Gender neutral language in Swedish: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 13:04, 26 May 2024

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Gender neutral language

The Swedish language has two grammatical genders, common and neuter. Swedish is easier than gender neutral language (also called gender inclusive language) in many other languages, because its grammatical gender is less pervasive than in languages like German or French. See the main article on gender neutral language for general reasons to use neutral language, common problems in using it, and its use for nonbinary people.

Pronouns

Gender-neutral third-person singular

Swedish’s official gender-neutral pronoun is hen/hen/hens. The Swedish common-inanimate pronoun den/den/dens (equivalent to it/it/its) is also used for gender-neutral language and by some nonbinary people, as well as the non-standard anglicized practice of singular de/dem/deras (they/them/their). Some nonbinary people have also opted for neopronoun such as hin/hin/hins, which is in actuality an obsolete pronoun that means something alike “that one”, but is in modern times pretty much only used in the set phrase “hin håle” (the hard one, the devil).

Hen	Standard gender-neutral/third-gender personal pronoun
hen	Subject form
hen/henom	Object form is generaly just "hen", but some use "henom". It is very individual.
hens	Possessive form

Den	Gender-neutral/common-inanimate "it"
den	Subject/object form
dens/dess	Possessive form

De	Non-standard anglicized singular "they"
de	Subject form is sometimes written "dom"
dem	Object form is sometimes written "dom"
deras	Possessive form

Hin	Neopronoun/obsolete pronoun "hin"
hin	Subject/object form
hins	Possessive form

Generic pronoun

To refer to people in general in Swedish, the pronouns "man/en/en" (one/one/one’s) or "en/en/ens" (one/one/one’s) can be used. Swedish’s generic pronoun man/en/ens has been discussed for being androcentric, and some people have opted to use en/en/ens instead to make it gender inclusive. The word "man" may have the meaning of "human" in addition to the meaning "male person", but this word is still more associated with male people. Using "en" instead of "man" is not only more gender-inclusivity through being non-male-generalizing, but it is also frequently practiced in some of Sweden's regions, so it is a natural grammatical dialect variation in the Swedish language.

Gender-inclusive formulations

Inclusive formulations

Instead of specifying gender with "she and/or he" when talking about someone in general, one can use the following wording to make it more inclusive or non-specific:

1. Hen: En kirurg bör inte operera personer som hen är släkt med.

2. Den: En kirurg bör inte operera personer som den är släkt med.

3. Det: En kirurg bör inte operera personer när det är en släkting.

4. Du: Som kirurg bör du inte operera personer som

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 *'''Polttare.''' Neutral, semi-standard loanword from Finnish. Means bach party and can be used as a gender-neutral alternative to bachelorette party and bachelor party.
 *'''Parriarkat.''' Neutral, nonstandard. This refers to matriarchal and/or patriarchal social systems. See the English parriarch with the prefix parr- (kin).
+*'''Parentonym.''' Neutral, nonstandard. This can be used as a hypernym of matronym and patronym, but also to refer to such names in a gender-neutral sense.
 * '''Allesrätt.''' Neutral, nonstandard. Neutral non-androgeneralizing alternative for "allemansrätt" ("all-man's-right", right of public access)