linguistics-and-such

[linguistics-and-such]

Changing regular verbs into irregular verbs is actually an interestingly common practice in English. For example, the verb "to light" used to be regular until relatively recently: "light" > "lighted" became "light" > "lit".

More modern verbs, like "to text" and "to screenshot" (which were verbified from the related nouns) are often conjugated irregularly as well. That is, people tend to say "I text them yesterday" and "I already screenshot it" over "I texted them yesterday" and "I already screenshotted it".

It's a field of linguistics that fascinates me. I assume it has something to do with easing pronunciation and shortening sentences. If anyone else has any more examples of regular verbs becoming irregular verbs, please share! I live for this stuff.

underrated form of humor: just making shit up in past tense

[linguistics-and-such]

I found a fascinating video on YouTube about the history of English pronouns. Here it is. The video touches on, among other things, Old English pronouns, "she", the singular "they", neopronouns, and - my favorite part - how some dialects of English even have a dual system and a clusivity system! The video's maker theorised that we're in a point in history where pronouns are rapidly changing in English, and my pronoun-loving brain just finds that so interesting!

[linguistics-and-such]

Saved!

101 places to get enthusiastic about linguistics

In honour of Lingthusiasm's 100th episodiversary, we've compiled this list of 101 public-facing places where linguists and linguistics nerds hang out and learn things! 

17 podcasts about linguistics

Lingthusiasm — A podcast that's enthusiastic about linguistics! 

The Vocal Fries — Language discrimination and how to fight it

The History of English — From Proto-Indo-European to Shakespeare in 180 episodes (and still running!)

A Language I Love Is — Guests (some linguists, some not) talk about languages they love and why

En Clair — Forensic linguistics and literary detection

Because Language — New guests every episode discuss their linguistic interests

The Allusionist — Stories about language and the people who use it 

Subtitle — A podcast about languages and the people who speak them

Field Notes — Five seasons on linguistic fieldwork 

Tomayto Tomahto — Language meets cog sci, politics, history, law, anthropology, and more

Word of Mouth — A long-running and wide-ranging linguistics program on BBC 4.

Words Unravelled - A new and very well edited etymology podcast with popular creators RobWords and Jess Zafarris

Something Rhymes with Purple — Learn the background behind another word or phrase each episode

Lexitecture — A classic etymology podcast with a huge back catalogue

A Way with Words — A "lively and upbeat" public radio call-in show about language and culture

Språket — A radio program in Swedish answering listener questions about language. We don't speak Swedish, but this was the most-mentioned non-English content in our listener survey!

Living Voices — A podcast in Spanish about endangered languages of the Amazon

12 nonfiction books about linguistics

Because Internet: Understanding the New Rules of Language by Gretchen McCulloch (Amazon; Bookshop) — A linguist shows how the internet is transforming the way we communicate

How Language Works: How Babies Babble, Words Change Meaning and Languages Live or Die (Amazon; Bookshop) by David Crystal — A journey through the different subsystems of language 

That's Not What I Meant!: How Conversational Style Makes or Breaks Relationships by  Deborah Tannen (Amazon; Bookshop) — A pioneering researcher on conversations gives advice on how they can go wrong

Memory Speaks: On Losing and Reclaiming Language and Self by Julie Sedivy (Amazon; Bookshop) — Scientific and personal reflections on nostalgia, forgetting, and language loss

The Art of Language Invention: From Horse-Lords to Dark Elves to Sand Worms, the Words Behind World-Building by David J Peterson (Amazon; Bookshop) — an accessible guide to making your own conlang 

Highly Irregular: Why Tough, Through, and Dough Don't Rhyme—And Other Oddities of the English Language by Arika Okrent (Amazon; Bookshop) — The history behind English's many oddities

Wordslut: A Feminist Guide to Taking Back the English Language by Amanda Montell (Amazon; Bookshop) — A well-researched pushback on sexist language ideology

