Gender neutral pronouns for alien races

[Abernovo]

I think some of us would have trouble shoehorning "my hovercraft is full of eels" into our stories....

A légpárnás hajóm tele van angolnákkal - according to Omniglot.com. Monty Python has a lot to answer for.

So, I'm not the only one...

Not at all. I think a lot of the more modern writers are taking a broader view of both cultures and people.

 

[LeonStevens]

Hey there. I'm trans and I think all pronouns should be abolished.

But to answer your original question, I would recommend the politically correct phrases "the person of extraterrestrial origin" and "that one/that one's/that oneself" instead of "the being" and "it/its/itself". It may be clunky, but it gets the job done.

Or you can take gender neutral singular pronouns from other languages like Hungarian Ő. Coin a loanword like ő/ő's/őself. Or just write the whole thing in Hungarian.

Thanks for the input. Politically correct phrases are clunky, just as using a proper name repetitively.

Hungarian...Good idea!

 

[LeonStevens]

Not at all. I think a lot of the more modern writers are taking a broader view of both cultures and people.

That's what got my thinking of this situation. It wasn't so much that the alien would object to the use "it" rather than have a discussion between the characters about current trends.

 

[MyheroMint]

Politically correct phrases are clunky, just as using a proper name repetitively.

Pronouns also get repetitive. I’m writing a story where all the characters are sperm producers and I’ve found that using only the singular pronoun “he” is already pretty hard to track. I’ve started referring to characters by other physical features just to tell them apart in the same paragraph, and that can also be confusing if the characters aren’t well differentiated beforehand. I noticed this is a problem in pretty much all English fiction, not just mine. Using neopronouns here would not be any less clunky.

I’m also working on a scifi story about aliens with three distinct biological sexes that produce three morphologically distinct gametes. I’ve found it sufficient to use “he” for everyone.

just as using a proper name repetitively.

It’s the equivalent of giving everyone a unique pronoun to express their uniqueness as an individual. Plenty of languages get along fine without pronouns anyway.

That's what got my thinking of this situation. It wasn't so much that the alien would object to the use "it" rather than have a discussion between the characters about current trends.

Assuming that people still speak contemporary English (due to linguistic drift English will become unintelligible within a matter of centuries, or may be replaced by Mandarin or Spanish), still use pronouns (which is not a given, as English didn’t originally have pronouns and could easily lose them thru linguistic drift like tons of other things), and people still invent neopronouns to express the countless unique gender identities that exist.

As said before, this problem vanishes if you write in a language like Hungarian, German or Japanese. It’s also likely to cause issues if your work is ever translated into a language with neutral pronouns or no pronouns at all.

But you do you. If you’re really set on torturing yourself with English conjugation and spelling, then I recommend using forgotten oldies like thon and spivak-likes.

thon - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

en.wiktionary.org

Spivak pronoun - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Mon0Zer0]

or may be replaced by Mandarin

As a Mandarin speaker, I think that's unlikely. China has enough of a problem (literally) enforcing Mandarin within its borders. Natives have such trouble understanding regional dialects that all TV shows, even those in the equivalent of received pronunciation, have subtitles.

Beijing Hua is probably the most famous example of this where Beijingers smash everything together at lightning speed and add the reflexive -r (儿） to everything as if they were west country pirates. "I don't know" in Beijing hua is pronounced "Berrr Dao" (imagine the London "blap" sound) as opposed to the standard "Bu Zhidao" (不知道）

Interestingly, the pronouns for he and she in Chinese are pronounced the same, but written differently. 他 / 她

Mandarin's use of homophones is also problematic for non tonal speakers.

As said before, this problem vanishes if you write in a language like Hungarian, German or Japanese.

Japan has gendered pronouns, even down to "I" -boku (or ore) / atashi - male / female. Watashi can sound too formal or effeminate if used by a man in familiar company.

He / she in Japanese is かれ / かのじょkare / kanojo

Japanese also has gendered sentence forms, such as in imperative sentences where males add a set of articles at the end of a sentence - males take the standard imperative form and add「な」or「ろ」. Females will add 「て」.

Foreigners are usually taught standard Japanese forms which can sound "funny" or "effeminate" to Japanese speakers (don't shoot the messenger!).

German has male and female pronouns - Er / Sie - as well as gendered nouns. Gender also affects their noun forms too, with suffixes that match the gender of the noun (eg -age / -ik / -in / -nz etc. are all feminine noun suffixes).

 

[MyheroMint]

As a Mandarin speaker, I think that's unlikely. China has enough of a problem (literally) enforcing Mandarin within its borders. Natives have such trouble understanding regional dialects that all TV shows, even those in the equivalent of received pronunciation, have subtitles.

