#But when you speak of a general singular “you” it's usually masculine because it's still the default.

[rwby-redux]

You mentioned in tags some cultures have genders that don't align to the masc/fem - can you tell us more about that, and if any of our characters use these system(s)?

Hey there!

The non-standard gender systems I have for the Redux, sadly, won’t get a ton of limelight apart from the occasional off-hand mention. Not because I don’t want to include them, but because I wasn’t sure how to include them in a way that wouldn’t be off-putting to readers. Old Vale’s gender system is probably the most…unconventional of the lot.

None of the main cast (or any minor characters) at the moment use the more unusual gender systems I’ve come up with. They’re all presented as either male, female, nonbinary, bigender, genderfluid, or genderqueer, as we would understand those terms.

That aside, I’m still happy to give an overview of each kingdom’s take on gender.

Atlas’ is probably the most bog standard—it has a masculine/feminine binary, derived from the system used by Old Mantic settlers (who were descended from the Matsu people of Northern Anima). That being said, Atlas arguably has the most extreme adherence to gender performativity, given that the country tends to skew more conservative. Behavior, appearance, speech, and the like are strongly dictated by cisheteronormative expectations, particularly amongst Atlas’ upper class. As a result, the people of Solitas (which include Atlesians, Mantese, and Evadnine) generally have disproportionately exaggerated expressions of gender when compared to other countries. It’s something that I plan to explore more in-depth with characters like Weiss, Willow, May, and Watts as the story progresses, seeing as they all have very strong opinions regarding their culture’s value system.

Mistral’s gender system is a binary as well, but it has two “models,” so to speak. But before we go any further, I need to quickly clarify something:

Social gender is an identity ascribed to people, usually packaged with corollary traits.

Grammatical gender (sometimes used interchangeably with noun class) is a division of linguistics that categorizes nouns in relation to other aspects of language, such as adjectives, articles, or verbs.

Sometimes there’s correlation between the two, and sometimes there isn’t. In Spanish, for example, el hombre (man) is a masculine noun. The grammatical gender reinforces the culturally-associated semantic one. However, la hombría (manliness) is a grammatically feminine word, despite being a concept tied to masculinity.

It’s not surprising, then, that grammatical gender and social gender get conflated from time to time.

As for how this relates to the Redux—at one point Mistral had a social gender binary that was culturally synonymized with its grammatical gender. And the nouns of Old Mistrali-Mantic (the protolanguage of the Animoigne language family) weren’t categorized by masculinity or femininity. Instead, its nouns were divided into categories based on animacy (to what extent something is considered sentient/alive).

This means that, effectively, Mistral’s people were at one point monogender (that gender being geyl, “alive”). Distinctions like “masculine” and “feminine” didn’t really exist, outside of borrowing those concepts from other cultures. Old Mistrali-Mantic had words for things like “person who gestates” and “person who sires,” but those terms had no actual bearing on a person’s identity, or how they expressed themselves. They exclusively referred to biological sex, not gender. (And yes, animacy extended to pronouns, too. Old Mistrali-Mantic had four third-person pronouns, two singular and two plural. Imagine if English had two versions of it and they, and they were used to communicate whether or not the subject was alive. That’s basically the gist of it.)

Over time, however, as the Kingdom of Mistral conquered its neighbors across Anima, it began to assimilate them. This cultural exchange was a two-way street, though, and some of the nations that it annexed did in fact have masculine and feminine genders. As the Mistrali Empire grew, masculine and feminine genders caught on, and gradually supplanted the older non-grammatical animacy genders.

Animacy is preserved in several of the daughter languages in the Animoigne language family, as noun classes. But people in Mistral no longer identify as geyl. Nowadays, the default is either male, female, or (rarely) nonbinary. *

In the modern day, Mistral sees masculinity and femininity as a spectrum, with nonbinary being closer to androgyny. Something like this:

Vacuo, on the other hand, sees gender more like this:

And even then, the way that Vacuo deals with “conventional” gender (masc/fem) is odd, too.

See, in Western society, when we talk about people being nonbinary, we typically mean that their gender falls outside of a binary—masculinity and femininity.

In Vacuo, masculinity and femininity exist as part of a ternary system, with a third distinct gender that has no point of easy comparison to anything in our world. (I’ve been calling it “neutral” for lack of a better word, but really, it doesn’t quite work. “Neutral” implies having no strongly marked characteristics or features, and calling Vacuo’s third gender neutral would be like calling masculinity neutral. Because it absolutely does have its own unique qualities and associated traits. Alas, “neutral” will have to do for now.)

Someone who identifies with a gender outside of those three would be considered nonternary (as opposed to nonbinary, which would be the not-quite equivalent). Thus, Vacuo technically recognizes four categories of gender—masculine, feminine, “neutral,” and any gender that isn’t part of its traditional three.

Vacuo’s also a lot more culturally accepting/permissive of genders from other nations, and it doesn’t begrudge how people identify or express themselves. Vacuites are a relatively chill bunch.

And last but not least, Vale. The kingdom whose gender system started this entire discussion, and by far is the weirdest of the four.

Similar to Mistral of antiquity, Old Vale didn’t recognize male or female. Its genders—of which there were eight—were tied to a different culturally-valuable element: the seasons.

And for every one of Vale’s eight genders, there was a corresponding season that matched.

Eastern Sanus experiences four yearly divisions, reckoned by solar, astronomical, and meteorological phenomena. These are winter, spring, summer, and autumn, known in Old Vale as the “material seasons.” The material seasons have fixed calendar dates.

The other four are classified as the “liminal seasons,” or maidentides. Unlike the material seasons, maidentides don’t have fixed calendar dates. A maidentide could be more concisely described as the ephemeral, transient blurring of two seasons—when the temporal boundary that separates them is vague, evidenced by qualities of both the retreating season and the oncoming one superimposed upon each other. The summer-autumn maidentide, for example, is characterized by days where the oppressive humidity and heat of summer cling to the air, even as the foliage turns shades of brown, red, and yellow, and the leaves begin to fall.

In Old Vale, it was customary for a child’s first gender to be assigned to them based on the season they were born in. The genders paralleled the transient nature of the seasons by allowing people to freely transition between them, just as the world shifts between seasons. A person’s gender didn’t have to match the season they were currently in, either—as in, a person with a spring gender wouldn’t be expected to change it to a summer gender as May turned to June.

Interestingly, Old Valin cultures wouldn’t have recognized being cisgender or transgender, because gender transition is the default for their model. They did, however, have something sort of analogous.

Rather than there being cis- or transgender individuals, you had what were known as static and fluid individuals. Fluid individuals were those whose gender identity wasn’t rooted in a single season, and could freely move between them as wanted or needed. A static-gender person, by contrast, was someone whose gender was immutable and “locked in” to a single season, and who was relatively confident that the season they identified with was the only one that could fit them best.

The season genders of Old Vale originated in the mountain range of eastern Sanus, the Cirithel Mountains. In the present day, they’re more or less exclusively confined to that area. When some of the population split off centuries ago and migrated toward the western coast, they ended up ditching their gender system in favor of one similar to Vacuo’s. Unless you’re travelling to the city of Gyden, then you’re unlikely to encounter someone who identifies as one of the season genders. It’s estimated that those culturally-endemic genders will disappear within the next century or so.

Obviously, in a world as culturally diverse as Remnant’s, there would be multiple gender systems besides the ones I talked about. But truthfully, I haven’t had the time to develop any others beyond the aforementioned four. Hopefully what I wrote managed to answer your questions!

-

* There’s one exception to the animacy pronouns, and it’s not a particularly nice one. When Mistrali racists want to dehumanize Faunus, they’ll refer to them using the inanimate pronoun siþ. The animate pronoun geyl is used for people, so when someone uses siþ, they’re basically stripping a Faunus of their personhood by reducing them to the status of something non-living.

Addressing a Faunus as siþ would be like calling them an “it.”

[brynwrites]

How to Write Non-binary Characters: Part II

Visit PART ONE: the basics first!

PART TWO: the nitty gritty.

Non-binary in relation to Presentation.

What are we talking about here when we say presentation?

Presentation in relation to gender is how a person chooses to look, dress, and act in relation to their culture's gender norms. A person who wears dresses and makeup, speaks in a higher pitch, and daintily crosses their ankles is presenting in a feminine manner in most Western cultures because these are traits labeled as feminine in these particular cultures.

As mentioned in part I, non-binary people may choose to present themselves in many different ways.

Androgynous. The androgynous presentation (i.e. a presentation that is between masculine and feminine, presenting with traits ascribed to both) is commonly associated with non-binary people. Some non-binary people present as androgynous because it feels most natural to them, while others present as androgynous because it helps to inform the rest of the world of their gender.

Masculine or Feminine. Many non-binary people present as masculine or feminine despite being non-binary. They may present this way because they enjoy it and it feels natural, or because they grew up presenting that way and don’t have the time or means or desire to adjust, or because their best efforts would not allow them to present as androgynous without extreme measures they don’t feel the desire to undergo. But whatever the case, non-binary people who present as masculine or feminine are just as non-binary as those who present as androgynous!

A mix of presentations. Some non-binary people will mix up their presentation, either based on their mood, or on how they feel about their gender at that moment, or to keep their presentation similar around a specific group of people (such as work vs friends). This can mean presenting as masculine sometimes and feminine other times, or as androgynous sometimes and masculine or feminine others, or a mix of all three. This switch may happen in relatively even amounts, or the person may wish to usually present one way and on rare occasions another, or anything in between.

A word on gender dysphoria: non-binary people may or may not experience gender dysphoria (i.e. a feeling of unease or distress because their body does not match their gender identity). For non-binary people, this generally takes the form of wanting to be more androgynous. Whether or not a non-binary person experiences any dysphoria does not make them “more” or “less” non-binary. It is not in any way a qualification of non-binary-ness.

A word on gender nonconformity: Just because someone is gender nonconforming does not necissarily mean they are non-binary. Many binary queer people choose to present in ways that don’t conform to gender norms, and they have every right to do so. Sometimes gender nonconforming people are trying to decide whether they are truly binary or not. Whether they decide that they are binary, or non-binary, or trans, or make no decision at all, this is a perfectly respectable way to explore one’s gender.   

Non-binary in relation to Pronouns.

Pronouns are often used as a linguistic form of gender presentation and designation. Most people relate singular they/them pronouns to non-binary people—and often non-binary people do use they/them exclusively—but there are many combinations and ranges of pronouns non-binary people choose. Let's go over some common options:

They/them, exclusively. They/them have been used as singular pronouns since the 14th century, and are already a popular way to refer to a person of unknown gender. They/them is often used by agender and bigender people, but as with all pronouns, may be claimed my anyone of any gender, including binary people who feel they/them if the best portrayal of their gender identity.

He sometimes, she other times. Transitioning between two or more different pronouns based on how someone is living their gender in the moment is very common for gender-fluid people. Just like with presentation, this exchange may be equal or it may be weighted heavily to one pronoun over another, or anything in between.

Binary pronouns, exclusively. Some non-binary people never feel the need to switch from the pronouns they were asigned at birth, while others feel they fit the binary pronoun opposite the one asigned them at birth. Some also choose to keep their original pronouns in order to avoid coming out to transphobic people. This is no way makes these people less non-binary than non-binary people who choose any other set of pronouns!

Multiple pronouns. People from all non-binary identities will commonly choose to go by multiple pronouns simultaneously. This can be because they feel close to all those sets of pronouns, because they have no desire to choose a specific set, or because they don't feel the need to give up the pronouns they were assigned at birth in order to take on new pronouns.

Note that this is the one situation in which people might have preferred pronouns. (If someone chooses a single set of pronouns, those are their pronouns! It's not a preference—it's a part of who they are.) But people who have chosen to go by multiple pronoun sets might have one they prefer to be called, especially in a particular setting. For example, a non-binary person might say "I prefer to go by they pronouns at work, but I also identify with and accept she pronouns, so I won't be offended if customers routinely use those for me."

New pronouns. Now that the non-binary community in western culture is finally coming together, there are new sets of pronouns being created specifically for non-binary people to use. There are infinite options here, one of the most popular being xe/xir, but they're still the least claimed pronouns due to most of society not being familiar with them.

It/its pronouns. While some people have claimed it/its pronouns and there are situations where it/its pronouns might accurately fit a character, its best to leave those stories to non-binary and trans writers, due to the long history of it/its being used to dehumanize trans people.

A word on gendered terms: the non-binary community interacts with gendered termanology (such as Mrs., brother, dude, gal, queen, gentlemen, sir, etc) in the same way as they do pronouns. Many non-binary people have certain gendered terms they accept, while some accept all and others accept only genderless terms. These accepted terms may match with their pronouns (e.g. someone who uses he pronouns also using masculine terminology, like mister, sir, brother, dude, etc) or may not.

Now that we have all these cool pronouns, how do we relay this information in our writing?

There are a few common techniques to help relay character pronouns in writing:

The Mind Reader's Way. Let your point of view characters just happily know what everyone else's correct pronouns are all the time so you can move on with the story and not have to sit down for awkward conversations. It may be unrealistic, but should not break suspension of disbelief for anyone who genuinely wants to read about characters from non-binary genders going on fun adventures. Keep in mind that this works best in societies where characters only use one pronoun set.

The Introduction Path. Have it be customary for characters to introduce themselves by stating their pronouns, and call all characters by they/them pronouns until they do so. This lets the story move forward quickly, but can be awkward if you have primary characters (such as villains) who never introduce themselves to the point of view character.

The Everyone's Friends Route. Have there conveniently always be someone else who knows that character's pronouns and can slip them into conversation.

The Pronoun Pin Road. Much like pronoun pins, include a piece of world building into your setting that culturally requires people to wear something particular relaying their pronouns. This works best either in a modern or futuristic setting where characters can wear actual pins/shirts/etc, or a secondary world where you can control all aspects of the culture.

The Coming Out Highway. The most awkward but most realistic option is to force your characters to explain their pronouns if they don't fit society's strict gender norms. This can be as simple as one character asking "sorry, I don't mean to bug you, but what pronouns do you go by?" or another character arriving to the second day of class in masculine clothes and announcing "I go by he/him pronouns today."