Word by Word: The Secret Life of Dictionaries by Kory Stamper (Amazon; Bookshop) — A lifelong lexicographer discusses the job and the things she's learned along the way 

Lingo: Around Europe in Sixty Languages by Gaston Dorren (Amazon; Bookshop) — A quick, funny tour of the quirks of 60 European languages

Bina: First Nations Languages, Old and New by Felicity Meakins, Gari Tudor-Smith, and Paul Williams (Amazon; Bookshop) — The story of Australian indigenous languages' resistance and survival

Says Who?: A Kinder, Funner Usage Guide for Everyone Who Cares About Words by Anne Curzan (Amazon; Bookshop) — A writers' style and grammar guide focused on real usage, not made-up rules

The Language Lover's Puzzle Book: A World Tour of Languages and Alphabets in 100 Amazing Puzzles by Alex Bellos (Amazon; Bookshop) — Solve puzzles about writing, grammar, and meaning drawn from real and fictional languages

Poems from the Edge of Extinction: An Anthology of Poetry in Endangered Languages (Amazon; Bookshop) — An anthology of poems in endangered languages, with commentary

6 linguistically-inspired novels

Babel: Or the Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators' Revolution by R.F. Kuang (Amazon; Bookshop) — Imagine a world where linguistics was as vital — and as ethically compromised — as engineering is in ours

True Biz by Sara Nović (Amazon; Bookshop) — Love, friendship, and struggle at a residential high school for the Deaf

Ella Minnow Pea: A Novel in Letters by by Mark Dunn (Amazon; Bookshop) — "A progressively lipogrammatic epistolary fable" full of wordplay and weirdness

Semiosis by Sue Burke (Amazon; Bookshop) — Human space colonists communicate with sentient plants

Translation State by Ann Leckie (Amazon; Bookshop) — What does life look like for a perfectly genetically engineered alien–human translator? (Spoiler: weird, that's what.)

Stories of your Life and Others by Ted Chiang (Amazon; Bookshop) — Includes the long short story that became Arrival, plus other reflections on humanity and change

13 linguistics youtube channels

Crash Course Linguistics — A whole linguistics course in 16 videos

Tom Scott's Language Files — Pithy language facts explained quickly and clearly

NativLang — Language reconstruction and the history of writing

Geoff Lindsay — Facts (and some scholarly opinions) about regional English pronunciation

The Ling Space — An educational channel all about linguistics

langfocus — A language factoid channel that digs deeper than many

K Klein — Language quirks, spelling reform, and a little conlanging

biblaridion — Teaching about conlanging and worldbuilding, with lots of linguistics along the way

RobWords — "A channel for lovers and learners of English"

Otherwords — "the fascinating, thought-provoking, and funny stories behind the words and sounds we take for granted"

LingoLizard — Widely spoken languages and their quirks, comparisons, and history

linguriosa — Spanish linguistics (in Spanish), including learning tips and linguistic history

human1011 — Quick accessible facts about linguistics (and sometimes other things) 

Simon Roper — Language evolution and historical English pronunciation

10 shortform video channels about linguistics (tiktok/reels)

etymologynerd — Internet speak, etymologies and more! (reels)

linguisticdiscovery — Writing systems, language families, and more (reels)

jesszafaris — Fun facts about words, etymologies, and more (reels)

cmfvoices — An audiobook director talks about the linguistics of voice acting (eels)

mixedlinguist — A linguistics professor comments on the language of place, identity, politics, technology, and more (reels)

landontalks — Linguistic quirks of the US South (reels)

sunnmcheaux — Language and culture from Harvard's first and only professor of Gullah (reels)

dexter.mp4 — Talks about many branches of science, but loves linguistics enough to have a linguisticsy tattoo (reels)

danniesbrain — Linguistics and psychology from a researcher who studies both (reels)

wordsatwork — Quick facts on languages, families, and linguistic concepts (reels)

the_language — The Ojibwe language — plus food, dancing, and more

[linguistics-and-such]

