @@
 |}
-=== Proximity agreement ===
+===Proximity agreement===
-Up until the 18th century, the masculine gender did not always take precedence over the feminine in instances where the genders could theoretically be congruent: proximity<ref>EPFL (2023): ''L’accord de proximité''. Online at:https://www.epfl.ch/about/equality/fr/langage-inclusif/guide/principes/accord/ (12.12.2023).</ref> and free-choice agreement coexisted alongside the masculine-over-feminine rule.<ref name=":12" /><ref name=":2" /> For a significant portion of Old French history, proximity agreement was the most prevalent method for agreeing adjectives, past participles, etc. (cf. Anglade 1931:172).<ref>Anglade, Joseph (1931): ''Grammaire élémentaire de l'ancien français''. Paris: Armand Colin, 157-196. Online at: https://fr.wikisource.org/wiki/Grammaire_%C3%A9l%C3%A9mentaire_de_l%E2%80%99ancien_fran%C3%A7ais/Chapitre_6.</ref> Today, this agreement could facilitate gender equality in grammar instead of the masculine-over-feminine hierarchy that was suggested in the 17th and 18th century by French grammarians such as Malherbe, Vaugelas, Bouhours and Beauzée:<blockquote>« Le genre masculin, étant le plus noble, doit prédominer toutes les fois que le masculin et le féminin se trouvent ensemble. » (Claude Favre de Vaugelas, ''Remarques sur la langue français''e, 1647).<ref name=":1" />
+Up until the 18th century, the masculine gender did not always take precedence over the feminine in instances where the genders could theoretically be congruent: proximity<ref>EPFL (2023): ''L’accord de proximité''. Online at:https://www.epfl.ch/about/equality/fr/langage-inclusif/guide/principes/accord/ (retrieved 12.12.2023).</ref> and free-choice agreement coexisted alongside the masculine-over-feminine rule.<ref name=":12" /><ref name=":2" /> For a significant portion of Old French history, [[wikipedia:Agreement_(linguistics)|proximity agreement]] was the most prevalent method for agreeing adjectives, past participles, etc. (cf. Anglade 1931:172).<ref>Anglade, J. (1931): ''Grammaire élémentaire de l'ancien français''. Paris: Armand Colin, 157–196.</ref> Today, this agreement could facilitate gender equality in grammar instead of the masculine-over-feminine hierarchy that was suggested in the 17th and 18th century by French grammarians such as Malherbe, Vaugelas, Bouhours and Beauzée:<blockquote>« Le genre masculin, étant le plus noble, doit prédominer toutes les fois que le masculin et le féminin se trouvent ensemble. » (Claude Favre de Vaugelas, ''Remarques sur la langue français''e, 1647).<ref name=":1" />
 « Lorsque les deux genres se rencontrent, il faut que le plus noble l’emporte. » (Bouhours 1675).<ref name=":3" />
@@ Line 92: / Line 139: @@
 {| class="wikitable"
 |+
 !Masculine-prevails-over-feminine rule
 !Proximity agreement
 |-
 |Ces œillets et ces roses sont '''beaux'''.
 |Ces œillets et ces roses sont '''belles'''.
 |-
-|Les '''nombreux''' filles et garçons.
+| Les '''nombreux''' filles et garçons.
-|Les '''nombreuses''' filles et garçons.
+| Les '''nombreuses''' filles et garçons.
 |}
 ==Neologisms==
-=== Personal pronouns ===
+=== Methodological Note ===
+In the accompanying tables, the most widely adopted neologisms are italicized. Unless explicitly noted and justified within the text, all neologisms and morphological rules discussed in this article are attested across French-speaking online communities and digital platforms. A comprehensive inventory of these primary sources is provided in the "Main Resources" section at the end of this article.
-==== Subject pronouns ====
+===[[wikipedia:Personal_pronoun|Personal pronouns]]===
-French only distinguishes gender in the third-person singular (cf. 'elle' and 'il'). Up until the 12th century, French knew the neutral subject pronoun 'el'/'al'.<ref>Marchello-Nizia Christiane. Le neutre et l'impersonnel. In: ''Linx'', n°21, 1989. Genre et langage. Actes du colloque tenu à Paris X-Nanterre les 14-15-16 décembre 1988, sous la direction de Eliane Koskas et Danielle Leeman. 173-179. DOI : https://doi.org/10.3406/linx.1989.1139. Online at: www.persee.fr/doc/linx_0246-8743_1989_num_21_1_1139.</ref> Today, 'el' cannot be reintroduced from Old French as it would sound identical to 'elle', the current feminin subject pronoun. As for 'al', it sounds like 'elle' in spoken Canadian French.<ref name=":5">Florence Ashley (2019): Les personnes non-binaires en français : une perspective concernée et militante. In: ''H-France Salon'' 11(14), p. 6.</ref> It could, however, still be a viable option for the rest of the Francophone community.<ref name=":13">Alpheratz (2018): Genre neutre.TABLEAUX RÉCAPITULATIFS de mots de genre neutre (extraits). Online at: https://www.alpheratz.fr/linguistique/genre-neutre/.</ref> Nowadays, according to the ''Guide de rédaction inclusive'' (2021:14) from the Laval University,<ref name=":11">Université Laval (2021): Guide de rédaction inclusive. Online at: https://www.ulaval.ca/sites/default/files/EDI/Guide_redaction_inclusive_DC_UL.pdf.</ref> the ''Guide de grammaire neutre et inclusive'' (2021:5) from Divergenres,<ref name=":0" /> the ''Petit dico de français neutre/inclusif'' (2018) from La vie en Queer,<ref name=":6">La vie en Queer (2018): Petit dico de français neutre/inclusif. Online at: https://lavieenqueer.wordpress.com/2018/07/26/petit-dico-de-francais-neutre-inclusif/.</ref>  and Wiki Trans (2019),<ref name=":7">Wiki Trans (2019): Comment parler d'une personne non binaire ? Online at: https://wikitrans.co/2019/12/25/comment-parler-dune-personne-non-binaire/.</ref> the most widely adopted subject (neo)pronoun is 'iel'. It was added to the prestigious dictionary ''Le Robert'' in 2021.<ref>Radio Télévision Suisse (2021): L'entrée du pronom "iel" dans Le Robert provoque des remous. Online at: https://www.rts.ch/info/monde/12651159-lentree-du-pronom-iel-dans-le-robert-provoque-des-remous.html.</ref> Alongside 'iel', Canadian French also uses 'ille'.<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":5" /> In metropolitan France, the pronoun 'al', proposed by linguist Alpheratz in their book ''Grammaire du français inclusif'' (2018) has gained some recognition. The table below presents the primary gender-neutral subject pronouns found in the French-speaking world.
+Regarding its [[wikipedia:Pronoun|pronouns]], French only distinguishes gender in the third-person (e.g.: 'elle', 'la', 'eux', etc.).
+====[[wikipedia:Subject_pronoun|Subject pronouns]]====
+Up until the 12th century, French knew the neutral subject pronoun 'el'/'al'.<ref>Marchello-Nizia, C. (1989): Le neutre et l’impersonnel. In: ''Linx'' ''21'', 173–179. 10.3406/linx.1989.1139.</ref> Today, 'el' cannot be reintroduced from Old French as it would sound identical to 'elle', the current feminin subject pronoun. As for 'al', it sounds like 'elle' in spoken Canadian French.<ref name=":5">Ashley, F. (2019): Les personnes non-binaires en français : une perspective concernée et militante. In: ''H-France Salon'' ''11''(14).</ref> It could, however, still be a viable option for the rest of the Francophone community.<ref name=":13">Alpheratz (2018): ''Genre neutre.TABLEAUX RÉCAPITULATIFS de mots de genre neutre (extraits)''. Online at: https://www.alpheratz.fr/linguistique/genre-neutre/ (retrieved 15.12.2023).</ref> Nowadays, according to the ''Guide de rédaction inclusive'' (2021:14) from the Laval University,<ref name=":11">Université Laval (2021): ''Guide de rédaction inclusive''. Online at: https://www.ulaval.ca/sites/default/files/EDI/Guide_redaction_inclusive_DC_UL.pdf (retrieved 12.12.2023).</ref> the ''Guide de grammaire neutre et inclusive'' (2021:5) from Divergenres,<ref name=":0" /> the ''Petit dico de français neutre/inclusif'' (2018) from La vie en Queer,<ref name=":6">La vie en Queer (2018): ''Petit dico de français neutre/inclusif''. Online at: https://lavieenqueer.wordpress.com/2018/07/26/petit-dico-de-francais-neutre-inclusif/ (retrieved 15.12.2023).</ref>  and Wiki Trans (2019),<ref name=":7">Wiki Trans (2019): ''Comment parler d'une personne non binaire ?'' Online at: https://wikitrans.co/2019/12/25/comment-parler-dune-personne-non-binaire/ (retrieved 15.12.2023).</ref> the most widely adopted subject (neo)pronoun is 'iel(le)'. It was added to the prestigious dictionary ''Le Robert'' in 2021.<ref>Radio Télévision Suisse (2021): ''L'entrée du pronom "iel" dans Le Robert provoque des remous''. Online at: https://www.rts.ch/info/monde/12651159-lentree-du-pronom-iel-dans-le-robert-provoque-des-remous.html (retrieved 15.12.2023).</ref> Alongside 'iel(le)', Canadian French also seems to use 'ille'.<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":5" /> In metropolitan France, the pronoun 'al', proposed by linguist Alpheratz in their book ''Grammaire du français inclusif'' (2018), has gained some recognition. The table below presents the primary gender-neutral subject pronouns found in the French-speaking world.