Whatever route you choose, make sure to be consistent throughout the story. 

Part Three: Common Pitfalls and Easy Fixes.

[theveryworstthing]

More Spooky.

Mixing the spooky prompts of  'gay vampires' and 'all dressed up for a spooky soriee'  again.

This is Salt. She's pretty good a putting people back together, is full of leeches, has a dark sense of humor, and is very short. She's also as gay as a hermaphroditic leech person who mostly uses she/her for convenience but has no strong feelings about gender can be.  

She grew up around pit fighters and eventually became a medic when her own career didn't work out (her eyes were always wonky but then she had to grow a few back after That Fight and yeesh). When the pits got shut down one of the older medics decided to put an actual practice together and hit the road, taking Salt and a few other favorites with. Eventually they got pretty successful and opened a lot of non-human friendly hospitals.  She's currently attending a 'children of the night' themed benefit sponsored by Cashmere's company as a representative since her boss couldn't make it.

Here's a bunch of lore about the kind of vampire she is because of course I wrote some:

Hirudo Vampires

What are they: A race of Mermaids. Mermaids that are essentially a sack full of leeches, but yeah. Mermaids.

How they’re made: They’re born like any other mermaid. Weird humanoid monotreme lays an egg and after a bit you get a Child. Infants look like regular baby mermaids with kind of sluggy tails and can be confused with nudibranch juveniles if they’re gifted with brighter colors. They’re initially fed milk and invertebrates like worms and slugs by their parents but quickly move on to blood once their cravings start and they begin releasing leeches.

Turning: They can’t turn people. They can turn leeches but they rarely do because usually more than enough leeches naturally sprout from their innards and outside leeches that aren’t from another hirudo are a quick fix that will eventually be rejected by their bodies and need to be replaced.

Feeding: Their favorite method is anchoring their tails to something in a body of water, releasing their leeches, and just floating there until they return. When the leeches come back they swim into the hirudo’s body and plug themselves back into the digestive tract where they empty themselves over time. When the last leech runs out it’s time to go hunting again.

When not feeding they fill the inner cavity of their body with water for the leeches. Chemicals in this inner cavity thicken the water into a loose slime and when feeding all that Leech Slime gets released so that they take on more of a flesh suit aesthetic. A view of this feeding form is rare however, as hirudo hide while feeding and only have to feed this way once every few months if most of their leeches are successful hunters.  If they’re not so successful or they can’t send them out for whatever reason they supplement their diet with invertebrates, soft organ meats, and ingesting small quantities of iron whenever they can. Mostly by nibbling on rusted objects or sucking on found bits of metal like jawbreakers.

Besides blind hunting they’ll also enthusiastically feed on willing subjects. Hirudo are renowned healers and their bites can ease certain ailments just like regular leeches. They can can greatly increase their healing powers through training and even imbue their leeches with specific healing spells by lightly carving said spells into their flesh. If you come across an aquatic apothecary or river-side hospital outside of human territories, they’re likely to be owned or staffed by hirudo. When healing others, singular leeches are selected and expelled for each patient. Dedicated healers tend to be larger than regular hirudo since their constant food source helps them produce more leeches.

Powers: Calming aura (to be fair the leeches have this power, not the hirudo), two or three times the strength of an average human (that’s normal for any mermaid though, they’re pretty much all pure muscle), durability (very hard to kill if they can get water and a blood source), and accelerated healing. They can direct their leeches to specific targets and use them as kind of detachable limbs, even speaking through them if they need to. Mostly they just point them in a general direction and see what they can get. The leeches have their own simple brains and can figure it out.

Fun Facts:

Bites don’t hurt and rarely become infected unless you’re just rolling around in garbage all day. You don’t bleed more or less than you would after a regular leech bite and if the creature doesn’t see the leech they probably won’t know they’ve been fed on until after it’s gone.

They can hang out on land just fine due to being their own personal swimming pools but they still dry out after a day or so and need to return to the water. While on land they develop a thin layer of mucus on their skin that isn’t sticky or wet but you can feel it creepily shift under your hands if you grab them too roughly and it gives them a shimmery glow. This layer flakes off if they become dehydrated and some harvest it as well as any spare Leech Slime for use in beauty products and skin ointments.

They can ‘walk’ on land but it’s draining after a bit and they all use canes and/or wheelchairs to get around.

Just like regular leeches, hirudo are hermaphrodites. What we think of as feminine or masculine appearances are just the product of different family genetics interacting with environmental stimuli and are the same as tribe markings to them. Come from a southern river system where your egg was kept in warm water? Guess you’ll grow up to look more femme and you get cool orange stripes. This situation isn’t unheard of in mermaids but land creatures can be taken aback. It’s whatever. Biology does what it wants.

Many name their leeches and get real mad if one is killed. Partially because anyone would be mad if you murdered one of their organs, but also because they like those little buddies. Luckily, they’re pretty hard to kill if they’re in water and they can get back to the main body.

Most physical fighting is done with leeches. All hirudo have at least one leech that’s bigger, tougher, and honestly creepier than the others just for combat situations. They vary a little from person to person but a consistent trait is that they have just. Too many teeth. Too many teeth that are sometimes not in the right places and sometimes look too human. Just a lot of Wrong Teeth on a big fat blood slug. If this ‘attack leech’ dies or doesn’t return to the body in a certain period of time then they start growing a new one immediately and oh boy is the new one always worse that the last one. There are hirudo out there housing some real abominations.

Combat Leech is their secondary defense mechanism. The first is expelling slime at predators and slipping out of their grip by furiously stretching and wriggling.

The leeches aren’t like wild leeches. They don’t digest the blood they take or make more leeches. They’re also strangely warm, like little hot water bottles. It’s hard to even call them leeches since they’re really detachable organs that act like leeches but like. What else can they be called? Idk, but there’s strong evidence that wild leeches find them creepy and will avoid them.

They’re very amused at the human perception of boobs because to them bigger titty is like a sign that says “I have fat to spare because I eat very well and that means I could probably rip you to shreds”.

They can produce children with other humanoids in theory but it’s a toss of the coin for the egg’s viability and it’s suspected that this is how vampire genes get thrown into non-mer family lines so like. Not a great idea if you don’t want to chance giving birth to some draculas!!!

They can fit through any space their head can fit into. They kind of navigate the world with octopus/cat vibes. Their arms are even more tentacle-y that classically arm shaped.

Eight to ten eyes with position and number differing by tribe.

On average they’re about 5-5.5ft long but powerful hirudo with lots of leeches can get 8ft+.

They’re actually known as some of the prettiest mermaids by humans.

Humans are some of their favorite prey.

Most biologist feel like this isn’t an evolutionary accident.

Immortality?: Hirudo can live for around three hundred years in perfect conditions but they’re not immortal, they grow old and die like anything else. Immortality in not out of reach for those able to push a few morals aside however, and can be accomplished two ways:

1. Feed exclusively on other hirudo. This is an asshole move for obvious reasons and can be done by consuming their leeches or going old school vampire and drinking right from the source. Can be killed if they’re dehydrated through aggressive salting or imprisoning on land for months.

2. Necromancy is just very advanced healing magic really. Carve enough arcane magic into your tummy buddies and you got yourself a real Leech Lich situation brewing. These hirudo can only be killed by thoroughly destroying all of their leeches.

[kirrtash]

It’s only after their mother dies and they get in contact with the first, unfriendly, demons that Inuyasha finds out that the human’s obsession over fitting everyone in one gender it’s weird for them too. They have already learned to keep quiet about what they think about themselves. What their body is, and isn’t, to them, they don’t tell the humans in the castle. Inuyasha doesn’t even tell their mother.

It has been a few years since they stopped living in the castle, when they have again the occasion to meet an human, on a moonless night. That particular one, as every other, is immediately concerned with their appearance, assuming their gender without even letting them speak.

Inuyasha doesn’t feel particularly attached to one nor the other, on a good day doesn’t even think about it.

(On a bad day somebody just has to remind them, usually while trying to kill them, and aren’t they lucky?)

They don’t go near another human settling for years after that night. Those are safer than the forests and fields, at least when they are weak, but they don’t have it in themselves to deal with stupid humans and their stupid way of thinking.

In a way this hurts more than being half breed. Their mixed heritage is on plain sight for everyone to see, and there is no mistake to be made (with the exception of one night per month): one look at their ears and the story of their birth is on plain sight for everyone to deduce.

But the way humans expect them to adapt to their roles, to dance to this tune they don’t fit in, just after one look at their body, that’s worst. Humans and demons alike hate them for their blood, but both of them just ignore how they feel about their body. It’s just irrelevant.

So Inuyasha makes sure that it’s irrelevant for themselves too. In any case they don’t even have the words to explain it, so why bother? It’s not like they have someone to tell, and the most important thing right now it’s to survive.

They never get around telling Kikyo about this too. She barely accepted their mixed blood, Inuyasha is not sure she can take more. They don’t want to take the risk of another rejection. As for the sacrifice they are willing to face, it’s not that different from the other one they already accepted to make when she asked, just another part of their identity they will have to renounce to.

Kagome is strange. She doesn’t question them and the way they present themselves, doesn’t even seem to notice. The girl has bigger problems anyways, it’s her fault if them both are on this quest. But she always looks at them with a bit more intention when they slip, in the way they refer to themselves, when the hyper masculine terms they use out of habit, to comply with the image others have of them, to not raise questions, get stuck in their throat. She always notices.

She asks one night, when everyone else it’s sleeping. They have just met Sesshomaru again and Inuyasha is quite proud of their victory, even if in reality the bastard run away just before Tessaiga could break definitively. Inuyasha still counts it as victory.

“It’s something that I have noticed before, but why did he refer to you with neutral terms?”

The asshole has never had anything to say about their gender obviously, as it’s normal for a demon, but Inuyasha doesn’t really want to explain to her. They huff and try to dismiss the question with a vague gesture and a “whatever” but she just keeps waiting patiently, peering at them from under her eyelashes. They both know that the answer it’s not simple, and the question is bigger than it could look to a mere bystander.

Inuyasha takes a breath. She has been on their side for a while now, and they don’t want to lose her. But at the same time she has already told them how irrelevant their mixed blood is for her. No. Not irrelevant. A part of them. Just a part of who they are, as normal as their hands and eyes, something that makes them THEM. If she could accept that, then maybe, just maybe…

Inuyasha doesn’t know how to explain, but Kagome is patient. It’s like a flood. When dawn comes, and, how? When? She stops them, shakes Sango awake and quietly informs her that she and Inuyasha are going back to her time. She then calls for Inuyasha and they start walking away from the camp. As soon as they are out of ears’ reach, she resumes the conversation.

She looks among books and books in the public library. Inuyasha just stands aside, the hat flattening their ears, trying not to draw attention and not to be in her way. They didn’t even stop to her house to say hi to her family, she knew she didn’t have anything of what she was looking for there.

“There must be something! I have read a couple of things but I cannot remember where I found them again!” she looks possessed, and Inuyasha is not going to bother her.

She comes up with a few books and articles from magazines, and is eyeing critically the huge computer in the backroom, pondering if to search on that too, since the Higurashi family doesn’t have one.

Inuyasha is not really listening to her. They are scrolling through the written text, trying to make good use of what little reading abilities they have, and to interpret the futuristic language and culture. Their worldview is being thrown off right now.

If for demons gender (and now they know the difference between gender and sex, and gender expression too, isn’t that neat?) is inconsequential, humans 500 years in the future keep spending a lot of time thinking and talking about it. Still, the revelation is another one. Demons don’t care about gender, you can’t use it against them. Humans don’t care too, they know where they fit and it comes natural to them to abide the unwritten rules that concern the sociality. Despite this, here Inuyasha gets a glimpse of another world. These books give them a place, among others, give their struggle a name and a reason and companionship. They are not the only one. There are humans too, here, going through something that might, with a stretch of imagination, be considered similar to their experience.

Kagome takes some books back home, essays and narrative ones, and some vhs to see on the television. Her family is nowhere to be seen and they are back to her room. Inuyasha feels safe there, the day has already been a mess, and their head is still spinning. “I don’t know where to look for more, but we need to understand better, honestly Inuyasha, why didn’t you speak sooner?”

They know her temper is without fire, that she is just worried, but it hurts the same. She must see their look, the flattened ears, because she backtracks immediately. “I’m sorry, I can understand why, it was a stupid thing to say. It’s just… I want to help. I would like for you to tell to the others too, but it’s your call. I’m sure they will want to understand though. That’s why I need to find more…” she is off again, checking on the list she compiled while looking for materials, and Inuyasha watches her go in the direction of the stairs and the living room, still shell-shocked.

“I didn’t even ask you!” She seems to have realized something, her voice still audible from the other room “I’m so bad at this, I’m sorry! Which pronouns should I use?”

Inuyasha can’t help the laugh that escapes their lips, they don’t know what to answer. But they will find out. There are words out there for them, just waiting to be discovered. Their experience can be told, and damn them if they are not going to.

—

 A disclaimer: I am a cisgender woman, so my knowledge and undersanding of genderqueer identities can only be a secondhand one. This to say that I hope that I have not offended anyone with this depiction of this identity, and if I have I am deeply sorry, since it was not my intention.

For something so short I really had trouble writing this. First my native language doesn’t have the option of singular them, and I never had any occasion for using it before, so I’m sorry if I made mistakes. Second, Inuyasha the character, in the anime, while referring to themselves, uses Ore, an highly masculine way of saying me, and I didn’t want ignore canon completely even if I played fast and lose with the timeline, since I don’t remember what happened when. Additionally, and I never looked into the language so I’m not sure, I suspect that there are A LOT of pronouns whit different nuances in the spectrum between masculine and feminine in the Japanese language. So I had to take in account three language shifts while writing this tiny little thing. I’d like to add that while il like to think that my personal knowledge on transgender and genderqueer identities is not that bad, I haven’t the faintest idea of what 199something Japan might knew about it, so I kept on the conservative side (considering they are still a really closed off country about LGBT+ issues, I feel that it’s the most realistic portrait)

I cannot help but think about Inuyasha and a nonbinary or genderqueer identity. Assuming that for demons gender is something much less regulated by social norms than for humans, and that because of their upbringing Inuyasha didn’t get to receive a positive and validating explanation of gender and sexuality by none of the two cultures, I suppose that (in the feudal era!) it would have created in them an even higher sense of isolation and oddness. That’s probably why I love the idea of Inuyasha going to the pride for the first time (first gay pride in Tokyo was in 1994…)  and in general realize that they are not alone. 