I believe the Yiddish pronoun "זיי" is pronounced "zeɪ" (rhyming with "pay" and "lay"). Here is the Wiktionary article for it. I'd say, if it's used in English, "זיי" would be a form of neopronoun. Specifically, it'd be a neopronoun that was borrowed from an existing pronoun in another language. There are a few of these used in English already, like "ta" from the Chinese "ta" (他), "han" from Finnish "hän", and "hen" from Swedish "hen". :)

Realized after 21 years the Yiddish word for they/them is gender neutral. So I will be adding it (in its original form, not the translation) to my list of pronouns

The word is זיי

(Pronounced zay/zai/zey idk

Like the ay in ayayayay or ay caramba)

[linguistics-and-such]

I was unaware of the word "linguicism" to refer collectively to the racism, classism, and ableism that prescriptive linguists enact on people who don't use their definition of "perfect grammar". Actually a very useful word! Thanks!

One of the worst things studying linguistics did for me was make me aware and mad about all the misinformation, pop science, linguicism (and therefore classism/racism), and prescriptivism.

How do you deal with it, especially the latter two?

well you see, i started a blog about it,,

but honestly, it depends on the context and on how much energy i have. many things i ignore for the sake of my own peace of mind. when i run up against issues in the real world i just address them as best i can and try not to get sucked in by people arguing for argument's sake. there are so many better things to do with my life than launch fruitless crusades.

[linguistics-and-such]

There's a really good video on the subject as well. But apparently there's no "reason" why English does this. English is just weird.

is there an order to describing words? feels weird to say "blue big" instead of "big blue" house

hello may i introduce you to adjective order

bonus: open access article on cross-linguistic trends in ordering

[linguistics-and-such]

If you're interested in this stuff, I highly recommend getting ahold of Dennis Baron's book, What's Your Pronoun? Beyond He & She. It goes into all the history of gender-neutral pronouns in English in-depth. It also has this great glossary at the end that lists all the attempts over the centuries to introduce neopronouns into English. :)

So today in my English class I learned smth really interesting that I wanna look more into, but I guess he/him used to be the “default” pronouns if that makes sense. Like, instead of using they/them or the whole “his or her” and “s/he” thing, you would just use he/him? Things like “Everyone has his right to an abortion” because they were talking about singular people so they couldn’t use “their” at the time, they just defaulted to he/him. And then APPARENTLY in the 60s and 70s, feminists and queer people started fighting for gender-neutral singular pronouns (for use in situations like that and ofc enby people), and they created and pushed for the use of certain neopronouns!! The most popular of which being zie/hir iirc?? And like???? They just never caught on I guess.

ALSO!!!!! The use of “they” instead of “he or she” was only accepted for Edited American English in 2020!?!?!? Wild!!!

[linguistics-and-such]

I don't know much about Spanish, but my understanding is that, because "they" is gendered in that language (unlike in English), the neopronoun "elle" / "le" is sometimes utalised for non-binary people.

I think the masculine "-o" and the feminine "-a" is sometimes also replaced with the neutral "-e" in certain nouns.

* Latino (masculine)

* Latina (feminine)

* Latine (gender-neutral)

This is especially helpful for the Spanish word for "non-binary". It has a masculine form ("no binario") and a feminine form ("no binaria"), which kind of defeats the purpose. So, "no binarie" is often preferred by non-binary people and allies.

Good luck with your Spanish-learning journey! I hope you'll be able to find language that makes you feel comfortable. :)

Im encountering a problem with learning Spanish (besides it just being hard of course)

So I’m demifluid and use he/they/void pronouns. Now my gender identity does change and there are days where I identify more feminine or as neither masculine or feminine in terms of gender identity, but I am usually comfortable with he/they pronouns and swapping them up constantly is a hassle so I just stick with those.

This is usually fine because I don’t refer to myself in the third person very often, but it can cause issues if I’m, say, trying to write about myself in the third person or making a self-insert.

The reason why Spanish is an issue is because the grammar relies on the gender of the subject regardless of what perspective you’re speaking in and is mostly split between masc and femme terminology.