 {| class="wikitable"
 |+
 !
 ! colspan="3" |gender-neutral subject pronouns
 |-
 !Dominant usage
-|iel <small>[jɛl]</small>
+|''iel''(le) <small>[jɛl]</small>
 |ille <small>[ij]</small><ref name=":5" />
-|al
+| al
 |-
-!Peripheral usage
+! Peripheral usage
 |ol
 |ul
@@ Line 124: / Line 175: @@
 |}
-==== Clitic and tonic pronouns ====
+====[[wikipedia:Object_pronoun|Object pronouns]]: [[wikipedia:Clitic|clitics]] and [[wikipedia:Disjunctive_pronoun|tonic pronouns]]====
-French distinguishes between clitic and tonic pronouns. A clitic is a word that attaches in a syntactically rigid way to another word to form a prosodic unit with it, lacking prosodic as well as distributional autonomy.<ref name=":8">Michel Launey, Dominique Levet (2017): ''La catégorie de la personne''. Maison des Sciences des l'Homme Paris Nord. Online at: https://web.ac-reims.fr/casnav/enfants_nouv_arrives/aide_a_la_scolarisation/LGIDF/LGIDF.LA%20PERSONNE.02.03.17.pdf.</ref> Currently, there is no prevailing gender-neutral clitic direct object personal pronoun; the most common ones are detailed below.
+French distinguishes between clitic and tonic object pronouns. A clitic is a word that attaches in a [[wikipedia:Syntax|syntactically]] rigid way to another word to form a [[wikipedia:Prosody_(linguistics)|prosodic]] unit with it, lacking prosodic as well as [https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distribution_(Sprachwissenschaft) distributional] autonomy.<ref name=":8">Michel, L./Levet, D. (2017): ''La catégorie de la personne''. Saint-Denis: MSH Paris Nord. Online at: https://web.ac-reims.fr/casnav/enfants_nouv_arrives/aide_a_la_scolarisation/LGIDF/LGIDF.LA%20PERSONNE.02.03.17.pdf (retrieved 15.12.2023).</ref> Currently, there is no prevailing gender-neutral clitic direct object personal pronoun; the most common ones are detailed below.
 {| class="wikitable"
 |+Clitic pronouns
 !Subject
-!Direct object
+! Direct object
 !Indirect object
 |-
 |il
-|le, (l')
+| le, (l')
 |lui
 |-
@@ Line 141: / Line 192: @@
 |-
 |<u>iel</u>
-|<u>lae</u> <small>[lae]</small><u>/lo/li/lu/lia, (l')</u>
+|
+* <u>''lae''</u> <small>[lae]</small>
+* lea <small>[ləa]</small>
+* <u>lo</u>
+* <u>lan</u><ref>Wiki LGBTQIA FR (2021): ''Al/lan''. Online at: https://lgbtqia.fandom.com/fr/wiki/Al/lan (retrieved 11.01.2024).</ref>
+* <u>li</u>
+* <u>lu</u>
+* <u>lia</u>
+* <u>l'</u> <small>(standard French clitic used when the direct object precedes words that start with a vowel)</small>
 |<u>lui</u>
 |-
@@ Line 156: / Line 215: @@
 |<u>leur</u>
 |}
-Tonic pronouns are also called 'autonomous' because, in opposition to clitics, they form their own prosodic unit and can stand alone in the sentence, hence their distribution is not as fixed as the clitics' one.<ref name=":8" /> There are currently two competing systems:<ref name=":7" /><ref name=":6" /> one consists in syncretizing (cf. analogical levelling)<ref name=":9">Campbell, Lyle (1998): ''Historical Linguistics. An Introduction''. First ed. Cambridge/Massachusetts: The MIT Press.</ref> clitic and tonic pronouns, following the paradigm of standard French 'elle', which equates keeping the gender-neutral subject pronoun — be it 'iel', 'ille', 'al' or 'ol', etc. — as such; the other approach, exemplified in the table below with 'iel', supports differentiating (cf. analogical extension)<ref name=":9" /> clitics from tonic pronouns, thereby aligning with the paradigm of 'il'.
+Tonic pronouns are also called 'autonomous' because, in opposition to clitics, they form their own prosodic unit and can stand alone in the sentence, hence their distribution is not as fixed as the clitics' one.<ref name=":8" /> There are currently two competing systems:<ref name=":7" /><ref name=":6" /><ref>Spencer-Hall, A./Gutt, B. (eds)(2021): ''Trans and Genderqueer Subjects in Medieval Hagiography''. Amsterdam University Press. DOI: 10.2307/j.ctv1ks0cj4.
+French cultural and linguistic translation from Maillet C. online at: https://d1wqtxts1xzle7.cloudfront.net/88291459/Maillet_Trad_Terminologie_20pour_20les_20e_3Ftudes_20trans_20et_20non_20binaire_2021-libre.pdf?1657042694=&response-content-disposition=inline%3B+filename%3DTerminologie_pour_les_etudes_trans_et_no.pdf&Expires=1704980549&Signature=aHUqRbpWbQ8K1jtiqQoQV6cgYM~YTcaZmgDhb8U2KTMDILHd8PhO9peeR0SLWNPOlX5RCo1E7aQcCdQzxBeyKmzPDgp9QbYArmWmHSmtOH-QZRUvrjeFeEZSp6qzmIGyZD3ebRNlOH5aMrJViI1eQ32o53Bw2ghAge~D9upEEx~KXPQe9FIUArfFQo0ylInGK9jqh-OM60Qz2pXRc8llTJ3ovtnVPiL2cu2l1mcfBODJyb~IZZZ1MPczrVu-79y1RjeMr8f5BGtMbRD5nv8jtmLex6vWmIl1svtYZTpOaFPy8LwWBa70VogboWPqfAoOL1~CDZPuhlGuDmDErNknDA__&Key-Pair-Id=APKAJLOHF5GGSLRBV4ZA{{Dead link|date=January 2024 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }} (retrieved 11.01.2024).</ref> one consists in [[wikipedia:Syncretism_(linguistics)|syncretizing]] (cf. [[wikipedia:Morphological_leveling|analogical levelling]])<ref name=":9">Campbell, L. (1998): ''Historical Linguistics. An Introduction''. First ed. Cambridge/Massachusetts: The MIT Press.</ref> clitic and tonic pronouns, following the paradigm of standard French 'elle', which equates keeping the gender-neutral subject pronoun — be it 'iel', 'ille', 'al' or 'ol', etc. — as such; the other approach, exemplified in the table below with 'iel', supports differentiating (cf. analogical extension)<ref name=":9" /> clitics from tonic pronouns, thereby aligning with the paradigm of 'il'.
 {| class="wikitable"
 |+Analogical extension
+!Clitic subject pronoun
+!Tonic pronoun
+|-
+|il
+|lui
+|-
+| elle
+|elle
+|-
+|<u>'''iel'''</u>
+|'''<u>''ellui''</u> <small>[ɛllɥi]</small>'''
+|-
+| ils
+|eux
+|-
+|elles
+|elles
+|-
+|<u>'''iels'''</u>
+|'''<u>''elleux''</u> <small>[ɛllø]</small>'''
+|}
+{| class="wikitable"
+|+Analogical levelling
 !Clitic subject pronoun
 !Tonic pronoun
@@ Line 168: / Line 253: @@
 |elle
 |-
-|<u>iel</u>
+|<u>'''iel'''</u>
-|<u>ellui</u> <small>[ɛllɥi]</small>
+|'''<u>iel</u>(le) <small>[jɛl]</small>'''
 |-
 |ils
@@ Line 177: / Line 262: @@
 |elles
 |-
-|<u>iels</u>
+|<u>'''iels'''</u>
-|<u>elleux</u> <small>[ɛllø]</small>
+|'''<u>iels(/ielles)</u> <small>[jɛl]</small>'''
+|}
+==== [[wikipedia:Indefinite_pronoun|Indefinite pronouns and adjectives]] ====
+Semantically, many indefinite pronouns (such as ''chacun'' or ''quelqu'un'') share the [+human] trait of personal pronouns, functioning essentially as unspecified human referents. However, because they are quantificational rather than referential, they lack a specific natural gender/''Sexus''. Consequently, enforcing binary grammatical gender (''Genus'') on these forms forces a specific morphological marker onto an inherently unspecified referent, invariably defaulting to the masculine generic in standard French.