It is a deeply difficult and isolating situation, not having the words to describe, even to ourselves, our identity, and I am happy that the modern ways of connecting with each other are lessening this kind of isolation.

this was written for day 5 of @inuyashapridemonth2020​

[mogai-corvidae]

Hi I’m here from looking at @xenogender-culture-is just wondering what pronouns do you use when you’re xenogender?

Hi! Thank you for coming to this blog for advice. We've gotten a lot of questions on that other blog and unfortunately we usually can't answer them there, since they clog up everyone's feed. Thankfully your question has a very simple answer: anyone, regardless of what gender they are, uses whatever pronouns they want to use!

Pronouns are, grammatically speaking, just words that refer to you and replace your name, almost like mini names. Typically certain pronouns are associated with a certain gender, like how he/him is generally considered the "male" pronoun set, but anyone can use any pronouns they want! A lot of lesbians, for example, use he/him pronouns to express their gender nonconformity. Men can use she/her pronouns, too, and anyone can use they/them or neopronouns if they want. Everyone just picks the pronouns they like the most or that make them the most comfortable, and that's different for everyone, including xenogender people.

You may still notice, however, that a lot of xenogender people use neopronouns. If you don't already know, neopronouns are pronouns that are considered outside of the standard pronoun sets for a language, and are usually newer and coined more recently, although this is not always the case. The standard singular gender pronoun sets in English are he/him, she/her, and they/them, so any pronouns that aren't those three are considered neopronouns! (Examples include xe/xem, fae/faer, etc.) A lot of xenogender people like to use neopronouns because they are completely outside of the realm of gendered language entirely, just like xenogenders typically are. Xenogenders are genders that falls outside of typical conceptualizations of gender and gendered language, and neopronouns for many people serve that exact same purpose. He/him carries an implication of masculinity, she/her carries an implication of femininity, and they/them carries an implication of gender neutrality. For people who want to avoid all gendered language or implications completely, neopronouns can be very helpful! (This isn't their only use, however. Some people use neopronouns just for fun, creativity, or self expression, and all of those uses are valid.)

We hope this helps answer your question! Thank you for asking so politely.

[ID: A DNI banner. It says, “Read our BYF/DNI before interacting!” on a background of the xenogender pride flag. /end ID]

[lingbooks]

Wordslut: A Feminist Guide to Taking Back the English Language

While I know a lot of linguists who are feminists, there is some tension between feminist ideals and the anti-prescriptivist approach that linguists take towards language. Linguists, as a general rule, aim to document and examine language as it is used, without providing their own opinions on how they think language should be used. This approach to language allows linguists to show that certain forms of language, from split infinitives to singular they, are not bad or wrong or “grammatically incorrect.” However, when it comes to sexist language, it’s a lot harder to say that there’s no such thing as “bad” language use. 

Some of the questions that arise are easily answered. It is fairly easy to distinguish between using slurs and splitting infinitives, as slurs are meant to hurt or disparage people, while split infinitives only offend the sensibilities of some long dead men who desperately wished English were more like Latin. But what about less malicious language use that still has sexist undertones? What about calling ships or storms she? What about using the word guys to refer to groups that contain women?

 I thought a lot about this contradiction while reading Wordslut: A Feminist Guide to Taking Back the English Language by Amanda Montell, a book that attempts to cover a wide variety of topics related to language and gender. Montell’s background in linguistics admittedly isn’t particularly extensive—she has a bachelor’s degree in linguistics, but she’s primarily a journalist who only occasionally writes about linguistics. (I should probably also state that, depending on how you count my graduate work in a related field, I have the same amount of linguistics education, so I’m not going to make any judgments on who “really counts” as a linguist.) That said, Wordslut is definitely a linguistics book—and a pretty good one at that.

 Wordslut covers a broad variety of topics in sociolinguistics. Some are expected. The first chapter discusses the variety of (often derogatory) slang words used to describe women, while another chapter discusses the ways women speak to each other. Other chapters cover topics I see less frequently. One chapter, for example, looks at how women swear, while another looks at the vast array of slang words used to refer to genitalia. (I’d warn you that this book is NSFW, but if you’re reading a book entitled Wordslut at work in the first place, you’re a braver soul than I am.) One of my favorite chapters focused on how gay people speak, including both discussions of gay slang as well as examining why there’s a “gay voice” but no real “lesbian voice.” While I already was familiar with some of the topics in the chapter, I was not aware of Polari, a sort of code once used by British gay men as early as the 1500s that gave us such words as twink, camp, and fantabulous, and now I definitely want to know more about it. On a similar note, throughout the book, Montell makes sure to discuss queer, trans, and nonbinary experiences when relevant, which provides perspective that’s usually lacking in older writing about language and gender.

I did find that the quality varied from chapter to chapter—or even within the same chapter. Consider, for example, the chapter on catcalling. One section of the chapter compared catcalling behaviors with linguistic studies on compliments, breaking down precisely why catcalling is not a compliment. I thought this was a really interesting analysis, but I found the rest of the chapter fairly dull; some of it discussed facts I (and most other feminists) already know about how men dominate conversations and interrupt women, while other parts talked about the act of catcalling more generally. (A problem I found throughout the book is that Montell sometimes chose to discuss general feminist issues without really tying them back to linguistics.) While some of this unevenness is to be expected in a book with such a broad scope, one pattern emerged: I generally enjoyed the portions discussing how women speak, such as the chapter about conversational norms in groups of women or the section about the many uses of like, more than the portions discussing how women are spoken about. Perhaps this is because the former read like a celebration, while the latter was more of a rant. Montell is not happy about how our culture talks about women, and while I don’t disagree with her, I often found myself more frustrated than properly fired up.

It is worth noting that Montell is not an impartial voice throughout the book. She wants our language to become more equitable. Mostly, her ambitions are good. (And in her defense, she notes that certain approaches to making language more equitable, such as attempts in 70s to create a “women’s language” or storming a dictionary headquarters to demand the word slut be removed, are unlikely to be successful.) But in doing so, sometimes her own linguistic biases shine through. Consider, for example, an anecdote from the intro of the book, where Montell gives the following speech to a woman who critiques her use of the word y’all:

I like to see y’all as an efficient and socially conscious way to handle the English language’s lack of a second-person plural pronoun. I could have used the word you to address the two girls, but I wanted to make sure your daughter knew I was including her in the conversation. I could also have said you guys, which has become surprisingly customary in casual conversation, but to my knowledge, neither of these children identifies as male, and I try to avoid using masculine terms to address people who aren’t men, as it ultimately works to promote the sort of linguistic sexism many have been fighting for years. I mean, if neither of these girls is a guy, then surely together they aren’t guys, you know?

 It’s a nice “take down the prescriptivist” story in some ways, but while I agree that y’all is a perfectly acceptable and useful word, Montell tries to argue that she chose to use y’all not just because her geographical and linguistic background make it the natural choice for her but because it’s the best choice, thereby turning an anti-prescriptivist argument into a prescriptivist one. Later in the same speech, she dismisses the option of using the pronoun yinz because it “doesn’t roll off the tongue nicely.”  I’m more intrigued, however, by her insistence that it would be sexist to use you guys. Montell notes, “Many speakers genuinely believe guys has become gender neutral. However, scholars agree that guys is just another masculine generic in cozier clothing. There’d be no chance of you gals earning the same lexical love.”  However, she provides no real evidence that guys isn’t truly neutral to speakers who use it, only that it is less marked than gals and that only masculine terms can ever reach this level of unmarkedness. I can’t help but wonder if it’s speakers who are excluding women when using phrases like you guys or if Montell simply hears it that way due to her own linguistic background.

 Another issue I had with this book is that it heavily focuses on English. While the topics discussed throughout the book are fairly universal, only one chapter provides any non-English examples. However, given how Montell handles these non-English examples, especially those from non-Western languages, in that one chapter, that might be for the best. The chapter examines how grammatical gender affects speakers’ perceptions of natural gender, as well as the political consequences, and at points, it’s very effective. I was particularly intrigued by her discussion of French feminists’ attempts to introduce feminine terms for certain jobs in a language where words like doctor are obligatorily masculine (and l’Académie Française is trying very hard to keep them that way). A few pages later, Montell moves onto talk about more complex gender and noun class systems. She gives the now famous example of Dyirbal, where most animate nouns belong to one noun class but “women, fire, and dangerous things” belong to another. She then concludes that this demonstrates that this shows something about Dyirbal speakers’ worldviews—that they see everything as masculine unless it could “literally kill you.” It’s a compelling argument in some ways, but it’s hard to discuss Dyirbal speakers’ worldviews without remembering one thing: Dyirbal is an indigenous Australian language with a single-digit number of native speakers. Yes, it has an interesting—and perhaps problematic—approach to gender, but it’s tied to a very specific (and mostly eradicated) cultural context, and it simply isn’t problematic in the same way as l’Académie Française. 

Overall, while I had my issues with Wordslut, I had a good time reading it . It’s not a must read, but if you’re looking for a fun, modern source on gender and language, it’s certainly entertaining and informative. It’s also a book that can definitely be enjoyed by linguists and non-linguists alike; there’s not much jargon that would trip up a non-linguist, but it covers a wide enough variety of topics that linguists (at least those who don’t specialize in sociolinguistics) won’t already know everything it covers. In general, if you’re interested in linguistics and feminism, you’ll probably have a good time and learn something new.

TL;DR

Overall rating: 3.5/5 Good for linguists? Yes, unless you’re already an expert in sociolinguistics Good for non-linguists? A definitive yes, since this assumes no background in linguistics Strong points: Broad scope and a fun, modern overview of the intersection between language and gender Weak points: Very English-centric, and the author’s outrage overshadows the actual information sometimes

[jowritesthingss]

fly away with me

Fandom: Sanders Sides

Pairing(s): Roceit (Creativity | Roman + Deceit | Janus), platonic but could be read as romantic if you want

Rating: General Audiences

Content Warning(s): blood mention (teeny, non-graphic, in passing), can’t think of any others, but let me know if you think I should tag something!

Length: 1,773 words

Brief Summary: Life isn’t a fairytale. Roman knows this, even as he wishes it were. (But perhaps...perhaps life doesn’t have to be like the stories to be magical.)

TS Masterlist + AO3 Links

*

“Hey.”

A voice pierces through a groggy Roman’s mind, slicing through what had been a rather nice dream about...he thinks it was sword-fighting. And flying. Yes. Sword-fighting and flying about on the deck of a ship, sword-fighting a hook-handed pirate with a mustache and a cackle that looked and sounded suspiciously similar to that of his brother’s.

Yes, whatever it had been, it was a nice dream. Roman would quite like to get back to it now, thanks.

Letting out a quiet, annoyed little “mmrmph,” Roman rolls over and blindly grabs for one of his spare pillows, snuggling tightly into it.

The voice sighs heavily, growing irritated as it speaks next. “Come on, you great big oaf.” Hands slither across his body and attempt to roll him back over. “Wake up already.”

“Nooo,” Roman protests sleepily, clutching his pillow more tightly to his chest and curling his legs up and in on himself.

The hands briefly disappear from Roman’s torso, and he thinks that maybe whoever it is has finally given up. Good, that means he can go back to sleep. Already he can see the pirate ship and his sword and a strangely masculine Wendy reappearing; already he can hear the cries of the gulls and the tinkling of Tinkerbell; already he can smell and taste sea salt and blood and the pirates’ bitter defeat—

—and then the hands reappears, roughly yanking Roman’s pillow out of his grasp.

“Nooo!” Roman whines, more petulant this time, and he reluctantly rolls over to see who or what is so important that they had to interrupt his beauty sleep.

Roman slowly blinks tacky eyes at the blurry, somewhat familiar figure standing beside his bed. “Who...izzat?” he slurs. “Who’re you? Why—”

“Roman, you idiot,” the person sighs, sounding annoyed and affectionate all in one—and he knows that voice, Roman does, only one person he knows can manage to properly pull off that tone—but who? The answer dances on the tip of his tongue, just barely escaping him in his drowsy state.

With the help of the mysteriously magnificent stranger, Roman slowly sits up in bed, his sheets clutched tightly in his fists and strewn about him. He relinquishes his grip on them to reach up and rub at bleary brown eyes.

Once he has successfully rubbed most of the sleep out of his eyes, Roman turns and takes a closer look at the stranger who had so rudely awakened him.

And—oh.

There, at the side of his bed, clothed in a ridiculously formal black and yellow outfit, as per usual, stands Janus, arms folded across his chest, toes tapping impatiently at the wooden floorboards of Roman’s bedroom.

Somehow, knowing who the person is makes both more and less sense in Roman’s head all at once.

“Jan—Janus?” he mumbles, tilting his head curiously at his best friend. “What—what’re you doing here? Why’d you—”

“Yes, because now is definitely the time to play twenty questions,” Janus groans. His arms uncross—Roman has to tear his eyes away from those beautiful, beautiful arms—and he grasps at Roman’s forearm with one hand. “Come on, Roman, we have to go.”

“Wh—” Roman’s bewildered stare meanders its way up Janus’ very pretty chest and up to his very pretty face once more. “Why?”

“No time to explain,” Janus hisses, pulling him out of bed. “Just—come on already, dammit. Get up and get dressed.”

Roman blinks dumbly, and in his half-asleep, half-awake state, he wordlessly lets Janus stand him up and dress him without a fight.

Janus unbuttons Roman’s pajama shirt and exchanges it for a more appropriate long-sleeved shirt and his beloved ITS hoodie. He wriggles off Roman’s pants, switching them out for jeans as Roman’s head lolls against the soft cotton of his hoodie.

Throughout the process Janus sees Roman’s bare chest and sees his bright cartoony Mickey Mouse boxers, and if Roman were more awake, he would most probably shriek and jump halfway across the room, his already-dark cheeks darkening even more with embarrassment. But Roman is still blissfully half-asleep, and Janus’ deft fingers feel so nice as they gently thread a comb through the kinks in Roman’s curls—so nice that he just might fall back to sleep again.