Not only does this mean it took me way longer to get a grasp on very basic grammar, but it also makes it much harder to just talk about myself without causing dysphoria. So far I’m just sticking with using masculine terms but it just doesn’t always feel right yk? It’s so easy in English, you just swap out the pronouns and the only one that messes with the grammar is they/them which just follows plural rules.

Idk man I’m sure I’ll figure something out, for now tho I’m just gonna focus on being able to communicate at all.

[linguistics-and-such]

That is a very reasonable price, indeed! Do you ship to Australia? :)

After over a decade of asking tens of thousands of people questions about their pronouns, I have put together this zine!

The thing is, I'm not sure how much to charge. So, I am interested to hear from anyone [who is very used to £GBP] who likes to be opinionated about these things. What do you think might be the going rate for a zine like this?

"What Are Your Pronouns?" A very specific guide to talking about trans people with confidence and respect

It's A5, 32 pages, printed on 100% recycled paper and card, and binding is hand-stitched.

My goal was to write a guide to using pronouns that I would have wanted:

“What do you mean by ‘pronouns’?”

Established pronouns (he, she, they)

Pronouns are a closed class (relevant grammar info about why learning new pronouns is harder than learning people's names)

Fun facts about pronouns and language (in some languages, there are no gendered personal pronouns!)

What do pronouns mean? (like, gender 'n' that)

Singular “they”

How to use singular “they” about a nonbinary person

How to mess up

Can I ask about pronouns? (TL;DR: probably)

Neopronouns (thon, xe, it)

When someone tells you they use neopronouns

It's kind of a beginner-to-advanced guide, aimed at people who are not at all familiar with trans issues but mean well and want to be respectful. More wordy than comicky.

So yeah, what would you expect to pay (in £GBP)? :) All opinions welcome!

[linguistics-and-such]

Why can't you count corn and sand?

Nouns like "corn" and "sand" are known as "uncountable nouns", or "mass nouns". They usually indicate that the noun in question is made up of a large number of something. For example, corn is made up of many kernels, and sand is made up of many grains.

If you want to count a mass noun, you usually have to do it indirectly with a unit of measurement. For example, you can say "four cobs of corn" or "ten grains of sand", but you don't tend to say "four corns" or "ten sands".

Unlike countable nouns, mass nouns cannot be modified with an indefinite article ("a" or "an"). Something like "a corn" or "a sand" is considered ungrammatical.

Countable nouns typically take the adjective "many" and plural verbs. "How many cats are there?"

Meanwhile, mass nouns typically take the adjective "much" and singular verbs. "How much money is there?"

In older English, countable nouns used to take "fewer" and "fewest", while mass nouns used to take "less" and "least". "There are fewer cats here now" and "There is less money here now." However, in modern English, "fewer" and "fewest" are rarely used, and "less" and "least" are considered correct for countable nouns as well: "There are less cats here now."

Note that mass nouns are not the same thing as countable nouns that have identical declensions for their singular and plural forms. The words "deer", "fish", and "sheep" don't change when made plural, but they can still be counted directly - eg, "one deer", "five fish", "seven sheep", etc. They can also still take indefinite articles - eg, "a deer", "a fish", etc. Furthermore, they are modified by "many" when plural, not "much"- eg, "many deer", "many sheep", etc.

As a fun side-note, all nouns in Japanese are mass nouns. In fact, counting can be quite difficult in Japanese due to the sheer number of counting suffixes they have, as well as the irregular declensions of certain numbers before the suffix is added:

* hitotsu (１つ) = one general thing

* hitori (１人) = one person

* ippiki (１匹) = one small animal

* ittou (１頭) = one large animal

* ichiwa (１羽) = one bird / one rabbit

* ichinichi (１日) = one day

* isshuu (１週) = one week

* hitotsuki (１月) = one month

* ichinen (１年) = one year

* issai (１才) = one year old

* ippon (１月) = one long and thin object

* ichimai (１枚) = one thin and flat object

* ikko (１個) = one small object

* hitotabi / ichido (１度) = one occurrence

* ikkai (１回) = one occurrence

* ikkai (１階) = one storey

* hitobako (１箱) = one box

* ippai (１杯) = one glassful / one spoonful

* issatsu (１冊) = one book

[linguistics-and-such]

Historically, people have come up with "he'er", "she'er", and "it'er" as gender-neutral pronoun options. But, as far as I've been able to find, no one has yet suggested "they'er". Why not? I think "they'er" is great!