+{| class="wikitable"
+!
+!Masculine
+!Feminine
+!Analytic gender-neutral
+!Synthetic gender-neutral
+|-
+!aucun·e
+|aucun <small>[ok<u>œ̃</u>]/[ok<u>ɛ̃</u>]</small>
+|aucune <small>[oky<u>n</u>]</small>
+|aucueune <small>[ok<u>œn</u>]</small>
+|''aucan'' <small>[okɑ̃]/[okan]</small>
+|-
+!chacun·e
+|chacun <small>[ʃak<u>œ̃</u>/[ʃak<u>ɛ̃</u>]</small>
+|chacune <small>[ʃaky<u>n</u>]</small>
+|chacueune <small>[ʃak<u>œn</u>]</small>
+|''chacan'' <small>[ʃakɑ̃]/[ʃakan]</small>
+|-
+!certain·e
+|certain <small>[sɛʁt<u>ɛ̃</u>]</small>
+|certaine <small>[sɛʁtɛ<u>n</u>]</small>
+|
+|''certan'' <small>[sɛʁtɑ̃]/[sɛʁtan]</small>
+|-
+!tout·e
+|tout
+|toute
+|
+|toude
+|-
+!tous/toutes
+|tous
+|toutes
+|''toustes,'' touts <small>[tuts]</small>
+|
+|-
+!quelqu'un·e
+|quelqu'un <small>[kɛlk<u>œ̃</u>]/[kɛlk<u>ɛ̃</u>]</small>
+|quelqu'une <small>[kɛlky<u>n</u>]</small>
+|quelqu'eune <small>[kɛlk<u>œn</u>]</small>
+|quelqu'an <small>[kɛlkɑ̃]/[kɛlkan]</small>
 |}
+The indefinite pronoun 'quelqu'une' is extremely rare in modern French and its pendant 'quelqu'un' does not seem to be perceived as masculine by native French speakers,<ref>Liam (2023): Coming out day. 11.10.2023. Mon vécu de coming out. In: ''ekivock.nb'' (Instagram account). Online at: https://www.instagram.com/p/CyP-j_Tobbj/?img_index=3.</ref> thus it is not clear how essential the degendering of this pronoun is.
-=== Determiners ===
+===Determiners===
-==== Indefinite and definite article ====
+==== Grammatical note ====
-The distinction between 'analytic gender-neutral' ''versus'' 'synthetic gender-neutral' is usually referred to as 'inclusif' ''versus'' 'neutre'.<ref name=":0" /> Compounds — such as 'maon', from 'ma' and 'mon' — and portmanteau words, like 'utilisateurice', could be cognitively interpreted as neutral; at least, there have been no psycholinguistic studies disconfirming this, to the extent that these forms could technically also be called neutral. Furthermore, since gender-neutral forms are inherently inclusive of all genders, there is no reason why they cannot be called that way either. The subsequent interchangeability of these terms makes them unsuitable for differentiating these two methods of creating gender-neutral/gender inclusive words in French. For this reason, the following table distinguishes them based on their morphological properties — blend words being more analytical and non blend words being more synthetic.
+Unlike articles, demonstrative or possessive adjectives, pronouns aren't technically determiners. For readability reasons, and because they form a relatively small paradigm compared to their corresponding adjectives, they're included in the determiners category because they're thematically coppled with the respective (demonstrative or possessive) adjectives.
-The currently most widely accepted neutral forms are denoted in italics in the table. Apart from them, most of the forms depicted in the tables are not in use. The tables thus merely represent suggestions that have been made for degendering French, and feature the items that have been retained by most blogs, researchers and LGBT communities in the French-speaking world.
+====Indefinite and definite article====
+In the discourse surrounding gender-inclusive language in French, the distinction between compounds that [[wikipedia:Portmanteau|blend]] or [[wikipedia:Concatenation|concatenate]] gender-marked [[wikipedia:Agent_nouns|agentive suffixes]] (e.g.: ''direct<u>eur</u>'''ice''''') ''versus'' lexical (e.g.: ''sœur'' and ''frère'' → ''adelphe'') and morphological [[wikipedia:Lexical_substitution|substitutions]] (→ cognitive approach) respectively [[wikipedia:Morphological_derivation|morphological derivations]] (→ structural approach), such as the epicene derivation 'direct<u>aire</u>', are usually referred to as ''inclusif'' vs. ''neutre'' in queer-positive communities.
-The underlining of phonemes in the IPA transcription of certain words does not carry any phonetic meaning: it is used solely to highlight which phonetic elements from the feminine and masculine forms have been incorporated into the analytic gender-neutral neologism.
+However, the concatenation of gender-marked agentive suffixes adds the missing gender, i.e. natural gender/''Sexus'' [[wikipedia:Sememe|sememe]] to the given [[wikipedia:English_nouns|personal noun]], turn [[wikipedia:Agent_noun|agent nouns]] from single-gender personal noun to dual-gender masculine/feminine personal noun.<ref name=":0" /> Accordingly, they could theoretically be cognitively interpreted as neutral, to the extent that these forms could theoretically be cognitively processed as genderneutral, i. e. ''neutre''. Because the use of these neologisms remains peripheral in spoken French, psycholinguistic research has yet to disconfirm this possibility.
-[[File:IPA vowel trapezium for standard French.png|alt=IPA vowel trapezium for standard French|thumb|IPA vowel trapezium for standard French]]
+Conversely, agent nouns categorized as ''neutre'' — such as epicene derivations (e.g., ''coiffaire'', which attaches the gender-unspecific suffix ''-aire'' to a verbal root) or lexical substitutions (e.g., ''Monestre'', 'Mx'), as discussed higher — are inherently inclusive of all genders, making the label ''inclusif'' equally applicable to them. The pragmatic interchangeability of these labels renders them inadequate for differentiating the morphological mechanisms used to generate gender-inclusive neologisms in French. For this reason, the following table categorizes these strategies based on their structural properties — blend words being more [[wikipedia:Analytic_language|analytic]], and non blend words (epicene derivations; lexical substitions) being more [[wikipedia:Synthetic_language|synthetic]].
+In the following tables, the most widely adopted gender-inclusive forms are italicized. Beyond these specific instances, the majority of the forms presented have not achieved widespread currency in everyday usage. Consequently, the tables function primarily as an inventory of morphological proposals for the gender neutralization of French, highlighting the neologisms that have gained the most traction among inclusive language advocates, and LGBTQ+ communities in the Francophone world.
+The underlining within the IPA transcriptions carries no phonetic or phonological significance. Rather, it is employed strictly as a visual heuristic to isolate the specific phonetic segments from the source feminine and masculine forms that have been integrated into these analytically constructed neologisms.
+[[File:Vowel trapezium for standard French.png|alt=IPA vowel trapezium for standard French|thumb|IPA vowel trapezium for standard French]]
 {| class="wikitable"
-|+
+|+Articles
 !
 !Masculine
 !Feminine
 !Analytic gender-neutral
 !Synthetic gender-neutral
 |-
@@ Line 211: / Line 350: @@
 |}'an' is quite common, particularly in the [ɑ̃] pronunciation, where it shares a core feature with 'un': both consist solely of a nasal vowel. 'eune' [œn] combines the roundedness and degree of aperture of 'un' [œ̃] with the terminal nasal consonant [n] of 'une'. In metropolitan French, where 'un' is typically pronounced as [ɛ̃], 'eune' shares a phonetic characteristic with 'une' through the final [n], and one with 'un' through the similar degree of aperture of their vocalic nucleus.
-A drawback of 'an' pronounced as [ɑ̃] is its nasality, a factor known for making vowels challenging to distinguish and learn, even for native French speakers.<ref>Etienne Sicard, Anne Menin-Sicard, Gabriel Rousteau. Oppositions de voyelles orales et nasales : identification des formants selon le genre. INSA Toulouse. 2022. ffhal-03826558v2f.</ref> Consequently, [ɑ̃] might be perceived as a mispronunciation of 'un' or simply not distinct enough from 'un' to be recognized as a different morpheme.
+A drawback of 'an' pronounced as [ɑ̃] is its nasality, a factor known for making vowels challenging to distinguish and learn, even for native French speakers.<ref>Sicard, E./Menin-Sicard, A./Rousteau, G. (2022): ''Oppositions de voyelles orales et nasales : identification des formants selon le genre''. INSA Toulouse: ffhal-03826558v2f.</ref> Consequently, [ɑ̃] might be perceived as a mispronunciation of 'un' or simply not distinct enough from 'un' to be recognized as a different morpheme.