Janus has him sitting back down at the corner of his bed, jamming socks and shoes onto his feet, when Roman finally snaps out of his trance and into full wakefulness.

“Wait—now hold on a minute, pretty little liar!” Roman whisper-shouts, careful not to get too loud even as he chews Janus out. If his parents were to find the two of them now, it would be very awkward indeed. “What exactly is going on here? And—” he elbows Janus out of his bubble of personal space, “��I can tie my own shoes perfectly fine, thank you very much.”

“You sure you can manage it on your own?” Janus scoffs playfully, raising an eyebrow. “Who’s the one that just had to put your jeans on for you as if you were some big overgrown baby?”

Roman’s cheeks heat up. “I changed your diapers when we were younger,” he reminds, “so we’re even.” He’s already bent down to lace his own shoes up before he realizes that Janus has gotten Roman to do exactly what he wanted. He pops his head up to glare at his younger friend, but he relents and ties his shoes nevertheless.

“Touché.” Janus tosses his hands up in mock-defeat. “I surrender.”

Shoes tied—much better than Janus would be able to do, might he add—Roman sits straight up once more, although he refuses to stand up—one last, pathetic attempt at rebelling, even though he knows that Janus’ bright eyes and rare but manic smile will win him over as they always seem to. “Seriously, what exactly is going on here, lord of the lies?”

Janus pinches his fingers together and brings them up to his lips, miming zipping his lips. He shrugs and flicks his finger as if to to ‘throw away the key’.

“Typical.” Roman’s eyes fall on the open window behind Janus, and his mouth drops open in a little ‘o’. “Oh, by the pharaoh's crook and flail—did you—did you climb through the window?” Horror twists through his voice. “Janus, our apartment is on the fourth floor!”

The grin on Janus’ face is something to be worried about—something to be very, very worried about. “Yeah, I totally climbed all the way up to your window. Mm-hmm.”

After a moment of letting Roman stew in his worry, though, Janus snickers and shakes his head. “Nah. Remus is still up. He let me in on the condition that I get him video of you drooling and snoring in your sleep.”

“Wh—I do not drool in my sleep! Or snore!” Roman huffs. “Preposterous.”

Janus’ lips twist into a thin, sly smirk as he holds up his phone. “Oh, but I’ve got evidence suggesting otherwise,” he croons, tantalizingly holding the phone just out of Roman’s grasp.

Roman nearly falls for the ploy. Nearly.

“You’re just trying to get me up to follow you to...wherever you’re trying to take me,” Roman accuses, stabbing a finger towards his friend.

“Think what you will.” Janus shrugs, nonchalantly bringing a hand up to examine his nails. “It was worth a shot.” He slips his phone back into his back pocket.

“Well, I’m not falling for any more of your tricks,” Roman swears.

Janus raises a singular thin eyebrow. “You sure about that?” His left hand reaches into the pocket of his pants, and he fluidly pulls out a set of shiny new car keys, rattling them gently in Roman’s face. “So then...you don’t want to see what my parents got me for my birthday?”

Roman’s eyes grow wide, and, well, maybe he’ll fall for just one more of those tricks—wait, no! He must remain strong!

“No!” he forces himself to insist. “I—I can’t.”

“Well, why not?”

“...I’m not Remus,” Roman admits quietly, looking down at his sneakers. “I’m not as spontaneous as him, I’m not a daredevil like him. And I mean, what if my parents wake up and find out?”

Janus tiptoes over to Roman, placing nimble fingers on Roman’s chin and lifting his head up to look Roman in the eye. “I don’t want you to be Remus,” he says simply. “I want you to be you, and I want you to trust me when I say you’re going to love where we’re going.”

Janus’ eyes twinkle as his fingers pull away from Roman’s gobsmacked face. “And if your parents catch you...well, doesn’t that make things just a bit more fun?” he purrs. “Just a bit more exciting? Just a bit more...dangerous?”

Roman tries to fish around his mind for a coherent response. Tries. Fails. Instead, a noise not unlike a squished dog toy leaks out of his mouth, and he gapes at Janus where he is by the window, silhouetted by moonlight from above and streetlamps from below.

“So.” Janus’ voice is warm as he speaks next. Warm. Inviting. Home.

“Do you trust me?”

Roman stares at Janus, standing there at the window, heterochromatic eyes sparkling with the stars of faraway galaxies. He is bathed in the moonlight, the lighter patch of skin on the side of his face a shimmering silver, and the sight is ethereal, breathtaking.

Roman stares at Janus, with his hand stretched out invitingly towards where Roman himself sits on the side of his bed.

Sure, life may not be the fairy tales that Roman reads more religiously than he does actual religious texts. Perhaps there isn’t a distressed damsel to rescue, or a prince to sweep him off his feet, or a sword to pull from an anvil, or a frog prince to kiss, or a fairy to sprinkle the power of flight over him. So what?

What does it matter if his life isn’t like the fairy tales he reads, when he can simply create and live out his own?

Janus is getting a tad impatient now. Roman can see it in the patchy hand that props itself against his waist, in the exasperated yet fond smile lingering on his face. “Do you trust me?” he repeats, rolling his eyes—no doubt at the sappy look that is spreading across Roman’s own face.

Roman smiles. Reaches for Janus’ hand. Takes it in his own.

“Yes.”

Sepia skin holds firm onto multicolored, and matching grins echo across both faces. Janus darts over to the door, pulling Roman towards him.

They fly.

Fin

*

This was supposed to be under 1k words and it is Not. That is all I shall say on that. Also, title’s from Leaving London by Steffan Argus.

Want to be added onto any of my taglists? Shoot me an ask or a message here or via my other social media!

[gendercensus]

Gender Census 2019 - The Full Report (Worldwide)

This is a long post! You can see a summary of the big three questions here.

~

Hi and welcome to this year’s worldwide report based on the 11,242 responses to the Gender Census, which ran from 25th February until 30th March. It was mostly shared on Tumblr and Twitter, with some Reddit and Facebook and no doubt some one-to-one link-sharing too.

You can see the spreadsheet of results in full here, which might be helpful if you need to see graphs or figures in more detail. For the charts and graphs of statistics over time, the summary spreadsheet can be found here.

~

Q1. IDENTITY WORDS

As in previous years, I asked: Which of the following best describe(s) in English how you think of yourself?

Here’s the top 5:

nonbinary - 66.6% (up 6%)

queer - 43.0% (up 40.1%)

trans - 36.6% (up 1.8%)

enby - 31.7% (up 7.2%)

transgender - 30.4% (up 2.5%)

I put queer in bold because it’s new to the list, and the way it’s rocketed to second place is very unusual... and a little suspicious.

The wording of the identity question carefully avoids mentioning gender so that people without genders feel comfortable answering (or not answering), but it’s not really meant to include sexualities. The exception is sexualities that are part of someone’s gender identity, like this comment that someone wrote into the identity checkbox: “femme lesbian (sometimes i feel like lesbian *is* my gender)”

So anyway, last year queer got 2.9% (over the 1% threshold), and I personally know people who feel that their gender is queer, so I added it to the list. Usually when terms are added as checkbox options it might multiply their popularity by about four, but 43% is way too high to be explained by that. Queer is usually used to describe sexuality, so I think perhaps people who identify as queer in terms of their sexuality might have been selecting it too. I’m considering changing it slightly, to something like “queer (as gender identity)” to clarify it for next year. It’s possible that we won’t know if this percentage is due to bad survey design for a year or two.

(Edit: Some feedback on queer and my response to the feedback can be found here.)

Along those lines, several terms were added to the checkbox options this year because they were typed in by over 1% of participants last year:

queer

genderless

demiboy

demigirl

gender non-conforming

There are now 28 terms in the identity checkbox list, and as usual there were people expressing gratitude for the abundance of checkbox options in the identity question. However, there has also been an increase in people entering words into the textboxes that are already in the checkbox list. That means that people are missing or are not able to find the identity words they connect with more than last year, and it doesn’t help that the list is randomised to reduce primacy and recency bias.

Right now I add words to the checkbox list if they reach 1%, and this year for the first time I am considering adding another system for removing words that are not used as much. You can read a blog post I wrote about that here. I concluded based on the results of the 2017 survey (which asked for participants’ ages) that some words that seem to be used less overall are used more often by participants over 30, and since participants over 30 are underrepresented in online surveys generally I will be keeping any word that they enter over 3% of the time even if the word isn’t used as much overall.

Relatedly, I didn’t ask for ages in the survey this year, but I will be collecting information about age in future surveys to make sure that I don’t remove words and accidentally alienate underrepresented age groups. (The age question will be optional and will give age ranges rather than asking for an exact age, so hopefully that won’t make people feel too uncomfortable.)

This year someone complained for the first time that I was excluding words from other languages because I specify “in English” in the question, and if you know me from previous surveys you know that’s the opposite of my intention! Every word entered is counted, and I’m very aware that people use words from other languages while speaking English. So I’m considering rewording the question, but I welcome feedback on this since I’ve never had anyone complain about this issue before and plenty of people already enter non-English words.

And here’s this year’s top 10 words and their popularity over time:

Those two lines shooting up from 2018 to 2019 are two of the words newly added this year: queer and gender non-conforming. That green line starting near the bottom in 2016 and steadily increasing over time is more like what I’d usually expect - that’s enby, which is now up to #4 on the list.

There are no new identity words to add next year; the closest to 1% was butch with 0.7%. However, since I intend to collect information about age and since people often type, for example, “girl but not woman, even though I am not a minor”, I will be splitting girl, woman, man and boy into separate checkboxes next year.

2,021 unique identity words/terms were typed into the “other” textbox, including 413 that were entered more than once. The average number of type-ins for people who actually typed words in was 1.8, and the average words per person overall was 5. Most entered 4 words:

~

Q2: THE TITLE QUESTION

I asked, Supposing all title fields on forms were optional and write-your-own, what would you want yours to be in English? I also clarified that participants should be currently entitled to use it, so they should have a doctorate if they choose Dr, etc.

There were 5 specific titles to choose from, plus a few options like “I choose on the day” and “a non-gendered professional or academic title”. Participants could choose only one, with the goal of finding out what, when pressed, people enter on official records forms and ID.

Here’s our top 5:

No title at all - 33.0% (up 0.6%)

Mx - 31.3% (down 1.3%)

Mr - 8.7% (up 0.2%)

Non-gendered prof/acad. - 5.5% (up 0.1%)

Ms - 4.7% (down 1.0%)

Here’s how that looks compared with previous years:

Mx and no title switched places again for the fifth year in a row! And this year I made a similar graph but without Mx and no title. They always get way more than everything else, and it makes it really hard to see what’s going on in the lower half of the graph!

That rollercoaster of a red line is because in 2018 I specified that “non-gendered professional/academic title” should be one that the participant should be entitled to use, which caused that significant drop.

The most popular five “other” textbox titles were:

M - 28 (0.2%)

Comrade - 17

Sir - 10

Mrs - 9

Ser - 7

As with last year, I invited people who chose “a standard title that is used only by people other than men and women” (2.5% of participants) to optionally suggest titles that they’d heard of. The goal is to find a popular title that is considered exclusive to nonbinary genders the way Mr is generally considered exclusive to men and Ms is to women.

243 people checked the “standard exclusive nonbinary” title option, and here’s everything entered more than once:

Mx - 16

M - 4

Xr - 2

Mrs - 2

Mx is generally considered gender-inclusive by people who are familiar with it, especially if their title is Mx, but it’s high on this list because Mx is very well-known generally. M in French is masculine, but in English it’s not gendered and I assume it’s pronounced “em”? (That seems to be what people have said in the notes, but please do tell me if I’m wrong!) It was also the most entered title in the “other” textbox. Xr is new to me, I’m not sure how it’s pronounced.

~

Q3: PRONOUNS

The fourth question was actually a complex set of questions retained from last year, which started with Supposing all pronouns were accepted by everyone without question and were easy to learn, which pronouns are you happy for people to use for you in English? This was accompanied by a list of pre-written checkbox options. It included “a pronoun set not listed here”. and if you chose that it took you to a separate set of questions that let you enter up to five pronoun sets in detail.

As usual, everything that was a pre-written checkbox option got over 1%.

Here’s the top 5:

Singular they - they/them/their/theirs/themself - 79.5% (up 2.1%)

He - he/him/his/his/himself - 30.8% (down 0.4%)

She - she/her/her/hers/herself - 29.0% (down 1.9%)

None/avoid pronouns - 10.3% (up 0.2%)

Xe - xe/xem/xyr/xyrs/xemself - 7.2% (down 0.2%)

Here’s how that looks over time:

Because singular they, he and she always do better than everything else, let’s look at that chart without them. Every other specific pronoun set got under 8%.

Here’s the top 5 textbox neopronouns, none of which got over 1%:

ne/nem/nemself (singular verbs) - 27 (0.2%)

ve/ver/verself (singular verbs) - 24

ey/em/emself (singular verbs) - 23

ae/aer/aerself (singular verbs) - 22

thon/thon/thonself (singular verbs) - 18

(I’m going by the subject, object and reflexive, because that seems like the best way to collect similar sets together - eyeballing it, the most variations occur in the possessives.)

Half of participants don’t like he or she, and 9% like neither he, she nor they. 695 unique sets of neopronouns were entered by 574 people, of which 84 were entered more than once. The average number of pronouns entered was 2.2, and most people (39%) were happy with one set.

Overall it looks like there are no neopronouns really gaining in popularity, and even the checkbox neopronouns are being used less since 2015.

~

THE QUESTIONS I ASK

What should the third gender option on forms be called? - Still no consensus, but nonbinary is at 2 in 3 people and it does seem to be gradually climbing.

Is there a standard neutral title yet? - Not yet. Mx is still consistently far more popular than all other titles, but just as many nonbinary people want no title at all. It’s really important that activists campaigning for greater acceptance of gender diversity remember to fight for titles to be optional, too.

