Gender neutral language in French: Difference between revisions

The distinction between 'analytic gender-neutral' ''versus'' 'synthetic gender-neutral' is usually referred to as 'inclusif' ''versus'' 'neutre'.<ref name=":0" /> On the one hand, while there is no evidence from psycholinguistic studies suggesting that compounds — such as 'maon', from 'ma' and 'mon' — and portmanteau words, like 'utilisateurice', cannot be cognitively interpreted as neutral, these forms could technically also be called neutral. On the other hand, 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 French words. 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.

The predominant neutral form between the analytic and the synthetic gender-neutral approach is denoted in italics in the table. Apart from the italic denoted forms, most of the words depicted in the tables are not in use. The tables thus merely represent suggestions that have been made for neutralizing French, and feature the items that have been retained by most blogs, researchers and LGBT communities in the French-speaking world.

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 masculine and feminine forms have been incorporated into the analytic gender-neutral neologism.

|}Although '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' [<u>œ</u>n] combines the vocal roundedness and degree of aperture of 'un' [<u>œ̃</u>] with the terminal nasal consonant [n] of 'une'. In metropolitan French, where 'un' is typically pronounced as [ɛ̃], 'eune' shares a phonetic characteristic exclusively with 'une' through the final [n] and with 'un' through their similar degree of aperture. A drawback of 'an' pronounced as [ɑ̃], however, 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 separate morpheme.