-==== Possessive adjectives ====
+Accordingly, regarding the morphing resp. non-morphing of the definite article with the prepositions 'de' and 'à', we'd have 'à lae' and 'de lae'.
+====[[wikipedia:Demonstrative|Demonstrative]] adjective====
+{| class="wikitable"
+!Masculine
+!Feminine
+!Analytic gender-neutral
+!Synthetic gender-neutral
+!Plural
+|-
+|ce/cet
+|cette
+|
+|cèd
+|ces
+|}
+La vie en Queer proposes 'cet', which sounds the same as the feminine 'cette'; Divergenres retains 'cèx', but notes that it sounds like the word 'sexe'. A third possibility would be to voice resp. to devoice the final consonant of the feminine word, for instance turning [t] to [d], or [g] to [k]. This would allow the word to remain easily recognizable while being distinct from both the masculine and  the feminine forms. This approach would be advantageous in regards to minimizing misunderstandings and memorization effort.
+==== [[wikipedia:Demonstrative|Demonstrative]] pronouns ====
+{| class="wikitable"
+!
+! Masculine
+!Feminine
+!Analytic gender-neutral
+!Synthetic gender-neutral
+|-
+!Singular
+|celui <small>[səl<u>ɥi</u>]</small>
+|celle <small>[s<u>ɛl</u>]</small>
+|''cellui'' <small>[s<u>ɛl</u><u>ɥi</u>]</small>
+|ciel <small>[sjεl]</small>
+|-
+!Plural
+|ceux <small>[s<u>ø</u>]</small>
+|celles <small>[s<u>ɛl</u>]</small>
+|''celleux''  <small>[s<u>ɛl</u><u>ø</u>]</small>
+|ciels <small>[sjεl]</small>, ceuxes <small>[søks]</small>
+|}
+==== <big>Possessives</big> ====
+===== Possessives adjectives =====
 {| class="wikitable"
 !
-!Masculine
+! Masculine
 !Feminine
 !Analytic gender-neutral
@@ Line 224: / Line 405: @@
 |ma
 |''maon'' <small>[maõ]</small>
-|''man'' <small>[mɑ̃]/[man]</small>, mi(ne)
+|''man'' <small>[mɑ̃]/[man]</small>, mo, mi(ne), la/le mian <small>[mjɑ̃]</small>
 |-
 !2SG
@@ Line 230: / Line 411: @@
 |ta
 |''taon'' <small>[taõ]</small>
-|''tan'' <small>[tɑ̃]/[tan]</small>, ti(ne)
+|''tan'' <small>[tɑ̃]/[tan]</small>, to, ti(ne)
 |-
 !3SG
 |son
 |sa
 |''saon'' <small>[saõ]</small>
-|''san'' <small>[sɑ̃]/[san]</small>, sine <small>[sin]</small>
+|''san'' <small>[sɑ̃]/[san]</small>, so, si(ne)
 |}
 The possessive adjectives 'mon', 'ton', and 'son', which are generally masculine, are also used as feminine possessive adjectives when combined with a feminine noun that begins (phonetically) with a vowel: 'mon amie', 'ton employée', 'son hôtesse', etc. Therefore, there is no need to use a possessive neologism in words starting with vowels, as the masculine and feminine gender are syncretized in this context.
-The pronunciation [sɑ̃] of 'san' is a homophone of 'sang' ('blood'). Alpheratz proposes 'mu(n)', 'tu(n)', 'su(n)'<ref name=":13" /> as synthetic forms. However, 'tu(n)' is a homophone of the subject pronoun 'tu', and <nowiki><u> — i. e. [y] — is a linguistically marked phone</nowiki>.<ref>Rice, K. (2007). Markedness in phonology. In: ''The Cambridge Handbook of Phonology'', 79-98. doi:10.1017/cbo9780511486371.005.</ref><ref>Carvalho, Joaquim (Brandão de) (2023): “From binary features To elements: Implications for markedness theory and phonological acquisition”. In: ''Radical: A Journal of Phonology'' 3, 346-384. Here specifically: 352-353.</ref> Alternative forms could be 'mi(ne)', 'ti(ne)', 'sine', as only the roundness parameter (cf. [y] and [i] in the IPA) distinguishes them from the original neologisms from Alpheratz. 'sine' would be the only one without an optional '-ne' ending to avoid homophony with 'si' (i. e. 'if'). Similar-sounding possessive adjectives can be found in Spanish ('mi'), in English ('my'), in Swedish ('min', 'din', 'sin', the last one being a gender-neutral reflexive possessive pronoun),<ref>Duolingo Wiki: ''Swedish Skills. Possessives''. Online at:https://duolingo.fandom.com/wiki/Swedish_Skill:Possessives.</ref> in Norwegian,<ref>Norwegian University of Science and Technology (no data): ''8 Grammar. Possessives''. Online at: https://www.ntnu.edu/now/8/grammar.</ref>  in Swiss-German,<ref>Klaudia Kolbe (2017): ''Schweizerdeutsch. Schlüssel zu den Übungen.'' Online at: https://silo.tips/download/schweizerdeutsch-schlssel-zu-den-bungen.</ref>  and in other Germanic languages. As 60% of of humans are multilingual,<ref>Sean McGibney (2023): ''What Percentage of the World’s Population is Bilingual? Introduction to Bilingualism: Exploring the Global Language Diversity''. Online at: https://www.newsdle.com/blog/world-population-bilingual-percentage.</ref> cross-linguistic influence could be used to facilitate the memorization and adoption of neologisms.<ref>VAN DIJK C, VAN WONDEREN E, KOUTAMANIS E, KOOTSTRA GJ, DIJKSTRA T, UNSWORTH S. (2022): Cross-linguistic influence in simultaneous and early sequential bilingual children: a meta-analysis. In: ''Journal of Child Language'' 5, :897-929. doi:10.1017/S0305000921000337.</ref><ref>van Dijk C, Dijkstra T, Unsworth S. Cross-linguistic influence during online sentence processing in bilingual children (2022): In: ''Bilingualism: Language and Cognition'' 4, 691-704. doi:10.1017/S1366728922000050.</ref>
+The pronunciation [sɑ̃] of 'san' is a homophone of 'sang' ('blood'). Alpheratz proposes 'mu(n)', 'tu(n)', 'su(n)'<ref name=":13" /> as synthetic forms. However, 'tu(n)' is a homophone of the subject pronoun 'tu', and <nowiki><u> — i. e. [y] — is a linguistically marked phone</nowiki>.<ref>Rice, K. (2007): Markedness in phonology. In: ''The Cambridge Handbook of Phonology'', 79–98. 10.1017/cbo9780511486371.005.</ref><ref>Carvalho, J. (2023): From binary features to elements: Implications for markedness theory and phonological acquisition. In: ''Radical: A Journal of Phonology'' ''3'', 346–384.</ref> Alternative forms could be 'mi(ne)', 'ti(ne)', 'sine', as only the roundness parameter (cf. [y] and [i] in the IPA) distinguishes them from the original neologisms suggested by Alpheratz. 'si(ne)' could be pronounced with an '-ne' ending to avoid homophony with 'si' (i. e. 'if'). Similar-sounding possessives can be found in Spanish ('mi'), in English ('my'), in Swedish ('min', 'din', 'sin', the last one being a gender-neutral reflexive possessive pronoun),<ref>Duolingo Wiki: ''Swedish Skills. Possessives''. Online at:https://duolingo.fandom.com/wiki/Swedish_Skill:Possessives (18.12.2023).</ref> in Norwegian,<ref>Norwegian University of Science and Technology (no data): ''8 Grammar. Possessives''. Online at: https://www.ntnu.edu/now/8/grammar (retrieved 18.12.2023).</ref>  in Swiss-German,<ref>Klaudia, K. (2017): ''Schweizerdeutsch. Schlüssel zu den Übungen.'' Online at: https://silo.tips/download/schweizerdeutsch-schlssel-zu-den-bungen (retrieved 18.12.2023).</ref>  and in other Germanic languages. As 60% of of humans are multilingual,<ref>McGibney, S. (2023): ''What Percentage of the World’s Population is Bilingual? Introduction to Bilingualism: Exploring the Global Language Diversity''. Online at: https://www.newsdle.com/blog/world-population-bilingual-percentage (retrieved 18.12.2023).</ref> cross-linguistic influence could be used to facilitate the memorization and adoption of neologisms.<ref>Van Dijk, C./Van Wonderen, E./Koutamanis, E./Kootstra, G.J./Dijkstra, T./Unsworth, S. (2022): Cross-linguistic influence in simultaneous and early sequential bilingual children: a meta-analysis. In: ''J. Child Lang.'' ''49'', 897–929. 10.1017/S0305000921000337.</ref><ref>Van Dijk, C./Dijkstra, T./Unsworth, S. (2022): Cross-linguistic influence during online sentence processing in bilingual children. In: ''Bilingualism'' ''25'', 691–704. 10.1017/S1366728922000050.</ref>
-==== Demonstrative adjective ====
+===== Possessive pronouns =====
-{| class="wikitable"
-!Masculine
-!Feminine
-!Analytic gender-neutral
-!Synthetic gender-neutral
-!Plural
-|-
-|ce/cet
-|cette
-|
-|cèd
-|ces
-|}
-La vie en Queer proposes 'cet', which sounds the same as the feminine 'cette'; Divergenres retains 'cèx', but notes that it sounds like the word 'sexe'. A third possibility is to voice or to devoice the final consonant of the feminine word, for instance turning [t] to [d], or [g] to [k]. This would allow the word to remain easily recognizable while being distinct from both the masculine and  the feminine forms. This approach has the advantage of minimizing misunderstandings and memorization effort.
