# When You Need a Neuter Pronoun in Romance Languages. **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [December 11, 2017, 6:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-you-need-a-neuter-pronoun-in-romance-languages/804219 "2017-12-11T18:14:21Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Frankenstein\_Monster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ccd318/32.png) [@Frankenstein\_Monster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frankenstein_Monster)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2017, 3:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-you-need-a-neuter-pronoun-in-romance-languages/804219/21 "2017-12-12T15:03:13Z")
> [@DPRK](#): > > The first random subtitles I clicked on turns this into > > > [@](#): > > > > ‘‘Il’’ ? Il n’y a pas de ‘‘il’’ ou ‘‘elle’’ chez les androgynes. Anybody have (a link to) the Finnish subtitles of this scene? I’d love to see how they’d translate this to Finnish. Since there is no “him/her” pronoun distinction in Finnish. Although there is an “it” (which is actually often used for persons in everyday speech, so “To us, that’s rude” would be interesting to translate as well). ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2017, 3:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-you-need-a-neuter-pronoun-in-romance-languages/804219/22 "2017-12-12T15:04:03Z")
> [@Aji\_de\_Gallina](#): > > We have no real alternatives to “él”, “ella”, “nosotros”, “nosotras”, “ellos”, “ellas”. > Using “ese” and “esa”, “esos”, “esas” is the equivalent of “it” and it sounds terrible and there is not equivalent to the “singular they”. _Ese_ and company are demonstrative pronouns, not nominative ones; that doesn’t mean they can’t be used as nominative pronouns but it’s not the “standard”, basic use. They’re equivalent to English “this” and “that” (1). The third person singular has _él_ (m), _ella_ (f) and _ello_ (n); _ello_ is rarely used, but it officially exists. The accusative pronoun is, in the standard form, _le_ (m), _la_ (f), _lo_ (n). The dative is, again in the standard, the gender-invariant _le_ or _se_, depending on its position within the sentence. [RAE link](http://www.rae.es/consultas/uso-de-los-pronombres-los-las-les-leismo-laismo-loismo). (1) They even share the dual-use of adjective (with a name) or pronoun (without): _Hablamos de esto, eso y aquello._ We talked about this and that. _¿Qué jersey quieres? Ése._ What sweater is the one you want? That one. _Ese jersey me gusta más que éste._ I like that sweater better than this one. (2) The current Ortografía indicates that these pronouns don’t need the graphic accent. I’m old fashioned. ---
**Author:** ![xnylder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/bbce88/32.png) [@xnylder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/xnylder)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2017, 7:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-you-need-a-neuter-pronoun-in-romance-languages/804219/23 "2017-12-12T19:54:48Z")
Various neutral pronouns have been proposed for French, but to my knowledge none have been widely adopted yet. “Iel” (also spelled “yel”), which replaces “il ou elle”, masculine or feminine, seems to be the most popular. Here’s a [French blog post](https://entousgenresblog.wordpress.com/2017/04/19/quels-pronoms-neutres-en-francais-et-comment-les-utiliser/) describing some options. ---
**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2017, 9:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-you-need-a-neuter-pronoun-in-romance-languages/804219/24 "2017-12-12T21:02:44Z")
A pronoun meaning “il ou elle” (he or she) would still not be of neuter gender (it), which does not exist in modern French. Though maybe it would solve the problem of how to refer to androgynes. ---
**Author:** ![JoseB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/joseb/32/1530_2.png) [@JoseB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JoseB)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2017, 11:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-you-need-a-neuter-pronoun-in-romance-languages/804219/25 "2017-12-12T23:14:23Z")
> [@Les\_Espaces\_Du\_Sommeil](#): > > \<…\>Similarly, proponents of this reform suggest that all words should be written in such a way that they reflect all possible genders. So, you’ll have : > > _les candidat·e·s_ instead of _les candidats_ > _les chef·fe·s_ instead of _les chefs_ > _les ambassadeur·rice·s_ instead of _les ambassadeurs_ > > Now, this may be fair but it looks absolutely horrendous. And I’m not sure that young children learning to read will be able to make sense of it. > > \<…\> Something similar has been happening in Spanish, although it is more of a “hieroglyphic” thing… When trying to be “inclusive”, instead of writing both the masculine and the feminine endings (“o” and “a”, respectively) for words that mark gender only in those endings, what some people do in writing is to use the “at sign” (“@”) to sort of “amalgamate” them. Examples: “amigos” (male friends) and “amigas” (female friends). Instead of writing “amigos y amigas” or “amigos/as”, some people have taken to write “amig@s”. “niños” (male children) and “niñas” (female children): Here, they write “niñ@s”. And so on, and so forth. I think it looks positively hideous and clumsy, but as apparently I am a representative example of the oppressing heteropatriarcate, what do I know? ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2017, 7:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-you-need-a-neuter-pronoun-in-romance-languages/804219/26 "2017-12-13T07:19:28Z")
It was a trend for a while, but it’s gone down a lot. Most people are back to the way it was before we learned to draw the arroba: _niño/a, amigos/as, Muy señor(a) mío/a…_ The parenthesis means “this part is used in some cases, not in others”: _señor(a)_ stands for _señor o señora_. Part of the reason for the trend getting lost somewhat is that in these cases there isn’t a place where the arroba would fit. The slash means “substitute appropriately”: _niño/a_ stands for _niño o niña_. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-you-need-a-neuter-pronoun-in-romance-languages/804219.md?page=1)