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Pronouns: Difference between revisions
→Chinese neutral pronouns: update with a font that renders the new characters
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'''tā/ta1''' is the standard pronoun for people, which when pronounced aloud is gender-neutral. Before the language was influenced by Europeans, "他" was the proper way of rendering "tā" (regardless of gender); with the radical "亻" (a variant of "人") meaning "person" and "也" meaning "other" (i.e. "another person, neither me nor you"). Under European influence, the character "她" was invented, to mean "she" ("女"=female + "也"=other). Therefore, "他" more and more acquired the gender-specific meaning "he", with the consequence that nowadays neither "他" nor "她" are perceived as gender-neutral. Another written form of tā is "它" meaning "it," but this can be derogatory, so only use it for a person with their permission. Similarly, tā 牠 is a pronoun "used for non-human animals", <ref name="rabbitglitter ML pronouns" /> and tā 祂 is usually used for gods. | '''tā/ta1''' is the standard pronoun for people, which when pronounced aloud is gender-neutral. Before the language was influenced by Europeans, "他" was the proper way of rendering "tā" (regardless of gender); with the radical "亻" (a variant of "人") meaning "person" and "也" meaning "other" (i.e. "another person, neither me nor you"). Under European influence, the character "她" was invented, to mean "she" ("女"=female + "也"=other). Therefore, "他" more and more acquired the gender-specific meaning "he", with the consequence that nowadays neither "他" nor "她" are perceived as gender-neutral. Another written form of tā is "它" meaning "it," but this can be derogatory, so only use it for a person with their permission. Similarly, tā 牠 is a pronoun "used for non-human animals", <ref name="rabbitglitter ML pronouns" /> and tā 祂 is usually used for gods. | ||
As the logical gender-neutral character is "他" ("亻" meaning "person"), one solution would be to use a character composed of "男"("male") and "也" to mean "he", which would make it evident that "他" used in the same text can only be meant in a gender-neutral way. However, as Unicode has only provided "⿰男也" as a single character in 2025 (, at code point U+32C3C) | As the logical gender-neutral character is "他" ("亻" meaning "person"), one solution would be to use a character composed of "男"("male") and "也" to mean "he", which would make it evident that "他" used in the same text can only be meant in a gender-neutral way. However, as Unicode has only provided "⿰男也" as a single character in 2025 (, at code point U+32C3C), this is currently only possible with the few fonts that have implemented it (such as [https://github.com/lxgw/LxgwWenKai-Lite/releases LxgwWenKai-Lite]) and in handwriting. | ||
Some people simply write "TA" with Latin letters ("TA是我的朋友。"). The same can be done in Bopomofo ("ㄊㄚ是我的朋友。"). | Some people simply write "TA" with Latin letters ("TA是我的朋友。"). The same can be done in Bopomofo ("ㄊㄚ是我的朋友。"). | ||
Others write "X也" for non-binary people, and Unicode has in 2025 allocated the compound character "" at code point U+323BF. Based on the use in Unicode documents, the compound seems to be "⿰㐅也", but | Others write "X也" for non-binary people, and Unicode has in 2025 allocated the compound character "" at code point U+323BF. Based on the use in Unicode documents, the compound seems to be "⿰㐅也", but other sources give "⿰乂也". Here again, only a few fonts, such as [https://github.com/lxgw/LxgwWenKai-Lite/releases LxgwWenKai-Lite], have already implemented this. | ||
Gender-neutral pronouns in Cantonese (廣東話) include: | Gender-neutral pronouns in Cantonese (廣東話) include: | ||