Is there a pronoun that every nonbinary person is happy with? - No. The closest we have to a standard is singular they, and it’s important for journalists and anyone else with a style guide to allow it. It’s levelled out at about 1 in 5 not being into singular they, and 9% of us don’t like he, she or they pronouns.

Are any of the neopronouns gaining ground in a way that competes with singular they? - No. This year the closest is “Xe - xe/xem/xyr/xyrs/xemself” (7.2%, compared to singular they’s 79.5%). Users of these neopronouns will probably not reach consensus for many years - language and especially pronouns can be very slow to settle and gain ground. Even if one neopronoun does become very commonly used, many will continue to use other neopronouns for a long time to come.

~

THIS YEAR IN REVIEW

Crowdfunding was successful enough that I have a little money leftover for costs next year. We had around the same number of participants as last year, but follower numbers and mailing list subscribers increased, which bodes well for next year.

I made some minor changes to the promotional illustrations to make them more gender-/sex-inclusive, and this year I got no complaints, so that was a good move! However, this year I did see a lot more confusion about who is invited to take part. I think the changes were probably worth it to make sure I’m being as welcoming and inclusive as I can be in the promotional stuff, so hopefully people will err on the side of caution and just jump in.

The way that the new survey software collects information, and my increased knowledge of Google Sheets, mean that I didn’t have to resort to MS Excel at all this year. This is really good, because working with unfamiliar software slows me down a lot! My formulae have been more efficient (thanks to my increasing Google Sheets skillz), so the entire sheet could be processed at once instead of being split into several questions. I’m really happy about that, because it means the entire worldwide results report came out less than 24 hours after the survey closed, instead of... *cough* eight months *cough* ...

I made an executive decision not to do a UK report this year, because the added complication makes it really hard for me to motivate myself. It definitely worked, look at that, it’s only March and the worldwide report is already out! I might still do a UK report, and I will keep collecting UK/not UK info about participants so that I always have that option, but for now I’ll just concentrate on the worldwide report and just do the UK report if I feel like it before 2020. And of course the spreadsheet is available to anyone who wants to download it and play with it, so if someone else wants to make some UK-specific statistics happen that is totally possible.

What I’ll do differently next year

In the identity question, I will keep queer as a checkbox option, but I will specify that it’s a gender. Maybe “queer (as gender identity)”? Feedback welcome on this!

In the pronouns question, I’ll change the wording of “none/avoid pronouns” so that it’s clear that it includes just using someone’s name. That’s because a lot of people tried to enter their names as neopronoun sets to express that, and I want to avoid people entering identifying information.

I will ask about age, to make sure that people over 30 are represented by checkbox options. Typically only about 10% of participants are over 30 so I want to make sure as many as possible are comfortable taking part. I’ll group ages into sets of 5 years (21-25, 26-30, etc.) to reduce risk of people being identified, and because entering an exact age probably feels a little more uncomfortable.

After 2020, any identity word, title or pronoun that is entered by less than 3% of participants and less than 3% of participants over 30 can be removed in future surveys. (I am a little concerned about this part, because it’ll make the work more complicated for me, and more work means more risk of epic procrastination. I’ll do my best!)

I’ve finally admitted to myself that I need to separate man and boy, and woman and girl. Currently it’s “woman (or girl if younger)” and “man (or boy if younger)”, and every year plenty of people skip those options in the checkboxes and type in “girl (but not woman even though I’m not a minor)” or something like that, and next year I’ll be asking about age so that’ll be an easy way to determine if there are any adults who are comfortable with one and not the other. This will increase the number of checkboxes to 30, which is pretty unwieldy and will make it harder yet again for people to find their words and increase the rate at which people drop out of the survey, so I’m glad for the under-3% checkbox removal threshold that I’m introducing from 2021 onwards.

Closing thoughts

I slipped up on a couple of things this year (ambiguity over the word “queer”, for example) - but overall I’m pretty impressed with how well I handled it all compared to last year. (I had recently moved house and was trying to rebuild my life, so I didn’t have a lot of spare energy in 2018!)

As always, I’m excited to pore through all your written answers and feedback, and I’m really grateful to everyone who shared the survey link! There were hundreds of RTs and thousands of reblogs, which never ceases to amaze me. Thank you everyone for sharing a small linguistic part of yourselves with me, I hope putting it all together helps you and makes a positive difference to the world!

See also

A list of links to all results, including UK and worldwide, and including previous years

The mailing list for being notified of next year’s survey

~

SUPPORT ME!

I do this basically for free (the crowdfunded money goes entirely on survey software and domain fees), so if you happened to stumble onto my Amazon wishlist and accidentally fall on an Add To Cart button… well, I would be immensely grateful. ;) If you wanted to go and check out Starfriends.org too I reckon Andréa would be pretty chuffed!

[spanishskulduggery]

i don't know if you have a post about it but can you explain, dumb down if i'm being honestly, the uses/etc for the different pronouns: indirect object, direct object, etc?

Direct objects are basically what amounts to the accusative case for languages with case systems.

Basically it works like this: Subject verbs an object

The object that is “verbed” is the direct object; it receives the action and is directly acted upon.

So in a sentence like “I kick the ball”, the “I” is the subject, “kick” is the verb, and “the ball” is the object.

The pronouns are:

me = yo

te = tú

lo/la = 3ra persona singular / usted

los/las = 3ra persona plural / ustedes

nos = nosotros

os* = vosotros

*if you’re in Spain

Direct objects are most common with inanimate objects, so you need to know the gender of the object.

If it’s “I kick the ball” it would be pateo la pelota and so la pelota “the ball” is feminine… so la pateo “I kick it”, where “it” is the pronoun for “the ball” which is implied.

But you could say compro el libro “I buy the book”, or lo compro “I buy it”, and it’s masculine because el libro is masculine.

Same general idea exists for plural.

Indirect objects are the dative case for languages with case systems.

These mark “to whom” or “for whom” an action is done, and many times indirect object pronouns are used for people, animals, or personified objects.

The pronouns here are:

me = yo

te = tú

le = 3ra persona singular / usted

les = 3ra persona plural / ustedes

nos = nosotros

os* = vosotros

*again for Spain

You get introduced to indirect objects first with gustar

me gusta el libro = I like the book [lit. “the book pleases me”]me gustan los libros = I like the books [lit. “the books please me”]

Again, this is normally a person who receives the action of a verb… but not directly.

In other words… “I send the letter” is mando la carta and in here, la carta is the direct object. 

The person who receives the action of “sending the letter” is its recipient… so te mando la carta “I send the letter to you”, or le mando la carta “I send the letter to him/her”

Direct and indirect objects do show up together, just like in English.

Luckily, as you’ve probably noticed it’s only 3rd person singular and plural that change, so even if you don’t totally know whether the me is technically direct or indirect, it doesn’t change the fact that it’s still me

But for other sentences it’s more particular.

Because Spanish is a little more vague with the pronouns, it’s more based on implied knowledge. Like if I say “it”, it should be obvious what I’m referring to or the pronoun kind of feels weird in Spanish.

In general, if you don’t know what it should be, you tend to say lo but if you have the noun already at hand, you need to know its gender.

Te mando la carta. = I send you the letter.Te la mando. = I send it to you.

Te mando el paquete. = I send you the package.Te lo mando. = I send it to you.

Te mando las flores. = I send you the flowers.Te las mando. = I send them (f) to you.

Te mando los chocolates. = I send you the chocolates.Te los mando. = I send them (m) to you. 

Where it gets a little more confusing is that when 3rd person meets 3rd person for indirect + direct, the indirect objects [le/les] change into se

This is because if you had le/les + lo/la/los/las it would sound really weird and trip you up when you speak.

The se here serves no grammatical purpose other than just to replace the le/les so it’s not super awkward:

Le mando la carta. = I send him/her the letter.Se la mando. = I send it to him/her.Les mando la carta. = I send them the letter.Se la mando. = I send it to them.

Le mando el paquete. = I send him/her the package.Se lo mando. = I send it to him/her.Les mando el paquete. = I send them the package.Se lo mando. = I send it to them.

Le mando las flores. = I send him/her the flowers.Se las mando. = I send them to him/her.Les mando las flores. = I send them the flowers.Se las mando. = I send them to them.

Le mando los chocolates. = I send him/her the chocolates.Se los mando. = I send them to him/her.Les mando los chocolates. = I send them the chocolates.Se los mando. = I send them to them.

*Note: Because se here could be le or les, it’s sometimes common to write a (sujeto) to make it clear who you’re talking about.

That’s common with indirect objects just in general. When it’s obvious like me gusta, saying a mí me gusta comes off as very emphatic “I’m the one who likes it” or “well, I like it [implying someone else didn’t]”

With le and les it could refer to “him”, “her”, “You”,“them”, “You all”…  and “them” could be masculine or feminine.

So when it’s ambiguous and hasn’t been stated, sometimes people will just add the a to make it clear:

Se lo mando (a él). = I’m sending it to him.

Se los mando (a ella). = I’m sending them to her.

Se la mando (a usted). = I’m sending it to you.

Se la mando (a ellos). = I’m sending it to them (m+m, m+f)Se la mando (a ellas). = I’m sending it to them (f+f)

Se las mando (a ustedes). = I’m sending them to you guys.

And really you could have the direct object [lo/la/los/las] be anything.

When the direct object is a person, it can be a little weird. 

In Latin America it’s more common to say something like:

Lo conozco (a él). = I know him.La conozco (a ella). = I know her.

in Spain, it depends on the region, but most places will say le conozco instead. Though some regions in Spain use the direct objects. There are other regional variations, but Spain typically favors the use of indirect objects when it’s a person or animate object to denote personhood or life.

There’s some debate over how active the object is… Like a verb like ayudar could be interpreted with direct or indirect objects. And based on this reasoning, le ayudo is like “I help him/her” but in the sense that they’re accepting help… and lo/la ayudo “I help him/her” makes the object more passive.

I find people will understand you regardless so don’t worry about it too much. Latin America favors the direct objects for people, but will use the indirect objects for people in very formal situations.

In my textbooks it used to say: es un placer conocerle “it’s nice to meet you”, and I also have some where it’s like es un placer conocerLa a usted, señora “it’s a pleasure to meet you, madam”

In general, I’d be using lo/la people, even if they were usted. But I think es un placer conocerte is pretty commonplace. And conocerle sounds real formal to me.

Verbs that typically use direct objects with people (to the best of my knowledge)

golpear = to hit

castigar = to punish

querer = to love [more Latin America]

amar = to love (passionately) [more Latin America]

juzgar = to judge

lastimar = to hurt, to injure

olvidar = to forget

perdonar = to forgive

llevar = to carry / to bring

tomar = to take

ayudar = to help [sometimes indirect objects are used]

mirar = to watch / to stare at [sometimes indirect objects are used]

llamar = to call

conocer = to know (someone/a place)

encontrar = to find

buscar = to look for

tener = to have

ver = to see

Verbs that typically use indirect objects (with a person)

dar = to give

enviar = to send

mandar = to send

culpar / echar la culpa = to blame

sugerir = to suggest

ofrecer = to offer

enseñar = to teach / to show, to point out

servir = to serve

traer = to bring

pedir = to request

decir = to say

contar = to tell

hacer daño = to harm, to do harm

hacer caso = to pay attention to, to mind, to heed

prometer = to promise

jurar = to swear

echar de menos = to miss (someone) [Spain]extrañar = to miss (someone) [Lat Am]

…also the gustar verbs, though some gustar verbs work in different applications:

gustar = to like

encantar = to really like[encantar can also take direct objects but it means “to enchant” or “to bewitch” in this case, as in using magic on an object]

sorprender = to surprise

fascinar = to fascinate

quedar bien/mal = to fit well/poorly (said of clothes)

doler = to hurt, to ache

parecer = to seem

resultar[used like… me resulta familiar “it seems familiar to me”, or me resulta curioso “I find it strange”]

extrañar = to find strange, to seem odd [when it isn’t “to miss someone”]

costar = to be difficult for someone

molestar = to annoy

interesar = to interest

importar = to matter, to care about

I would also recommend:

Anatomy of Spanish: Direct Objects

Anatomy of Spanish: Indirect Objects

That’s a more quick and easy explanation of them.

Also, reflexive verbs are a thing but they’re easier.

Reflexive verbs are part of a subset of things known as “pronomial verbs”, which for your purposes means “they use the reflexive pronouns but might not always be reflexive in the traditional sense”

…So that’s a thing I’ll explain briefly later on.

me = yo

te = tú

se = 3ra persona singular y plural / usted y ustedes

nos = nosotros

os = vosotros

The se is the one to watch here because all of 3rd person and usted and ustedes use that se. They’re usually easier to spot though because of how reflexive verbs conjugate. More on that in a minute.

But reflexives in their truest sense are divided into regular reflexives and reciprocal reflexives.

The basic definition of reflexives are “verbs where the subject and the object are the same”… meaning “I do something to myself”, “you do something to yourself”…

A lot of reflexives show up in your daily routine, and also apply to you doing things to your own body parts… me lavo la cara reads literally as “I wash myself the face” but it means “I wash my face”… or me lavo las manos “I wash my hands”

A reflexive needs the pronoun to match with the subject… in other words me refers to yo, and lavo only conjugates as yo… so me lavo is “I wash myself”

If you mixed up one or the other, you’d end up with a different sentence and a direct/indirect meaning… me lavas “you wash me” or te lavo “I wash you”… are not reflexive.

Because reflexive pronouns need to match the conjugations, you can usually tell who it applies to pretty easily, except in third person where it could be ambiguous:

Me pongo la ropa. = I put on clothes.

Te pones la ropa. = You put on clothes

(Él) se pone la ropa. = He puts on clothes.(Ella) se pone la ropa. = She puts on clothes.(Usted) se pone la ropa. = You put on clothes.

(Ellos) se ponen la ropa. = They (m+m, m+f) put on clothes.(Ellas) se ponen la ropa. = They (f+f) put on clothes.(Ustedes) se ponen la ropa. = You all put on clothes.

Nos ponemos la ropa. = We put on clothes.

In the same vein, a “reciprocal reflexive” is where two or more subjects do something to one another.

Nos conocemos. = We know each other.Nos conocimos. = We met each other.Nos conocíamos. = We used to know each other.

