Gender neutral language in Polish

Revision as of 20:15, 25 November 2020 by imported>TXJ (→‎Pronouns)
Gender neutral language
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Gender neutral language in Polish is more difficult than gender neutral language (also called gender inclusive language) in some languages, because grammatical gender is very pervasive in Polish. 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

In Polish there is no standard gender-neutral pronoun like English's singular they.

There is a neuter pronoun "ono/jego" but that can be considered dehumanizing, similar to "it/its" in English.

Some Polish-speaking nonbinary people just use "he/his" ("on/jego") or "she/her" ("ona/jej") – either the same as their gender assigned at birth or the opposite.[1]

Some neopronoun forms have been proposed, such as[2]:

  • onu/jenu
  • vono/vego
  • ne/nego
  • onx/jex
  • ony/jegy
  • ony/ich
  • onø/jenø

For second-person pronouns, it is possible to use the mixed-gender plural "państwo" in place of masculine "pan" or feminine "pani", but using this in reference to a singular person is not well-established.

Other words

See also

External resources

References

  1. "An overview of Polish nonbinary pronouns". Zaimki.pl. Retrieved 25 November 2020.
  2. "Skąd potrzeba niebinarnych zaimków?" [Where is the need for nonbinary pronouns?]. Zaimki.pl (in Polish). Retrieved 25 November 2020.