-=== Non personal pronouns ===
-==== Possessive pronouns ====
 {| class="wikitable"
 !
@@ Line 282: / Line 445: @@
 Currently, there is no established combination of definite article and possessive pronoun. In this table, the definite article "lae" is simply paired with the possessive pronoun "mienn" for morphological reasons, as both words are of the analytic gender-neutral type. This also applies to the definite article "lo" and the possessive pronoun "miem", both of which are of the synthetic type.
-==== Demonstrative pronouns ====
-{| class="wikitable"
-!
-!Masculine
-!Feminine
-!Analytic gender-neutral
-!Synthetic gender-neutral
-|-
-!Singular
-|celui <small>[səl<u>ɥi</u>]</small>
-|celle <small>[s<u>ɛl</u>]</small>
-|''cellui'' <small>[s<u>ɛl</u><u>ɥi</u>]</small>
-|
-|-
-!Plural
-|ceux <small>[s<u>ø</u>]</small>
-|celles <small>[s<u>ɛl</u>]</small>
-|''celleux''  <small>[s<u>ɛl</u><u>ø</u>]</small>
-|ceuxes <small>[søks]</small>
-|}
-==== Indefinite pronouns ====
+Nota bene: Germanic languages encode the gender of the possessor in their third person singular — Romance languages do not. Only the gender of the possessed object is marked through flexion.
 {| class="wikitable"
-!
+|+Grammatical note on English versus French possessives
-!Masculine
+!English
-!Feminine
+!French
-!Analytic gender-neutral
+!''Genus'' of possessed object
-!Synthetic gender-neutral
 |-
-!aucun·e
+|That's '''her''' bike. That's '''hers'''.
-|aucun <small>[ok<u>œ̃</u>]/[ok<u>ɛ̃</u>]</small>
+|C'est '''son''' vélo. C'est '''le sien'''.
-|aucune <small>[oky<u>n</u>]</small>
+|le vélo (masculine)
-|aucunn <small>[ok<u>œ̃n</u>]/[ok<u>ɛ̃n</u>]</small>, aucueune <small>[ok<u>œn</u>]</small>
-|aucan <small>[okɑ̃]/[okan]</small>
 |-
-!chacun·e
+|That's '''her''' car. That's '''hers'''.
-|chacun <small>[ʃak<u>œ̃</u>/[ʃak<u>ɛ̃</u>]</small>
+|C'est '''sa''' voiture. C'est '''la sienne'''.
-|chacune <small>[ʃaky<u>n</u>]</small>
+|la voiture (feminine)
-|chacunn <small>[ʃak<u>œ̃n</u>]/[ʃak<u>ɛ̃n</u>]</small>, chacueune <small>[ʃak<u>œn</u>]</small>
-|chacan <small>[ʃakɑ̃]/[ʃakan]</small>
 |-
-!certain·e
+|That's '''his''' cake. That's '''his'''.
-|certain <small>[sɛʁt<u>ɛ̃</u>]</small>
+|C'est '''son''' gâteau. C'est '''le sien'''.
-|certaine <small>[sɛʁtɛ<u>n</u>]</small>
+|le gâteau (masculine)
-|certainn <small>[sɛʁt<u>ɛ̃n</u>]</small>
-|certan <small>[sɛʁtɑ̃]/[sɛʁtan]</small>
 |-
-!tout·e
+|That's '''his''' watch. That's '''his'''.
-|tout
+|C'est '''sa''' montre. C'est '''la sienne'''.
-|toute
+|la montre (feminine)
-|
-|toude
 |-
-!tous/toutes
+|That's Avery. '''Their'''[sing.] favorite dish is pizza. It's '''theirs'''.
-|tous
+|Ça, c'est Avery. '''Son''' plat préféré, c'est la pizza. C'est '''le sien'''.
-|toutes
+|le plat (masculine)
-|''toustes''
-|
 |-
-!quelqu'un·e
+|That's Avery. '''Their'''[sing.] house is green. It's '''theirs'''.
-|quelqu'un <small>[kɛlk<u>œ̃</u>]/[kɛlk<u>ɛ̃</u>]</small>
+|Ça, c'est Avery. '''Sa''' maison est verte. C'est '''la sienne'''.
-|quelqu'une <small>[kɛlky<u>n</u>]</small>
+|la maison (feminine)
-|quelqu'unn <small>[kɛlk<u>œ̃n</u>]/[kɛlk<u>ɛ̃</u>]</small>, quelqu'eune <small>[kɛlk<u>œn</u>]</small>
-|
 |}
-The indefinite pronoun 'quelqu'une' is extremely rare in modern French and its pendant 'quelqu'un' not necessarily perceived as masculine, thus it is not clear how essential the degendering of this pronoun is.
-=== Nouns and adjectives ===
+===Nouns and adjectives ===
 Words such as 'professionnel' and 'professionnelle', which are orally epicene and, thus, indistinguishable in speech, are not included; the use of their shortened doublet form enables inclusivity and gender-neutrality in written language.
-==== Endings from Latin '-or' and '-rix' ====
+==== Endings from Latin '-or' and '-rix'====
 {| class="wikitable"
 |+Endings from Latin '-or' and '-rix'
 !
 !Masculine
 !Feminine
 !Analytic gender-neutral
 !Synthetic gender-neutral
@@ Line 377: / Line 504: @@
 !-eur/-_resse<sup>1</sup>
 |docteur
-|doct<u>o</u>resse<ref>Doctoresse Joséphine Tornay. Online at: https://cm-latour.ch/team/josephine-tornay-medecine-interne-generale/. Very common Swiss French denomination for female doctors.</ref>
+|doct<u>o</u>resse<ref>Doctoresse Joséphine Tornay. Online at: https://cm-latour.ch/team/josephine-tornay-medecine-interne-generale/ (retrieved 18.12.2023). 'Doctoresse' is a very common Swiss French denomination for female doctors.</ref>
 |''docteuresse''
 |doctaire
@@ Line 383: / Line 510: @@
 !-eur/-_resse<sup>2</sup>
 |enchanteur
-|enchant<u>e</u>resse
+| enchant<u>e</u>resse
 |''enchanteuresse''
 |enchantaire
@@ Line 390: / Line 517: @@
 |maître
 |maîtresse
-|''maîtré''/maîtrè (or maîtræ)
+|maîtré/maîtrè (or maîtræ)
 |maîtrexe
 |-
@@ Line 396: / Line 523: @@
 |connard
 |connasse
-|
+|connarsse
 |connarde
 |}
-The analytic gender-neutral forms derived from words that originate from Latin '-or' and '-rix' are already being used,<ref name=":14">Viennot, Eliane (2023): Pour un langage non sexiste ! Acteurice, visiteureuse... Des néologismes de plus en plus employés. Online at: https://www.elianeviennot.fr/Langue-mots.html.</ref> although they have not been officially recognized by any French dictionary yet. Some podcasts where you can hear them are ''Les Couilles sur la table'', ''Parler comme jamais'' and ''Papatriarcat''.
+The analytic gender-neutral forms derived from words that originate from Latin '-or' and '-rix' are already being used,<ref name=":14">Viennot, E. (2023): ''Pour un langage non sexiste ! Acteurice, visiteureuse... Des néologismes de plus en plus employés''. Online at: https://www.elianeviennot.fr/Langue-mots.html (retrieved 15.12.2023).</ref> although they have not been officially recognized by any French dictionary yet. Some podcasts where you can hear them are ''Les Couilles sur la table'', ''Parler comme jamais'' and ''Papatriarcat''.