Beijing Hua is probably the most famous example of this where Beijingers smash everything together at lightning speed and add the reflexive -r (儿） to everything as if they were west country pirates. "I don't know" in Beijing hua is pronounced "Berrr Dao" (imagine the London "blap" sound) as opposed to the standard "Bu Zhidao" (不知道）

Interestingly, the pronouns for he and she in Chinese are pronounced the same, but written differently. 他 / 她

Mandarin's use of homophones is also problematic for non tonal speakers.



Japan has gendered pronouns, even down to "I" -boku (or ore) / atashi - male / female. Watashi can sound too formal or effeminate if used by a man in familiar company.

He / she in Japanese is かれ / かのじょkare / kanojo

Japanese also has gendered sentence forms, such as in imperative sentences where males add a set of articles at the end of a sentence - males take the standard imperative form and add「な」or「ろ」. Females will add 「て」.

Foreigners are usually taught standard Japanese forms which can sound "funny" or "effeminate" to Japanese speakers (don't shoot the messenger!).

German has male and female pronouns - Er / Sie - as well as gendered nouns. Gender also affects their noun forms too, with suffixes that match the gender of the noun (eg -age / -ik / -in / -nz etc. are all feminine noun suffixes).

And that is before we start adding neopronouns and neogenders. This torturous overcomplicated nightmare is precisely why I support the abolishment of all pronouns and genders.

 

[Toby Frost]

For aliens, maybe make up some term, really depends on how important gender is for your story. I remember in Harry Harrisons West of Eden, he didn't reveal the lizards gender for some time, he used this for good effect. (though I don't remember his pronoun use, don't have the book handy).

The lizard-people were described as male and female (he and she), although the traditional roles were somewhat reversed. Apparently a lot of their society and biology came from Harrison just wanting them to be different to humans. However, he did use some odd symbols in their names to imply sounds that humans can't make ("Ingeban<" etc) which I found pretty distracting.

I really don't see any problem with referring to a properly alien alien (ie not a human with some extra bits stuck on, like a klingon) as "it". I'd think the same about any animal that I couldn't work out immediately. Maybe if it was a character rather than a creature, then it would get some more familiar description, but "he", "she" and "it" (and, to a lesser extent, "they") seem much less awkward than any constructed pronoun. Part of the problem, I suspect, comes from the cultural habit of everything living defaulting to "he" unless it's got obvious boobs stuck to the front of it.

 

[LeonStevens]

Thanks for all the input!

 

[Fiberglass Cyborg]

For the situation as originally described, I quite like the "singular they." Which has been reccomended to me by those more knowledgeable for use in situations where you just plain don't /know/ the gender of the person you're talking about. After all, for all the protagonists know, the alien might be a male, a female, gender-neutral, non-gendered, or a member of an alien gender with no obvious Earth analogue.

Also, in an imagined SFF setting, I feel that language choices in the narrative can say a lot about the imagined culture we're dealing with. What are the human character's own views and assumptions about gender?

Some of the neo-gender pronouns may be easier than others for the uninitiated to parse than others. There's a couple of useful charts of possible pronouns here: Gender Pronouns | LGBTQ+ Resource Center . They range from "so baffling I probably wouldn't even realise it was supposed to be a pronoun" to "I could easily slip that into casual conversation just by mumbling a little." I have no idea how to pronounce the ones beginning in X (a "z" sound? a "ks"?) and would struggle to say "hir" differently from "her." The ones beginning in E, V, P or Z feel a bit more natural.

Irrelevant language note: unusually, Hindi has gendered verb endings but no gendered pronouns. "He", "she" and "it" are all covered by "yah" or "vah", two words which are structurally equivalent to "this" and "that" in English!

 

[paranoid marvin]

If the alien in your story is being directly addressed, surely it would be as 'you' rather than 'it'? If the alien was being talked about or referred to , then without knowing or having a clue as to the identity of their sex they would likely be described as 'it' or 'they'. Unless the alien heard themselves being referred to as such, they would never know to be offended (although the reader themselves may be offended by the term used)

We seem to see the word 'it' being used for non-human looking creatures, so a giant space ant would be an 'it' whereas a bipedal creature would more likely be referred to as 'they'.

You could perhaps have the alien overhear a conversation about them being referred to as 'it' and then explaining that they don't like to be referred to as such, and perhaps offer a suitable pronoun for themselves?

 

[Guanazee]

They/them

That's what editors are wanting right now, in my experience. My second book has an instance of they for a human character. I also just got an R&R for a book with an alien species who are not gendered. I used they/them and it was critiqued by several LGBTQ+ readers.

Note: this is in children's. Perhaps more pronouns are acceptable in the adult market. Either way, it's not necessary to overexplain the pronoun use. No editors will be unaware of this issue.

 

[Ursa major]

No editors will be unaware of this issue.

Speaking of editors (and, by implication, publishers)....

I suppose there may come a point when some publishers -- I'm thinking of the (very) specialised ones -- include this sort of thing in their "house style", in which case, they will tell the authors what they require as part of the editing process.