Se conocen. = They know each other.Se conocieron. = They met each other.Se conocían. = They used to know each other.

Sometimes it’s potentially ambiguous, but when it could be you normally see el uno al otro, el uno del otro, or el uno con el otro depending on the verb in question. And that just means “one another”.

That formation is more uncommon but it has happened. Normally it’s just phrased as reflexive and you understand it by context.

abrazar a alguien = to hug someoneSe abrazaron. = They hugged. / They hugged one another.Se abrazaron el uno al otro. = They hugged one another.

enamorarse de alguien = to fall in love with someoneSe enamoraron. = They fell in love.Se enamoraron el uno del otro. = They fell in love with each other.casarse con alguien = to get married to someoneSe casaron. = They got married.Se casaron el uno con el otro. = They got married to each other.

Other ones would be like besarse “to kiss / to make out”, or divorciarse “to get divorced”, or reunirse “to meet up / to join together”

And then there are the other pronomial verbs that use reflexive but you can’t exactly say they translate very reflexively.

Like dormir is “to sleep” but dormirse means “to fall asleep”. It’s not like “one sleeps themselves”…

This is part of something called dativo ético which is a whole big thing that is kind of a lot, but basically it used a reflexive marker to show there’s something significant for the person it refers to, and it’s usually translated into English with some kind of additional word or preposition

Like mudar is “to mutate/change/molt”, and mudarse is “to move away (residences)”, or ir is “to go” and irse is “to go away/to leave”, or quedar is “to remain” and quedarse is “to stay behind”

So if you see a thing that looks reflexive but it doesn’t make sense reflexively, chances are you found dativo ético 

[neni-has-ascended]

In your opinion what is the biggest difference between pearl and marina in japan as aposed to other regions like america and Europe. And what type of role language Do they each use

Pearl (Hôzuki Hime)

First-Person Classifier: “Atashi” for singular “I”, “Uchi” for plural “We”

Speech Style: Rude, Shounen-like masculine (sentences end in ”ze, zo, daze”, says “kuu” instead of “taberu”, “nee” instead of “nai”, etc.)  uses with occasional feminine traits (like female-specific slang, or ending sentences in “ne”), energetic, uses a lot of anglicisms and slang. 

How the localization changed her: Not at all. Even if Treehouse ocassionally added lines where Pearl seems more “abrasive” in English than in Japanese if you attempt to “translate literally” (which, as I keep saying, is a stupid idea, always), in context the effect of the original and translated dialogue is identical. If anything, it’s scary how well the way Pearl was written originally meshed with Treehouse’s style of translating. She must have been like a gift from god to them. She comes across exactly the same.

Marina Ida (Îda Mariné) 

First-Person Classifier: “Watashi” in Katakana

Speech Style: She speaks literal textbook Japanese(as in, the sort foreigners learn from textbooks), aside from using a lot of feminine traits to soften it up, sometimes to the point that it almost seems artificial. This is because in the Japanese version it’s made abundantly clear that Inkling isn’t Marina’s first language (it’s Octarian), and while her grammar is perfect, her use of the language is still rather unnatural in places, hence why her speech style is a lot more rigid than Pearl’s and has barely any slang in comparison. Oftentimes words will also be written in Katakana when they should be in Hiragana or Kanji which, according to the devs, usually either means that she’s mispronouncing them, or saying them in Octarian by accident.  However, contrary to what you may think that doesn’t make her sound “dumb”, since her grammar is impeccable and she still uses a lot of “big words”, it still does her intelligence justice. If anything, it makes her sound cute, humble and reserved when she’s searching for the right words. Generally, she comes across as a smart, polite and humble young immigrant. 

How the localization changed her: Okay, so, while Japanese Marina has *some* sass (like, she does occasionally tease Pearl about her height and inability to ride a bike without training wheels), the localization cranked it WAY up to eleven. In Japanese, Marina’s teasing never goes further than “ahaha, that’s so silly, Senpai!”, while in English she often roasts the living daylight out of her partner.  This is something Marina would never do in Japanese; not because she can’t, but because it goes against her own standards for herself. She’s trying extremely hard to be supportive to everyone she meets, even if it sometimes makes her internally facepalm (that comes out in Octo Expansion as well).That doesn’t mean Marina doesn’t have any opinions and never voices her thoughts, in fact she’s very quick to disagree or point it out when Pearl is wrong, she just never is rude about it. She just has very good manners, I guess. Another thing is that in Japanese, not only does Marina call Pearl “Senpai”, she’s also a self-admitted fangirl of hers, openly admiring Pearl’s self-esteem and often saying out loud that she needs to try and be more confident and outspoken like that herself, even if she thinks that Pearl can sometimes way overdo it. I guess, in a way, English Marina is what Japanese Marina wants to be like in the future. So maybe you could make the excuse that English Splatoon 2 is set later than the Japanese? But that’s a stretch, really. 

Additional details:

Marina and Pearl both love video games and have regular gaming nights together. One of the few things that gets Marina angry at Pearl in the Japanese version in Pearl saying she might cancel game night or forgetting about it. 

The most sassy Marina got in Japanese was when she responded to Pearl saying that she likes shopping for clothing at the Reef with “Weird, I didn’t think they carried XXXS sized clothes.” 

In Japanese, Marina often comments on how she thinks Pearl is being “cute” or “cool”, which certainly helps the smooth sailing of a certain *cough* ship…. Ishipit

[the-language-guy]

French Pronouns

Pronouns are the basics of speaking most languages, mostly because no one wants to continually say the subject of a sentence forever. In French, you have 9 subject pronouns, which are:

Je (pronounced like “zhuh”): "I"

Tu (pronounced like “to”): "You"

Il (pronounced like “eel”: "He"

Elle (pronounced like “el"): "She"

On (pronounced like "on"): "We, One"

Nous (pronounced like "noo"): "We"

Vous (pronounced like "voo"): "You"

Ils (pronounced like "eel"): "They" ~ masculine

Elles (pronounced like "el"): "They" ~ feminine

Tu versus Vous

Tu and Vous both mean you in French, but they have different uses based off formality and plurality. For the formality part, French is concerned with who are you talking to whether it's your friend, your mother, your boss, your dog, the pile of food that your dog knocked onto the ground, or God asking why did your dog do this. 

Vous is more formal, usually used with older people and people who are superior to you, rank-wise. On the other hand, tu is used with children, people below you in rank (such as boss to an employee), or people who are close to you. Be sure to have this difference ingrained in your soul as you can be so nervous as to use the wrong you and accidentally insult someone in French. (Trust me, it happens.) Here’s a chart to see when to use which:

For plurality, tu is singular, vous is plural. That’s pretty much it, use tu to address people one-on-one and vous for groups of people.

On

On is a very special word. In French, it means we and is more casual than the word “nous” but both are still usable. On is used to give general “philosophical” statements such as "Life is half spent before one knows what life is” or “One does not simply walk into Mordor”. On is really used for humanity/people/one in this case.

Ils and Elles

I’m sorry, but they will be pronounced the same as their singular third-person whether you like it or not. However, one way to identify if it is the plural third-person is by vowel-started verbs. They make a “z” sound that liaison (which means the sound crosses over and no they’re not dangerous) to the vowel.

Source:

LaTimes for the chart - Brush up on your French with this Bastille Day flowchart

Frenchly for a legible chart - https://frenchly.us/la-times-explains-mystery-vous-vs-tu/

[mercurialsmile]

Any tips on writing nonbinary characters? Like, any 'do's and 'don't's? I really wanna get it right, so I thought I'd ask someone who actually identifies as nonbinary :)

Any tips on writing nonbinary/trans characters?

I got two asks for this (maybe from the same person?) and it’s taken me some time to write an answer since this is such a broad... question. 

Thing is, nonbinary is both a gender in and of itself but also kinda an umbrella term? Since you also have people who are agender, bigender, genderfluid, etc. who would also technically fall under the umbrella, but don’t call themselves nonbinary since that’s not the label they want, and since the latter labels are a lot more... specific. 

Non-binary simply means that someone identifies as a gender outside the binary of man and woman and that’s it. 

There’s also the fact that I’m pretty sure I have some opinions other nonbinary people wouldn’t agree with (for example, I dislike neopronouns. Xir/Xe and Zie/Zir are the only ones that’s pronounceable to me. And I straight up dislike nounself pronouns and actively avoid people who only use nounself pronouns since to me, they are. Too hard and complicated to use. I remember reading a really good post on why nounself pronouns are linguistically incorrect in English and how to properly format them to be correct, but I dunno where that post is now) which is also why I have been hesitant about this.

Also it’s a complex... hmm thing. So yeah.

I think the first thing to ALWAYS remember when writing a minority character is that their status as a minority is not their only trait. Don’t use cliches. Don’t make them one-dimensional and make an enby’s entire personality revolving around the fact they’re enby. It’s othering, at least to me, and just plain bad writing. 

Another thing is, even tho I wish there were more books out there about being enby (are there any really out there at all?) for the most part I think cis authors should be careful and kinda tread around writing about an enby’s life and being enby. Unless you have done a shit ton of research, know exactly what you’re doing, and have talked to multiple different enbys (and not just over text either), I would merely have the character. Be there.

1) it’s a lot easier who wants to do all that research?? 

2) still counts as rep (as long as it’s positive)

So how do you write (possibly?) positive rep for a enby character? Let’s go back to pronouns. The most versatile and acceptable pronouns for enby people is they/them tbh. It’s completely gender-neutral. There are enby people who use gendered pronouns as well (She/her, he/him, maybe they use all three!) but writing-wise, it would be easiest to keep to one set of pronouns to make the writing easier to read. I dunno about anyone else, but I for sure would get tripped up and confused if a character’s pronouns change throughout a book. (Maybe it can be written well idk but I don’t think I’d like it personally sorry) so for the most part? I suggest just sticking with they/them. It’s the easiest to write. 

Also, I suggest to never call your enby characters “it”. Yes, some irl enbys like “it” as a pronoun, but to most it’s dehumanizing, so it’s best to avoid it I think. 

Interestingly enough, even tho they/them is the easiest to write with, it can also be a little tricky at times! Sometimes you’ll have to format sentences differently so readers can understand the difference between the singular and plural forms of they/them. Personally, it’s a fun writing exercise to me! So if anything, writing about an enby character can actually help stretch some different writing muscles so to speak. 

And speaking of pronouns, never ever have the narration misgender the character. Never. Hell, usually, I don’t even have characters or even the VILLAINS of my books misgender characters. And my reasoning behind this is: I dislike using transphobia/enbyphobia as a tool to show a villain is evil--their actions alone in the novel should be enough. And two: if even the evilest of villains aren’t transphobic... that says a lot to me. It speaks VOLUMES and is a lot more powerful of an (unsaid) statement then having your villains be transphobes. (but that’s just my opinion ofc!!) 

Now, to me, if you’re just writing about a enby side character, I would just have them. Be there. Not misgendered, everyone regarding them using the proper pronouns, and avoiding gendered language (which can be hard as it is hardwired into us without us even knowing, for instance!) so make sure you edit accordingly. 

Also, and I think this should be OBVIOUS by now, but PLEASE do not write a “forced coming out” scene. Like, where the cis character walks in on an enby character changing clothes or whatever. Like. That is. So over with and done. Ik that terrible trope fits trans men/women characters better, but I think it’s still important to say here, esp if you’re writing an enby character who tries to pass as the opposite of their birth gender or binds/stuffs/packs/etc at all. It’s uncomfortable, possibly triggering, and honestly? Super cliche. It’s bad writing, my friend. 

And whether or not you want to make the direct statement that they are an enby is kinda up to you? There’s arguments for and against it. If you can fit it into the story safely without making anything clunky, go for it! You can either have the character themselves tell someone how they identify, or maybe they’re being introduced and they ask the person they are introducing themselves to to use “they/them” since they are an enby. I’m sure there are other, more creative ways to do this, but yeah. This specific topic is super situational so I would have a sensitivity reader (or two!) to read over what you write to make sure it’s okay. 

Okay the last thing I’m gonna talk about is character description. Ignoring the fact I personally am terrible at it, there’s a kinda huge divide here. 

For one, a lot of authors and I think enby people in general don’t want others to know their birth gender, which is understandable. And with writing, there isn’t any visual clues besides what you write down. The world is your oyster, you can have your character look like anything, the reader won’t know the birth gender unless you use gendered language. 

The tricky thing is this, tho: the stereotypical enby person/character is someone who is skinny white and vaguely masculine. I, personally, despise this stereotype with my whole being. Imo, enby people can dress and look however they want. Clothes are just fabrics we put onto our flesh bodies. If girls can enjoy pants and boys can like dresses and skirts, then enbys can dress however they want to as well. That’s a freedom I think everyone should have. Clothes don’t dictate gender. Enby people also can’t control what they look like. Some people.. just won’t ever be able to pass as androgynous (unless they Really Work at it, like me!!) and it’s unfair to them I think as well. 

That being said, writing an enby with feminine clothing, for example, will probably have your reader think of them as DFAB, unfortunately, unless you are really careful.

Other things that can make your reader think of an enby’s birth gender: describing them having to wear a bra or having a period, describing if they have to shave their face or not or how much facial hair they grow, describing their genitalia AT ALL, describing them with certain face/body shapes, describing their hair length (possibly), if they wear a binder or stuff a bra or pack, describing if they wear makeup and the list can go on. 

Some people would think you should avoid this completely, which is why vaguely masculine is what people go for. it’s the typical androgynous look (which isn’t bad pe se and I don’t wanna insult anyone who looks like that!) but imo what would be more normalizing and important is to have enby characters look how they want, choose if they wanna wear a binder or not, if they wear makeup, and etc. 

Some people might thing the above is completely fine and that it’s important to show anyone can be enby and you’re still valid as an enby even if you might not “pass” for instance or don’t try your best to conceal certain secondary sex characteristics. Others might think you should make your enby characters as androgynous as possible, even in the stereotypical way. 