-Synthetic gender-neutral forms have the advantage of preserving the original syllable number of the word, making them less cumbersome than analytic forms. Moreover, the '-aire' suffix does already exist in contemporary French, forming epicene nouns like 'un·e destinataire', 'un·e secrétaire', 'un·e volontaire', 'un·e bibliothécaire', etc. However, several psycholinguistic studies conducted in French<ref>Brauer, M., and Landry, M. (2008): Un ministre peut-il tomber enceinte? L'impact du générique masculin sur les représentations mentales. In: ''L'Année Psychol''. 108, 243-272. DOI: 10.4074/S0003503308002030.</ref><ref>Xiao, H., Strickland, B., and Peperkamp, S. (2023): How fair is gender-fair language? Insights from gender ratio estimations in French. In: ''J. Lang. Soc. Psychol''. 42, 82-106. DOI: 10.1177/0261927X221084643.</ref> and in German<ref>Stahlberg, D., Sczesny, S., and Braun, F. (2001): Name your favorite musician: effects of masculine generics and of their alternatives in German. In: ''J. Lang. Soc. Psychol''. 20, 464-469. DOI: 10.1177/0261927X01020004004.</ref> have found that "gender-unmarked forms are not fully effective in neutralizing the masculine bias"<ref name=":15">Spinelli, Elsa/Chevrot, Jean-Pierre/Varnet, Léo (2023): Neutral is not fair enough: testing the efficiency of different language gender-fair strategies. In: ''Front. Psychol.'' 14. DOI: https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1256779.</ref> and that "contracted double forms [such as acteur·ice] are more effective in promoting gender balance compared to gender-unmarked forms."<ref name=":15" /> Regarding this issue, specifically, analytic gender-neutral forms could then be a more effective solution than synthetic ones.
+Synthetic gender-neutral forms have the advantage of preserving the original syllable number of the word, making them less cumbersome than analytic forms. Moreover, the '-aire' suffix does already exist in contemporary French, forming epicene nouns like 'un·e destinataire', 'un·e secrétaire', 'un·e volontaire', 'un·e bibliothécaire', etc. However, several psycholinguistic studies conducted in French<ref>Brauer, M./Landry, M. (2008): Un ministre peut-il tomber enceinte? L'impact du générique masculin sur les représentations mentales. In: ''L'Année Psychol''. ''108'', 243–272. 10.4074/S0003503308002030.</ref><ref>Xiao, H./Strickland, B./Peperkamp, S. (2023): How fair is gender-fair language? Insights from gender ratio estimations in French. In: ''J. Lang. Soc. Psychol''. ''42'', 82–106. 10.1177/0261927X221084643.</ref> and in German<ref>Stahlberg, D./Sczesny, S./Braun, F. (2001): Name your favorite musician: effects of masculine generics and of their alternatives in German. In: ''J. Lang. Soc. Psychol''. ''20'', 464–469. 10.1177/0261927X01020004004.</ref> have found that "gender-unmarked forms are not fully effective in neutralizing the masculine bias"<ref name=":15">Spinelli, E./Chevrot, J.-P./Varnet, L. (2023): Neutral is not fair enough: testing the efficiency of different language gender-fair strategies. In: ''Front. Psychol.'' ''14.'' 10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1256779.</ref> and that "contracted double forms [such as acteur·ice] are more effective in promoting gender balance compared to gender-unmarked forms."<ref name=":15" /> Regarding this issue, specifically, analytic gender-neutral forms could then be a more effective solution than synthetic ones.
-==== Endings with '-x' in the masculine ====
+====Endings with '-x' in the masculine====
 {| class="wikitable"
-|+Endings from latin '-ōsus'<ref>CNRTL (2012): ''-EUX, élément formant''. Online at: https://www.cnrtl.fr/definition/-eux.</ref>
+|+Endings from latin '-ōsus'<ref>CNRTL (2012): ''-EUX, élément formant''. Online at: https://www.cnrtl.fr/definition/-eux (retrieved 15.12.2023).</ref>
 !
 !Masculine
@@ Line 412: / Line 539: @@
 !Synthetic gender-neutral
 |-
-!-eux/-euse
+! -eux/-euse
 |amoureux
 |amoureuse
-|
+|amoureuseux
 |amoureuxe [amuʁøks]
+amoureusse
+amouré·e
 |-
 !-eux/-esse
 |dieu
 |déesse
-|dieuesse
+|dieuesse, dieusse
 |dieuxe
 |}
@@ Line 444: / Line 573: @@
 |douxe
 |}
-The synthetic gender-neutral forms in which the silent consonant of the masculine form becomes audible mantain the original number of syllables. They have an audible suffix, like the feminine forms do, without that suffix being the same as the feminine. This places them between the feminine and the masculine forms. Additionally, the fact that the audible consonant in gender-neutral form matches the consonant in the masculine suffix could facilitate the learning of these neologisms for literate French speakers. However, in cases where the masculine does not contain a silent <x> and the feminine has a distinctive suffix, such as with 'dieu, déesse', adopting the analytic approach may be more consistent in terms of spelling and inclusivity (see previous paragraph).
+The synthetic gender-neutral forms in which the silent consonant of the masculine form becomes audible mantain the original number of syllables. They have an audible suffix, like the feminine forms do, without that suffix being the same as the feminine. Additionally, the fact that the audible consonant in gender-neutral form matches the consonant in the masculine suffix could facilitate the learning of these neologisms for literate French speakers. However, in cases where the masculine does not contain a silent <x> and the feminine has a distinctive suffix, such as with 'dieu, déesse', adopting the analytic approach may be more consistent in terms of spelling and inclusivity (see previous paragraph).
-==== Endings with nasal vowels in the masculine form ====
+====Endings with nasal vowels in the masculine form====
 {| class="wikitable"
-|+Endings with nasal vowels in the masculine form
+|+ Endings with nasal vowels in the masculine form
 |-
 !
 !Masculine
-!Feminine
+! Feminine
-!Analytic gender-neutral
+! Analytic gender-neutral
 !Synthetic gender-neutral
 |-
 !-ain/-aine
-|écrivain <small>[ekʁiv<u>ɛ̃</u>]</small>
+| écrivain <small>[Ekʁiv<u>ɛ̃</u>]</small>
-|écrivaine <small>[ekʁivɛ<u>n</u>]</small>
+|écrivaine <small>[Ekʁivɛ<u>n</u>]</small>
-|écrivainn <small>[ekʁiv<u>ɛ̃n</u>]</small>
+|
-|''écrivan''
+|''écrivan'' <small>[Ekʁivɑ̃]/[Ekʁivan]</small>
 |-
 !-ain/-ine
 |copain <small>[kɔp<u>ɛ̃</u>]</small>
 |copine <small>[kɔpi<u>n</u>]</small>
-|copainn <small>[kɔp<u>ɛ̃n</u>]</small>, ''cop<u>aine</u>'' <small>[kɔpɛn]</small>
+|''cop<u>aine</u>'' <small>[kɔpɛn]</small>
-|
+|copan <small>[kɔpɑ̃]/[kɔpan]</small>
 |-
 !-in/-ine
 |cousin <small>[kuz<u>ɛ̃</u>]</small>
 |cousine <small>[kuzi<u>n</u>]</small>
-|cousinn <small>[kuz<u>ɛ̃n</u>]</small>
+|''cousaine'' <small>[kuz<u>ɛn</u>]</small>
-|''cousaine'' <small>[kuzɛn]</small>
+|cousan <small>[kuzɑ̃]/[kuzan]</small>
 |-
 !-an/-anne
 |paysan <small>[pɛiz<u>ɑ̃</u>]</small>
 |paysanne <small>[pɛiza<u>n</u>]</small>
-|paysann <small>[pɛiz<u>ɑ̃n</u>]</small>
+|
-|''paysaine'' <small>[pɛizɛn]</small>
+|paysaine <small>[pɛizɛn]</small>
 |-
 !-ien/-ienne
 |citoyen <small>[sitwaj<u>ɛ̃</u>]</small>
 |citoyenne <small>[sitwajɛ<u>n</u>]</small>
-|citoyenn <small>[sitwaj<u>ɛ̃n</u>]</small>
+|
-|''citoyan''
+|''citoyan'' <small>[sitwajɑ̃]/[sitwajan]</small>
 |-
 !-un/-une<sup>1</sup>
 |brun <small>[bʁ<u>œ̃</u>]/[bʁ<u>ɛ̃</u>]</small>
 |brune <small>[bʁy<u>n</u>]</small>
-|brunn <small>[bʁ<u>œ̃n</u>]/[bʁ<u>ɛ̃n</u>]</small>
+|breune, brunn <small>[bʁ<u>œ̃n</u>]/[bʁ<u>ɛ̃n</u>]</small>
-|braine, ''bran''
+|braine, ''bran'' <small>[bʁɑ̃]/[bʁan]</small>
 |-
 !-un/-une<sup>2</sup>
 |opportun <small>[ɔpɔʁt<u>œ̃</u>]/[ɔpɔʁt<u>ɛ̃</u>]</small>
 |opportune <small>[ɔpɔʁty<u>n</u>]</small>
-|opportunn <small>[ɔpɔʁt<u>œ̃n</u>]/[ɔpɔʁt<u>ɛ̃n</u>]</small>
+|opporteune, opportaine <small>[ɔpɔʁt<u>ɛn</u>]</small>
-|opportaine
+| opportan <small>[ɔpɔʁtɑ̃]/[ɔpɔʁtan]</small>
 |-
 !-on/-onne
 |mignon <small>[miɲ<u>õ</u>]</small>
 |mignonne <small>[miɲɔ<u>n</u>]</small>
-|mignonn <small>[miɲ<u>õn]</u></small>
+|mignonn <small>[miɲ<u>õn</u>]</small>
-|mignaine, ''mignan''
+|mignaine, ''mignan'' <small>[miɲɑ̃]/[miɲan]</small>
 |}
 The '-aine' suffix has gained popularity. However, its use in monosyllabic words like 'brun·e' may hinder comprehension, which could explain why 'bran', a form that preserves the nasality of the final vowel while only changing its place of articulation, is more widespread. Words with a '-ien/-ienne' (and obviously also '-ain/-aine') suffix cannot form a synthetic gender-neutral form with '-aine', as this would result in a word pronounced exactly the same way as the feminine one (cf. 'citoyenne'). Here, the synthetical neutral forms created with '-an' only retain masculine phonetic traits (i. e. its manner of articulation — vocalic — and its nasality trait — which is positive). Theoretically, this could lead to similar issues as discussed in the Endings from Latin '-or' and '-rix' subchapter. The same could be true with synthetic gender-neutral forms ending in '-aine', but this time in favour of the feminine. However, even though the suffix '-aine' could sound feminine, the resulting form is still easily distinguishable from the original one, since the vowels implied are oral and not nasal, and can therefore be less easily mistaken for mispronunciations — while 'écrivan', 'citoyan' and 'bran' could be (for more information, see the Indefinite and definite article subchapter).
