English neutral pronouns

English neutral pronouns are useful not only when writing documents that need to use inclusive language, but also for any nonbinary people who prefer not to have their pronouns imply that they are female or male. As shown in surveys, many nonbinary people are okay with being called "he" or "she," but there are also many nonbinary people who don't want to be called either of these. The surveys show that the most popular gender-neutral pronoun for nonbinary people is singular they, but nearly as many prefer or accept some other neutral pronoun. See examples of this in pronouns in use for nonbinary people.

History

In English, people are usually called by a pronoun that implies their gender. For example, she for women, and he for men. The use of singular they as a gender-neutral pronoun has been documented as standard usage in English throughout the past thousand years. However, prescriptive grammarians in the late eighteenth century decided that it was bad grammar because it works like a plural and because it isn't done in Latin.

Prescriptive grammarians of the late eighteenth century instead recommended using "he" as a gender-neutral pronoun when one is needed, instead of "singular they." However, "gender-neutral he" results in writings that are unclear about whether they mean only men or not, which makes problems in law.

Regional nominative pronouns

There have been some native English dialects that have their own gender-neutral pronouns, such as a, ou, and yo. These are often regional. One curious thing that a, ou, and yo all have in common is that they have only been recorded in their nominative form. It's possible that these three sets of pronouns may not actually have other forms (possessive, reflexive, etc). For this reason, these three sets of native English pronouns are listed separately from the other pronouns on this page that have complete forms. Although it's easy to make up more forms for these pronouns (such as inventing "ouself" [sic]), this is not what linguists have recorded in use.

A

A (nominative form only). "In 1789, William H. Marshall records […] Middle English epicene ‘a’, used by the 14th century English writer John of Trevisa and both the OED and Wright's English Dialect Dictionary confirm the use of ‘a’ for he, she, it, they, and even I. This ‘a’ is a reduced form of the Anglo-Saxon he = ‘he’ and heo = ‘she’.” Some living British dialects still use the gender-neutral "a" pronoun.

Ou

Ou (nominative form only) was first recorded in a native English dialect in the sixteenth century. "In 1789, William H. Marshall records the existence of a dialectal English epicene pronoun, singular ou: '"Ou will" expresses either he will, she will, or it will.' Marshall traces ou to Middle English epicene a, used by the fourteenth-century English writer John of Trevisa, and both the OED and Wright's English Dialect Dictionary confirm the use of a for he, she, it, they, and even I." In K. A. Cook's short story "The Differently Animated and Queer Society," the queer character Moon asks to be called by "ou" pronouns.

Yo

Yo (nominative form only). In addition to an interjection and greeting, "yo" is a gender-neutral pronoun in a dialect of African-American Vernacular English spoken by middle school students in Baltimore, Maryland, the student body of which is 97% African-American. These students had spontaneously created the pronoun as early as 2004 and commonly used it. A study by Stotko and Troyer in 2007 examined this pronoun. The speakers used "yo" only for same-age peers, not adults or authorities. They thought of it as a slang word that was informal, but they also thought if it as just as acceptable as "he" or "she". "Yo" was used for people whose gender was unknown, as well as for specific people whose gender was known, often while using a pointing gesture at the person in question. The researchers collected examples of the word in use, such as "yo threw a thumbtack at me," "you acting like I said what yo said," and "she ain't really go with yo." The researchers only collected examples of "yo" used in the nominative form. That is, they found no possessive forms such as "yo's," and no reflexive forms such as "yoself." As such, "yo" pronouns might be used only in nominative form, similar to another native English gender-neutral pronoun, "a." Either that, or these forms exist, and the researchers just didn't collect them.

Neopronouns

Neopronoun is a category for any English pronouns that are independent from traditional third person English pronouns. In the strictest sense, a neopronoun is a pronoun which is not based on a noun (nounself pronouns), and is not