Which view is right? Dammed if I know, and I don’t think one is or not. But it is something to think about. I think the stereotypical response to a cis author would be to go with the safest option and allow enby authors write about enby characters breaking gender roles, but honestly, it is your character. Whether you make your enby character vaguely masculine to avoid those pitfalls or go balls to the walls and do whatever you want because enbys can dress and look how they want fuck you all is up to you. Do what you think your character would do and design them to match their personality. I don’t think people should be boxed into what sort of characters they are allowed to make. 

And don’t be afraid to make mistakes. It’s okay if you fuck something up by accident or are accidentally insensitive. And honestly? Groups of people aren’t a hivemind. No matter how good your representation is, there will be someone who disagrees with you and thinks you didn’t “write it correctly”

all I can say is: learn as much as you can, always strive to keep learning and listening, and do the best you can. You can’t succeed if you don’t try and you can’t learn without making a few mistakes along the way. 

(And as for trans characters... I myself am not a trans man/woman so idk how to best say what not to do, but I think it follows the same as above for the most part? I’d ask the opinion of a trans man or woman first rather than an enby like me, as even I have fucked up writing about my trans woman character in the past. I’ve learned a lot since then, but I think I am still learning and would rather not educate someone on a topic such as that. Also this post is already long and I am Tired of writing about this topic lol) 

I rambled a lot as usual and I am so so sorry. It’s late and this was SUCH a broad question I didn’t?? Really know how to answer so YEAH SORRY if this is no help at all!! I tried my best!!

[anilyan]

Creative diary #4

Starting on 23/3/2020, I will start to force myself to expand my creative and technical skills every day by keeping a diary of what I did, a public diary, so that other people can judge me or otherwise get inspiration or tips from my posts. The skills I want to improve are: drawing (especially digitally, but since I focused on that 1-2 months ago I will treat that skill seriously soon), writing, writing for games, architecture/building design (favorite tool? the sims xD) and possibly sculpting. That means I will either study those skills or practice them at least 10 minutes every day, and my posts consist of a list of what I did.

What I did today:

Some minutes writing my Skyrim fanfic [Memories of a Dragon]

Participated in a facebook discussion about how to deal with pronouns in games, [this one]. The original post and my answer can be found below:

Question:

Hey all, this is a question for those of you who have written/worked on something in English that allows for the player to select their character's gender/pronouns.

HOW do you deal with the broken circle of "him/her," "his/her," "his/hers," without putting if statements in throughout? What do you name your variables so they feel ok to write?

((EDIT FOR CLARITY: This is a situation where the character is talked about in the third person. Another way to think about it is to choose the gender your main character is attracted to.))

Bonus question: if you allow for they/them pronouns, how do you handle the pluralisation (s/he is, they are)?

My answer: 

As a non-binary person, this discussion interests me greatly and it makes me happy to see so many people considering the option for they/them pronouns in games. So, I only have a few things to add, but first I will mention the things you already said here:

1) Tim Scheiman said that “Could also include both full words in the variable or macros, "he is, she is, they are"”, however, Elen Jurik already stated the problems of that solution: “this breaks the minute you change from "he walks to the store" to "they walk to the store"”

2) Elen Jurik also pointed out that “The problem isn't the programming side of it - I've been setting up variables, but specifically "him/her," "his/her," and "his/hers" don't match up nicely, and end up causing grammatical errors.” The example given was that “his = her OR hers; her = him OR his”.

3) The best idea to me was the one of Alex Woodward: “On my last project the dialogue looked like {Pronouns: They do|She does|He does}. So they was 1, she was 2, he was 3 and the code checked the variable and inserted the right phrase accordingly.” I imagine it results in fewer grammatical errors.

That said, the setting and story of the game might allow for ways to avoid the problem in multiple situations, in the situation, the protagonist receives a title and that title doesn’t change independently of the gender, ie: “Inquisitor” (Dragon Age Inquisition), “Sole Survivor” (Fallout 4), “Dragonborn” (Skyrim). Not only makes coding easier (unless there were still situations where the gender needed to be addressed), if the game has voice-acting, it’s a huge advantage because there will be less lines of dialogue to record.

In fantasy or fiction settings it may also be possible to create gender-neutral pronouns that are not they/them. Not everyone would be pleased, but since most games don’t give options for non-binary people to exist in the first place, I doubt we would focus too much on that. So you could create pronouns that are gender neutral AND singular, and that way the only thing that has to change is the pronouns itself, not the verb. In a personal project, I had the idea of creating the pronouns “hey/hem/heir”. Examples: “Hey walks to the store”, “This is heir house” or “I used to see hem as a friend, but not anymore”. That looks strange but it’s quite easy to pronounce when reading a sentence, partly because it starts with an “h” like the feminine/masculine pronouns (so it even makes the language more consistent), and it’s also easy to associate that with the plural and gender-neutral pronouns of the English language. When this is possible, then it solves the problem mentioned in (1). Feel free to use the pronouns I invented if you like it.

If a non-binary character can be romanced, this is just a reminder that boyfriend/girlfriend can be easily converted to partner/lover and that even works for binary genders. Husband/wife, father/mother, dad/mom and others are a little harder and generate lots of discussion in the non-binary community. And don’t forget that if the non-binary character has brothers/sisters, they can be referred to as sibling or sib.  

Last but not least, I’m from Portugal, and I’ve seen people here ask if you had the intention of translating the game into other languages. In Portuguese, like in most latin-based languages, even our plural is gendered and there is no official way to make a sentence gender-neutral. It’s really complicated. Most translations end up referring in a binary way to characters who are non-binary or whose gender is unknown, usually based on what the character looks like, which is really invalidating. That said, if the creators of the stories – games, books, movies… - have any say in the translation, I suggest looking individually to what the non-binary community uses in each language. That may be tricky to find and get diverse results, so I will advance that in Portuguese, most people who bother to try, as I do sometimes, use “Elu” instead of “Ela/Ele”, words finished in “a/o” are finished with “e” and the article “a/o” that precedes nouns is often omitted, though that’s the less consensual part. I’ve posted a study of the advantages and disadvantages of all possibilities I have ever seen someone use/consider, in Portuguese, so if anyone here speaks that language or wants to recommend something about this to a person who speaks Portuguese, here you have it: https://caixinha-any.blogspot.com/2018/11/pros-e-contras-das-varias-formas-de.html

[lingumaniac]

LGBTQ+ vocabulary - Low Saxon

Now, it is official: Germany voted with 393 Yes and 226 No votes in favor of marriage equality, which we call in German “Ehe für alle” (marriage for all), and the Bundespräsident signed it now. This is a historic moment for Germany and marks the point where we move forward from just tolerance to more acceptance. Hopefully, this will have effects on the German people to be more accepting of other sexual and gender identities and life forms.

In order to do so, here is some vocabulary regarding LGBTQQIP2SAA topics to spread more awareness in Low Saxon, i. e. Low German, the regional language spoken in Northern Germany and the Netherlands. Feel free to add things, to give feedback or to correct me. Low Saxon speakers haven’t been really active in creating new terms for LGBT+ topics, so this is some kind of language development, too, since many of the terms will be coined right now and haven’t been used (yet). So, this is mostly a draft for you and us to work on. It can also be helping to remove discrimination and prejudices since most Low Saxon speakers are living in rural areas where LGBTQ+ topics are mostly seen as something exotic and people are afraid of stranger things and thus still more conservative and homo-/transphobic.

Attributes

(After the comma, the adjective endings are given.) homosexual - homoseksuell, ~e, ~en gay - swuul, swule, swulen  (Side note: The German word “schwul” for “gay” derived from Low Saxon. In Middle Low Saxon the word “swul” meant “sweltry” and the word was borrowed by German and then changed into “schwül” as analogy to “kühl” (cool) which has an umlaut, too, for weather terms. The word “schwul” without the umlaut was then used for “gay” because, in German, gays were associated with being warm, hence: warmer Bruder - a gay companion, lit. warm brother.) lesbian - lesbsch, ~e, ~en bisexual - biseksuell, ~e, ~en transsexual - transseksuell, ~e, ~en asexual - aseksuell, ~e, ~en aromantic - aromantsch, ~e, ~en intersexual - interseksuell, ~e, ~en (some might say: innerseksuell) pansexual - panseksuell, ~e, ~en queer - queer, ~e, ~en; dweer, dwere, dweren; dwars, ~e, ~en (Side note: The English word “queer” actually comes directly from the Brunswick dialect of Middle Low Saxon, meaning “oblique, off-centered”.) LGBT - LGBT or in Low Saxon LSBT same sex - liekslechtlich, ~e, ~en out - “he is out” - “he is out” [What a cognincidence!] (”out” meaning in German “geoutet”; there is no “ge-” in Low Saxon and no “-et” after “-t”) coming out - sik outen, “he came out” - “he hett sik out” -gender (adj.) - (ge)slechtlich, ~e, ~en (many would put ge- in front of it) cisgender (adj.) - cisgender, no adjective endings; cisslechtlich, ~e, ~en genderqueer - slechtsdweer, ~dwere, ~dweren; genderqueer, no endings third-gender - drüddslechtlich, ~e, ~en genderfluid - slechtsvlödig, ~e, ~en; genderfluid, no endings agender/neutrois - unslechtlich, ~e, ~en; agender, no endings androgyne - androgyyn, ~gyne, ~gynen bigender - tweeslechtlich, ~e, ~en; bigender, no endings Female to Male / FTM - Vrouw to Mann / VTM; (Se to He) Male to Female / MTF - Mann to Vrouw / MTV; (He to Se) gender nonconforming - slechtsunstimmig, ~e, ~en; nichslechtsövereenstimmen, no adjective endings gender questioning - slechtsunseker, ~e, ~en; slechts-in-Vraag-stellen, no adjective endings (probably gets paraphrased as “S/he stellt eer/sien Slecht in Vraag,”) non-binary - nichbinäär, ~e, ~en pangender - panslechtlich, ~e, ~en; allslechtlich, ~e, ~en Two-Spirit - een Two-Spirit ween; “tweegeestig”, ~e, ~en monogamous - monogaam, ~game, ~gamen polygamous - polygaam, ~game, ~gamen polyamorous - polyamoröös, ~röse, ~rösen; veelleven, ~e, ~en nonconformist - nichkunfoormistsch, ~e, ~en

Nouns

(After the noun, the genus and the plural forms/endings are given.) boyfriend - de Vründ, Vrünn girlfriend - de Vrünnin, Vrünninnen (When you are referring to your own boy- or girlfriend it is mostly enough to just use Vründ or Vrünnin with the possessive pronoun “mien” in front of it. If you want to put emphasis on it or want to distinguish it from a friend you could use the adjective “vast” with it, meaning “tight or close” friend implicating the boy- or girlfriend: Ik ga mit mien Vrünnin na’t Kino. - Een Vrünnin or dien vaste Vrünnin? - Nee, mien vaste Vrünnin. - I am going to the cinema with my (girl)friend. - A friend or your girlfriend? - No, my girlfriend.) relationship - de “Beziehung” f, ~en (Low Saxon often uses the German word.); de Partnerschapp f, -en triangle relationship - de Dreeecksbeziehung/-partnerschapp f, ~en (sexual) orientation - de (seksuelle) Orienteren f sexuality - de Seksualiteet f, ~teten sex & gender - dat Slecht n, ~er (In Low Saxon there is no strict distinction made between sex and gender. If you want to, you can use dat Gender for gender and dat Slecht for sex.) gender identity - de Slechtsidentiteet f, ~teten rainbow - de Regenbagen f, ~s cross-dresser - de Transvestiet m, ~en; de Transvestietsche f, ~n transgender person - en Transseksuellen m, ~en; en Transseksuelle f, ~n polyamory - Polyamoree f.; Veelleveree f. cis-normativity - de cis-Noormativiteet f. phobia - de Fobie f, ~n (You can put Homo-, Bi-, Trans-, Ace- etc. in front of it.)

Gender-neutral speech

This is a little bit harder in Low Saxon than in English because not only do our pronouns have a genus, but all our nouns have one out of three genera and thus the adjective and article declination, too. A big problem we often face is the generic masculine for person terms like professions where it is usual to take the male form but subsume the female members under it, too. If you don’t give context most people will think of men only hearing a word like “de Studenten” for “the students” even it would also include women (which would be “de Studentschen”). Most of the strategies in Low Saxon will be the same as in German, in this case, for example, to use a double form in speaking “de Studentschen un Studenten” or in writing “de Students|chen”. You could also use the gerund which is ungendered in the plural form “de Studeren” (the studying people), but since Low Saxon has a lot of homophonous morphemes, this is not a good strategy and can be confused with many other words. For the plural formation, however, some nouns can be made gender-neutral by putting the word for “people” behind it: de Koopmann m - the businessman vs. de Koopvrouw f - the businesswoman They have own plurals when there are only males or females, but you can hide the gender by adding -lüüd for people: de Kooplüüd - would be the business people. This is known to German, too, but the extent is much bigger in Low Saxon and I would highly appreciate a more frequent use.

One other advantage that Low Saxon has, is that the articles for male and female nouns are the same, just like the respective relative pronouns, making a gender-neutral sentence easier. Also, the two pronouns for he and she are very similar: “he” and “se”, so one could make use of “s|he” similar to English. (We don’t have an artificial gender-neutral personal pronoun and also no singular-they, however.)

Example: Güstern weer daar een, de … - Yesterday there was someone, who … (Neither the indefinite nor the definite article show a distinction between male and female when they are in the nominative case. So, they can be used to establish gender-neutral sentences, whereas in German the sentence would be: Gestern war da eine, die … or Gestern war da einer, der … for either a male or a female person.) This applies only for the nominative/subject case, however, in the object case, the definite and personal pronouns get different forms for either male or female and they can be used as a pair form: Güstern heff ik een seen. - Yesterday, I saw someone. (This is fine because een (one) never changes.) Güstern heff ik em/eer seen. - Yesterday, I saw him/her. (em means “him” and eer means “her”.) Güstern heff ik de|n seen. - Yesterday, I saw him/her. (Oftentimes, the demonstrative pronouns are used, the object case singular for masculine is den, and the female one does not change and is de. You can either use the orthographic method of writing it de|n or a double form den/de.)