-==== Endings with silent consonant X in the masculine and audible consonant X in the feminine ====
+The use of "-iste" is always genderneutral, like "feministe".
+====Endings with silent consonant X in the masculine and audible consonant X in the feminine====
 {| class="wikitable"
-|+Endings with silent (♂︎) and audible consonant (♀︎)
+|+Endings with silent (♂︎) and audible (♀︎) consonant
 !
 !Masculine
 !Feminine
 !Analytic gender-neutral
@@ Line 521: / Line 652: @@
 |pâlode, pâlat, pâlasse
 |-
 !-d/-de
 |grand
 |grande
 |
 |grante, granxe, gransse
+|-
+!-al/ale
+|principal
+|principale
+|
+|principèl, principalx, principalz
 |-
 !-iet/iète
@@ Line 531: / Line 668: @@
 |inquiète
 |
-|inquiède
+| inquiède
 |-
 !-g/gue
@@ Line 539: / Line 676: @@
 |oblonk
 |-
-!-er/-ière
+!-ier/-ière
 |premier <small>[pʁəmj<u>e</u>]</small>
 |première <small>[pʁəmjɛ<u>ʁ</u>]</small>
@@ Line 571: / Line 708: @@
 As the table demonstrates, no approach has achieved widespread acceptance among this category of nouns and adjectives. As discussed in the Demonstrative adjective subchapter, one intuitive approach to creating a gender-neutral form involves making the silent consonant of the masculine form audible in the neologism while voicing or devoicing it, so that its pronunciation is different from the feminine form — e. g.: 'palôt' → 'palôte' (sounds like 'pâlotte') → 'pâlode' . However, masculine words ending in a silent <nowiki><s> pose a challenge: when put in the feminine form, the <s> can either become a voiced sibilant [z] or a voiceless sibilant [s] (the outcome [ʃ] is irrelevant in this issue). This inconsistency means that the silent <s> of the masculine form can represent either a voiced or a voiceless sound. While the silent consonants of other words can simply be transformed into their voiceless resp. voiced counterparts to differentiate them from the feminine, creating gender-neutral forms from words like "antillais·e" and "bas·e" requires more careful consideration. If the feminine form is pronounced with a [s], the pronunciation of the gender-neutral form must be [z] to avoid homophony; conversely, if the feminine form is pronounced [z], the gender-neutral form's pronunciation must be [s] to maintain distinctiveness.</nowiki>
-==== Endings with a rounded vowel in the masculine and '-_(l)le' in the feminine ====
+====Endings with a rounded vowel in the masculine and '-_(l)le' in the feminine====
 {| class="wikitable"
 |+Endings with a rounded vowel (♂︎) and '-_(l)le' (♀︎)
 !
-!Masculine
+! Masculine
 !Feminine
 !Analytic gender-neutral
@@ Line 584: / Line 721: @@
 |jumelle
 |''jumelleau'', jumeaulle
-|
+|jumal<ref>Wiki LGBTQIA FR (2023): ''Néopronoms''. Online at: https://lgbtqia.fandom.com/fr/wiki/Neopronoms (retrieved 11.01.2024).</ref>
 |-
 !-ou/-olle
@@ Line 606: / Line 743: @@
 The pronunciation of /a/ as [ɔ] in Canadian French can lead to ambiguity in gender-neutral forms like 'spéciaules', as they could be interpreted as the feminine singular and plural, or masculine singular form of 'spécial·e'.
-==== Endings with consonant X in the masculine and consonant X with phonetic change triggered by presence of final '-e' in the feminine ====
+==== Endings with consonant X in the masculine and consonant X with phonetic change triggered by presence of final '-e' in the feminine====
 {| class="wikitable"
 |+Masculine consonant X and feminin consonant X modified by '-e'
@@ Line 616: / Line 753: @@
 |-
 !-c/-che
 |sec
 |sèche
-|seckèche, sèchec
+| seckèche, sèchec
 |
 |-
@@ Line 629: / Line 766: @@
 Florence Ashley argues that the order in which the feminine and masculine morphemes are combined does not matter.<ref name=":5" /> Usage, intelligibleness and personal preference ultimately determine which forms will gain traction. However, the prosodic sequencing of syllables in French can impact intelligibility. For instance, in the pronunciation of 'naïvif' (neutral form) as [na'i'<u>vif</u>], contrary to 'naïfive', the end of the word is acoustically identical to 'vif' (i. e. 'vivacious') and can thus lead to confusion.
-==== Some gender-neutral nouns from irregular substantives ====
+==== Gender-neutral suggestions for some gender-specific nouns (natural gender/''Sexus'')====
 {| class="wikitable"
-|+Irregular substantives
+|+Gender-specific nouns (''Sexus'') and current gender-neutral suggestions
 !Masculine
 !Feminine
 !Analytic gender-neutral
 !Synthetic gender-neutral
 |-
@@ Line 645: / Line 782: @@
 |héroïne
 |héroïnos
-|héroan <small>[eʁoɑ̃]/[eʁoan]</small>, héroal
+|héroan <small>[Eʁoɑ̃]/[Eʁoan]</small>, héroal
 |-
 |frère
@@ Line 658: / Line 795: @@
 |}
-== Illustrative narrative text with neologisms ==
+==Discussion==
-The neologisms that a primarily depicted here are the ones that either are analytical — as they have been shown to be cognitively more inclusive than some synthetic ones —, easier to pronounce, cross-linguistically relevant or the most widespread.
+According to linguist Roswitha Fischer, citing Renate Bartsch,<ref>Bartsch, R. (1987): ''Sprachnormen: Theorie und Praxis: Studienausgabe''. Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter. 10.1515/9783110935875.</ref> the adoption of neologisms into a language's lexicon depends on three factors:
-''"Lae maîtré accueillent les enfants et leur demande de prendre place. La leçon du jour concerne les métiers. L’instituteurice interroge les élèves sur leurs souhaits professionnels et les professions exercées par les membres de leur famille. An élève dans la deuxième rangée prend la parole :''
+#Prestige: The neologism must be championed by a group of influential individuals who hold social, political, and economic power.
-* Plus tard, j’aimerais travailler en tant qu’infirmiér ou chirurgienn, parce que mi frœur aîné·e, Amel, est an brillande médecin à l’hôpital de Lyon et que je l’admire beaucoup. Malheureusement, iel est très occupé·e en ce moment et je ne peux lae voir et passer du temps avec ellui que le week-end.
+#Written Usage: The neologism must gain traction in written communication, becoming accepted in literature, media, and formal communication.
+#Linguistic Contact: The neologism must circulate in areas where multiple dialects and varieties of the language converge, fostering mutual understanding and assimilation.<ref name=":16">Fischer, R. (1998): ''Lexical Change in Present-Day English. A Corpus-Based Study of the Motivation, Institutionalization, and Productivity of Creative Neologism''. Tübingen: Gunter Narr Verlag.</ref>
-''An autre élève réagit :''
+Currently, gender-neutral French neologisms lack widespread adoption, even within LGBT and nonbinary communities. Their presence is marginal in written form,<ref>Café aux étoiles. maison d'édition sereine et onirique (no data): ''Littérature''. Online at: https://cafeauxetoiles.fr/litterature/ (retrieved 18.12.2023).</ref><ref>Les Ourses à plumes. Webzine féministe (2022): ''Les elfes noirs ne sont jamais noirs (1) : enjeux de la représentation dans les fictions de l'imaginaire''. Online at: https://lesoursesaplumes.info/tag/une/ (retrieved 18.12.2023).</ref> and their usage in spoken language limited. However, the Internet serves as an area for these neologisms to reach a global audience of Francophone speakers from Africa, America, Europe, and minority language communities all around the world. Additionally, descriptive approaches to language (cf. ''Le Robert''), contrary to prescriptive approaches (cf. L'Académie), have lead to the acceptance of one of them — 'iel' — in written discourse.
-* Quand j’étais à l’hôpital parce qu’il y avait un problème avec mon glucomètre, lae docteuresse qui s’est occupé·e de moi m’a dit qu’iel s’appelait Amel ! Est-ce que ton adelphe est rouxe, par hasard ?
+For neologisms to gain wider adoption, they must be learnable and user-friendly. This means they should be easy to understand and easy to remember (due to morphological motivation); easy to pronounce while adhering to the phoneme inventory and phonotactics of the language; familiar to the target audience; and responsive to a genuine need.<ref name=":16" /> If these criteria are met, neologisms will start being adopted by avant-garde language users. As these avant-garde figures gather large online communities, the frequency of usage of these neologisms will increase, fostering familiarity among the Francophone community. From then, some of these neologisms could potentially enter the standard vocabulary.
-* Non, iel est pas rouxe, mais iel se teint régulièrement les cheveux avec du henné !
-* Alors je suis sur·e que c'était ti frœur ! Moi, quand je serai grante, j’aimerais m’occuper aussi bien des autres que le fait Amel. J’aimerais devenir éducateurice spécialisé·e.
-* Moi aussi j’adore aider les autres ! Souvent, le matin, j’aide mi jumeaulle à s’habiller, à préparer sa récré et à mettre ses chaussures, parce qu’iel a un chromosome de plus que moi alors certaines choses sont moins faciles pour ellui. Il faut être patiende et très douxe parce qu’iel fait pas ça exprès ! J’écrirai des livres sur ce dont les personnes qui réfléchissent différemment ont besoin et je découvrirai pourquoi elles pensent comme ça : du coup, quand je serai vieuille, je serai écrivainn-chercheureuse.
-* Comment ça, quand tu seras vieilleux ? Tu crois que tu vas commencer à travailler quand ?
-* Je sais pas, quand je serai adulte, quand je serai vieuille quoi.
-* Ce que tu es mignonn de penser que je suis vieilleux, moi, merci.
-* (ricanements)
-* Moi, je suis un peu inquiède parce que je ne sais pas ce que je voudrais être plus tard.
-* Peut-être tes camarades peuvent te donner des idées.
-* Je peux te raconter ce que fait mi grante cousaine, Anh : comme iel adore les animaux, iel est devenu·e paysann, comme ça iel peut les caresser tous les jours !
-* Mi voisinn, à moi, iel est enseignande de Yoruba, parfois iel donne même des cours à domicile.
-* Mais, ti voisan, André·e, je lae connais, et iel est kazakhstanaisse, ses langues maternelles, c'est le russe et le kazakh, iel peut pas enseigner le Yoruba.
-* Bien sûr qu’iel peut ! Tu as pas besoin d’avoir une nationalité spécifique pour savoir une langue ! La preuve, moi je suis allemante et italienn, mais je parle que français.
-* On a discuté de beaucoup de métiers dans le monde du social. Est-ce que vous connaissez des gens dans des domaines plus techniques ?
-* Oui, mi paman, par exemple, iel travaille en tant qu’ingénieureuse de logiciel. Parfois, iel est de piquet et, ces soirs-là, quand quelque chose tombe en panne, iel devient toude blank et se précipite sur son ordinateur pour réparer le problème. Mapa dit toujours que je dois pas rire de Paman, dans ces moments, mais j’arrive pas à me retenir, la tête qu’iel fait est trop drôle.
-* Et ti paman, iel fait quoi ?
-* Ellui, iel est politicienn : iel vérifie que vous continuez à toustes vous comporter en bonns citoyenns !
-* Tu es bien naïfive si tu penses qu’en général on se comporte en bonns citoyans !
-* Moi, j'ai pas pu parler encore.
-* Vas-y, Ariel·le, on t'écoute.
-* Mi tancle, iel est championn de para hockey.
-* C'est pas un métier, ça, le sport.
-* Oh que si ! Iel s'entraîne dur tous les jours, d'ailleurs sine entraîneureuse est très fier·e d'ellui parce qu'iel est an capitainn si engagé·e que son équipe est régulièrement sélectionnée pour les Jeux Paralympiques. Moi, plus tard, j'aimerais aussi être an sportifive de haut niveau, comme ellui.
-* Bien, sur ce, je vous propose à toustes d'aller enfiler vos affaires de sport : on se retrouve dans la salle de gymnastique pour une partie de unihockey.
-''Les élèves :''
-* Yes!"
-== Discussion ==
+== Main resources ==
-According to linguist Roswitha Fischer, citing Renate Bartsch,<ref>Bartsch, Renate (1987): ''Sprachnormen: Theorie und Praxis: Studienausgabe''. Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter. <nowiki>https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110935875</nowiki>,</ref> the adoption of neologisms into a language's lexicon depends on three factors:
-# Prestige: The neologism must be championed by a group of influential individuals who hold social, political, and economic power.
+# ★La vie en Queer (2018): ''Petit dico de français neutre/inclusif''. Online at: https://lavieenqueer.wordpress.com/2018/07/26/petit-dico-de-francais-neutre-inclusif/<nowiki/>.★
-# Written Usage: The neologism must gain traction in written communication, becoming accepted in literature, media, and formal communication.
+# Divergenres (2021): ''Guide de grammaire neutre et inclusive''. Québec. Online at: https://divergenres.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/guide-grammaireinclusive-final.pdf.
-# Linguistic Contact: The neologism must circulate in areas where multiple dialects and varieties of the language converge, fostering mutual understanding and assimilation.<ref name=":16">Fischer, Roswitha (1998): ''Lexical Change in Present-Day English. A Corpus-Based Study of the Motivation, Institutionalization, and Productivity of Creative Neologism''. Tübingen: Gunter Narr Verlag. Online at: <nowiki>https://books.google.ch/books?id=H93nAVbwZwwC&printsec=frontcover&hl=de#v=onepage&q&f=false</nowiki>.</ref>
+# Wiki Trans (2019): ''Comment parler d'une personne non binaire ?'' Online at: https://wikitrans.co/2019/12/25/comment-parler-dune-personne-non-binaire/.
+# Wiki LGBTQIA FR (2023): ''Néopronoms''. Online at: https://lgbtqia.fandom.com/fr/wiki/Neopronoms.
-Currently, gender-neutral French neologisms lack widespread adoption, even within LGBT and nonbinary communities. Their presence is marginal in written form,<ref>Café aux étoiles. maison d'édition sereine et onirique (no data): ''Littérature''. Online at: https://cafeauxetoiles.fr/litterature/.</ref><ref>Les Ourses à plumes. Webzine féministe (2022): ''Les elfes noirs ne sont jamais noirs (1) : enjeux de la représentation dans les fictions de l'imaginaire''. Online at: https://lesoursesaplumes.info/tag/une/.</ref> and their usage in spoken language limited. However, the Internet serves as an area for these neologisms to reach a global audience of Francophone speakers from Africa, America, Europe, and minority language communities all around the world. Additionally, descriptive approaches to language (cf. ''Le Robert''), contrary to prescriptive approaches (cf. L'Académie), have lead to the acceptance of one of them — 'iel' — in written discourse.
+# Alpheratz (2018): ''Genre neutre.TABLEAUX RÉCAPITULATIFS de mots de genre neutre (extraits)''. Online at: https://www.alpheratz.fr/linguistique/genre-neutre/.
-For neologisms to gain wider adoption, they must be learnable and user-friendly. This means they should be easy to understand and easy to remember (due to morphological motivation); easy to pronounce while adhering to the phoneme inventory and phonotactics of the language; familiar to the target audience; and responsive to a genuine need.<ref name=":16" /> If these criteria are met, neologisms will start being adopted by avant-garde language users. As these avant-garde figures gather large online communities, the frequency of usage of these neologisms will increase, fostering familiarity among the Francophone community. From then, some of these neologisms could potentially enter the standard vocabulary.
-==References==
+==References ==
 <references />
 [[Category:Gender neutral language]]