[just-kept-running]

Time Lord Culture, Language, and Gender

//So I got bored and this is what happened.  Pronouns are a pretty big thing in my life.  I’m non-binary and I use they/them or xe/xir pronouns.  It’s been an uphill battle to get to a point where I’m comfortable with my appearance and even more of one to get people to use the correct pronouns for me.  Even people who mean well.  I’m an anthropology grad student.  I’m in a department full of anthropologists - and when I’m not there, I’m with a whole bunch of ethnomusicologists, who are basically musical anthropologists.  And the very first thing you learn in anthropology is to let go of the rigid boxes society has taught you everything must fit into.  So these are pretty open-minded people.  And it’s still a lot of reminding people and a lot of explaining what non-binary means and how singular they works.

So because I am both non-binary, fascinated by linguistics, and an utter nerd, I got to thinking.  What must Gallifreyan pronouns be like?  And I put this long, rambling thought under a cut so I don’t take up your entire dash.

So you know how the TARDIS translates everything?  And, I mean, supposedly it doesn’t translate Gallifreyan, but hey, you kind of have to assume the Doctor does not actually speak every language ever and at least part of the time he’s probably speaking Gallifreyan.  I cannot see it being otherwise.  I mean, what good is the translation circuit if it doesn’t translate what the Time Lord piloting the TARDIS is saying?  But I digress.

Anyway, I was thinking about this, because I am prone to doing things like that, and I wondered, you know, how do pronouns in Gallifreyan work?  Hear me out on this, though.  So in English, the language of the show, pronouns are relatively gendered.  In English, in terms of pronouns that refer to people, you have he, she, and they.  Now, all of those can actually be singular (and if you want to fight me on this point, you’ll also have to take that up with Merriam-Webster, so have fun with that) but we usually only use he or she if the subject is known.  When talking about an unknown subject, we tend to use they, because we don’t know the subject’s gender.  But there’s an (incorrect) assumption that if the subject is known, then we do know their gender and that they must be either a he or a she.

Not all languages are like this.  Spanish, for instance, is actually more gendered than English.  Pronouns for people in Spanish are el, la, las, and los.  I did include plurals for a reason.  El is he, la is she, las is plural she, los is plural he or just straight plural.  There is no neutral option.  Indefinite subjects like “the secretary” or “the engineer” tend to be gendered based on culturally defined gender roles.  Additionally, there is no truly neutral pronoun like the English they.  The catch-all plural is masculine and there is no neutral singular.  But that’s not all that changes.  Most nouns and adjectives have both masculine and feminine forms.  So you end up changing a lot of things based on the subject’s gender.

I do know there exist languages in which gendered pronouns and word endings really aren’t a thing, but I can’t think of them off the top of my head.  But I do have to wonder, would that not be what Gallifreyan is like?  I mean, as Twelve helpfully points out, “We’re billions of years beyond your petty obsession with gender and its associated stereotypes.”

Time Lords (and I do have to wonder if the Lords and Ladies part of that isn’t also English rather than Gallifreyan) can regenerate as any sex.  As such, their gender is a little bit more complex to suss out than a human’s - and we humans are pretty damn complicated.  But basically, it seems to me that all Time Lords are, by human standards, non-binary.  Now, there are ways that they can control their regenerations, so it is possible that they could choose to always be male or always be female, if that’s what felt more right to them.  But it would seem that they just don’t adhere to the same ideas of gender as humans.

Language is a reflection of the culture it comes from.  It’s sort of circular, actually.  Language is a product of its culture, but the culture is heavily impacted by the language it uses.  This is why people get so up in arms about terminology.  Pronouns, for instance.  The English-speaking non-binary community has made a big push for singular they to be more widely accepted as a personal pronoun because it grants us greater visibility and the way people speak is both indicative of and also shapes their world-view.  So if you have a word for a person who is neither a man nor a woman, you’re more likely to accept that such people exist and are valid in their identities.

So Gallifreyan.  Because gender as per human definitions doesn’t seem to be a thing among Time Lords (although not Gallifreyans as a whole if one wants to include groups like the Sisterhood of Karn), it stands to reason that the language would reflect that.  Oddly, I can think of one instance right off that doesn’t support this.  In the episode “Hell Bent,” the Doctor shoots a Gallifreyan general, forcing the general to regenerate.  This prompts a response from one of their subordinates of, “Are you all right, sir? Oh, er, sorry, ma'am.”  The general then remarks, “Oh, back to normal, am I?” 

On the one hand, if the Gallifreyan language does not have different words based on gender, then there would be no reason for the subordinate to correct himself.  On the other hand, the general doesn’t even seem to notice what sex they have ended up as, although they do go on to comment that the last regeneration was the only time they were ever in a man’s body.  Additionally, Missy changes her name after regenerating into a female body and corrects a Dalek who calls her a Time Lord with the now widely known quip, “Time Lady, thank you.  Some of us can afford the upgrade.”

All of that seems to contradict the Doctor’s assertion that Time Lords are billions of years beyond humans’ petty obsession with gender, as he puts it.  And that’s before we even get into the Master’s snide comment about “Is the future going to be all girl?”  I don’t feel like diving down that particular rabbit hole, though, so we’ll just stick to language.  It does seem overwhelmingly clear that Time Lords are, to some extent, aware of gender roles.  But this seems like it would be a distinctly human thing, and most Time Lords frankly haven’t had much contact with humanity.  Probably the most well known human among Time Lords would be Leela, if I had to guess, because she wound up married to a Time Lord and lived on Gallifrey until her death.  Most Time Lords just aren’t terribly concerned with humanity.  The Doctor, the Master, Susan, and Romana seem to be the exceptions, not the norm.

So I think, honestly, that the amount of attention paid by Time Lords to gender is probably less to do with Gallifrey and more to do with the UK.  Because the people behind the show are not Gallifreyan, they are British.  They are not aliens from a distant and advanced civilization of long-lived shape-shifters, they are humans from 20th and 21st century Earth.  They come from a country whose language, government, and society have all been historically very focused on gender.  And that is very obvious in the show.  If you start with “An Unearthly Child” and work your way forward from there, you can see the shifts in culturally ascribed gender roles.  It’s a very long running series, and a lot has changed in 54 years.

Another reason this whole dissonance between language and function doesn’t make sense to me is that historically, at least in Western society, a lot of culturally ascribed gender roles had to do with the idea of women as mothers and men as providers.  Women were supposed to be nurturing and emotional, while men were supposed to be strong and steadfast.  And while we know at this point that this is bullshit, it has shaped a lot of our culture.  However, that wouldn’t be the case on Gallifrey.  Time Lords are sterile, or were at one point, due to a curse placed on them by the Sisterhood of Karn after the Sisterhood was driven out of Gallifrey.  This is why the Great Houses and the looms exist.  There is also a taboo on pregnancy.  In fact, it’s illegal (or was at one time).  I mentioned Leela earlier, and she’s pertinent here again, because the main reason this even comes up is that that restriction was eased for her and her husband because she was not a Time Lord, she was human.  And even if that weren’t the case, the fact that they can change sexes from one regeneration to the next makes such rigid roles extremely impractical from a societal standpoint.  There would be simply no good way to work that.

But Time Lord society does seem to be, at least for the most part, egalitarian.  It appears to be an attempt at an egalitarian society as written by people who come from a society that is strongly patriarchal.  There are a handful of truly egalitarian societies in the world, and it would be very interesting to see what Gallifreyan society would look like written by an author from one of those cultures.  (Not that it’s likely that will ever happen, given they’re all very tiny and mostly very remote.  Not to mention some of them have begun to be influenced by Westernization.)  I would suppose you would get a very different view on what the language and culture would look like.

But back to the topic of language, because that was where I started with this whole thing.  It really does make me wonder exactly how the Gallifreyan language works.  I can only imagine that the use of gendered terminology for and by Time Lords has more to do with the English of the show and less to do with the Gallifreyan of their origins.  It would really be an interesting thing to expand upon further.

[temple-maiden]

In this blog, I’ll continue sharing with you the last two lessons under Nouns.  

Ready the limelight.  Move it to my place. Let’s get started.

            On the 2nd batch of demo teaching, I presented them the Noun Cases.  The case of a word present in a sentence states the position of that word in a sentence. In the English language, there are 5 basic cases of nouns which are, Nominative Case, Objective Case (Accusative Case), Dative Case, Possessive Case (Genitive Case), and Vocative Case.

Nominative Case simply indicates the subject of a sentence. | Hope is nominated as best actress this year.

Objective Case (Accusative Case) indicates direct object (of the verb and of the preposition). | This is one of your collections.

Possessive Case (Genitive Case) states a sentence with a certain preposition like of and also displays apostrophe ‘s. | Joyce’s vlogging camera is very expensive. 

Dative Case indicates indirect object (of the verb) or the recipient of the direct object.  | Her friend handed Victor a letter. 

Vocative Case is used for direct address. | Bryan, can you please get my phone?

For the final topic, let’s learn how to collect and to compound words.

             In Collective Nouns, these are words for single things that are made up of more than one person, animal, place, thing, or idea.  Even though this noun refers to more than one in a group, still, the noun itself is considered a single thing.  

            The staff agrees that people are misusing their cell phones, so its verdict is that phones must not be used during working hours.  

            The staff here stands as a group of people who work in the same place.

            The boat’s crew worked all night to stop the leak.

            Crew is usually used to denote a group of workers, also to describe aircraft and ships personnel.

Further information down below:

Pack | a group of canine animals such as wolves or dogs; also used to describe playing cards and packages containing multiple objects.

Flock | a group of birds; also used to discuss small hooved animals such as sheep or goats

Swarm | a group of insects

Group | a very general term used to describe people, places, things, and animals

Crowd | usually used to describe a group of people

Gang | usually used to describe a group of criminals; also to describe a group of workers, particularly sailors or dock workers

             To use Collective Nouns correctly, note that when the unit is acting in unison, it is appropriate to use the singular.  Also, when the members of the unit are acting as individuals, it is appropriate to use plural forms of verbs and pronouns.  

| Today, Ms. Kennedy’s class takes its SOL test.

  Class – singular collective noun

  Takes – singular verb

  Its – singular pronoun

All the students in Ms. Kennedy’s class are taking the same test at the same time.

| After taking a test, the class start their papers on Shakespeare’s sonnets.

 Class – plural collective noun

 Start – plural verb

 Their – plural pronoun

Although the students are in the same class, they are beginning their own papers on different sonnets written by Shakespeare.

             In Compound Nouns, these words are for people, animals, places, things, or ideas, made up of two or more words.  In many compound nouns, the first word describes or modifies the second word (usually identifies the item.)

I love watching fireflies on warm summer nights.  Fireflies | Closed or Solid Compound Noun

My mother-in-law is the kindest person I know. Mother-in-law | Hyphenated Compound Noun

Let’s be sure to stay somewhere with a swimming pool. Swimming pool | Open or Spaced Compound Noun

Compound nouns can be made with two nouns. Let’s just wait at this bus stop.

Compound nouns can be made with an adjective and a noun. Let’s watch the full moon come up over the mountain.

Compound nouns can be made with a verb and a noun. Be sure to add bleach to the washing machine.

            This is the end of the session in Lexical categories.  But this is not the end of what was discussed in this batch.  I’m now going to welcome you to the world of PRONOUNS yey! 

Pronoun is a word or phrase that can substitute a noun or noun phrase. I | he | she | it | we |they | you | me | us | our | everybody | who | this | those | myself | herself | them

Antecedent is a word or phrase that is represented by another word; the noun replaced by a pronoun. | Richard plays soccer in the courtyard. All of his cousins have gathered there.

Classification of Pronouns

PERSONAL PRONOUNS are words associated with certain persons, animals, things or places. 

Characteristics of Personal Pronouns

1. Three persons (point of view)

1st person – the one(s) speaking | I, me, my, mine, we, us, our, ours | I felt like I was getting drowned with shame and disgrace.

2nd person – the one(s) spoken to | you, your, yours | Sometimes you cannot clearly discern between anger and frustration.

3rd person – the one(s) spoken about | he, him, his, she, her, hers, it, its, they, their, theirs | Mr. Stewart is a principled man. He acts by the book and never lets you deceive him easily.

Point of View - Examples and Definition of Point of View. (2015, March 11). Retrieved from https://literarydevices.net/point-of-view/

2. Three genders

Feminine gender | she, her, hers | She went to the café.

Masculine gender | he, him, his | People was inspired by his speech.

Neuter gender | it, its, they, them, their, theirs | The people were saved because of them.

3. Two numbers

Singular | I, me, my, mine, you, your, yours, he, him, his, she, her, hers, it, its | That passport isn’t hers.  It’s mine.

Plural | we, us, our, ours, you, your, yours, they, them, their, theirs | The family can’t believe that this house will be theirs.

 4. Three cases

Subjective (Nominative) Case is used to replace a common or proper noun as the subject of the sentence; doer of the action in a sentence. | Who will be hosting the event?

Objective (Accusative) Case is a pronoun that is affected by the action of the subject of the sentence; takes the place of the object in the sentence (the noun that receives the action).

Types of Objective Case

Direct Object | indicates the person or thing that receives the action of a verb. | The judges asked to send him to the court. 

Indirect Object | a noun, pronoun, or noun phrase which indicates the person or thing that receives the action of a verb. | As soon as Ji Eun Tak returned from Canada, Kim Shin gave her a hug.

*k-drama feels waaaahhh!

Object of the Preposition | when a pronoun is linked to a preposition (at, in, on, to, with), it becomes a prepositional phrase and is said to be the object of the preposition. | To whom do you wish to give these extra clothes?

Possessive (Genitive) Case | any pronoun that is used to show ownership or possession of something. | Don’t judge a book by its cover.

INDEFINITE PRONOUNS are known to be the largest group of pronouns, used for non-specific things.

Singular | Something went wrong in their relationship.

Plural | Both of them agreed to adopt a dog.

Most indefinite pronouns also function as other parts of speech. | Brylle has a laptop for his work and another (pronoun) for his luxury time. | Please give me another (adjective) glass of cocktail.

Uses apostrophes to indicate possessive case. | The conflict between them is somebody’s intention.

It can also be used as determiners. | We, the children of God can make the world a better place. 

That’s all for the 2nd batch of blog in demo teaching.  Tune in for my next update.  Thank you!