[linguistics-and-such]

The nerdy term for these things is a false cognate. These are words that have the same meaning or a very similar meaning and appear to be related in terms of etymology, but aren't.

A really fun example is "emoji" and "emoticon". These words have the same meaning and appear to have similar etymological roots, but their roots are actually completely different. "Emoticon" is a portmanteau of "emotion" and "icon". "Emoji" is a compound word of "e" (Japanese for "painting" or "picture), and "moji" (Japanese for "character" or "letter").

Here is a really great article on false cognates.

hello! would you happen to be able to tell me about these similarities i found in some languages? first is the indonesian/malaysian "kah" or "ke," which i find to be similar to the japanese particle か "ka," in that both are appended to statements to turn them into questions. there's also the japanese あなた "anata," sometimes あんた "anta" in less formal situations, and the arabic أنت "ant(a)," which are both second-person pronouns. is there some link between these, or am i lookin' at false cognates here? thanks for taking the time to read this. love your blog!

i suspect both cases are coincidences. japanese is unrelated to both arabic and indonesian, so they don't have common ancestors that these forms would descend from. the question particle could be a borrowing depending on the historical contact situation (i don't know anything about this personally! it's pure speculation!), but pronouns are not a word class that typically gets borrowed between languages.

[linguistics-and-such]

Where did "they" come from?

"They" actually comes from Old Norse. In Old Norse, there was a masculine "they", a feminine "they", and a gender-neutral "they". The forms made use of the symbol "thorn" (þ), which is pronounced like the "th" in "thing" and "think".

* Subject: þeir (m), þær (f), þau (gn)

* Direct object: þá (m), þær (f), þau (gn)

* Indirect object: þeim (m, f, gn)

* Possessive: þeir(r)a (m, f, gn)

Note:

* Subject is "THEY go"

* Direct object is "I hugged THEM"

* Indirect object is "I gave THEM a cake"

* Possessive is "that's THEIR hat" / "that hat is THEIRS"

Old English actually used a much different set of pronouns for the 3rd-person plural before English adopted the pronouns from Old Norse:

* Subject: hīe

* Direct object: hīe

* Indirect object: heom

* Possessive: heora

Incidentally, Old Norse is also the origin of "hann" ("he") and "hon" ("she"), which have evolved to be used in many other languages. In Swedish, "han" is "he", and "hon" is "she". In Danish, "han" is "he", and "hun" is "she". Similarly, in Norwegian Bokmål, "han" is "he", and "hun" is "she". In Norwegian Nynorsk, "han" is "he", and "ho" is "she". "Hann" is also possibly the origin of "hän", which is the Finnish gender-neutral pronoun that can mean "he", "she", or "they" (singular).

Basically, we owe a lot of the pronouns we use today to Old Norse. Thanks, Old Norse!

[linguistics-and-such]

That's a really interesting idea, actually. As a side-note, another Tumblr user suggested resurrecting "gij" (the Dutch equivalent of "thou") to use as a gender-neutral singular 3rd-person pronoun. I don't know a lot of Dutch, but it seems like a cool idea. I do know a lot of English, though, so I feel more comfortable giving my two cents here.

Firstly, I think it would be better if we went with your second idea of using "thee", rather than "thou", as the subject. Not only does this fit in more nicely with "he" and "she", it's also easier to implement a neopronoun if its subject form and object form are the same. In addition to that, whenever "thou" appears in older texts, it would be less easy to confuse the ancient pronoun with the neopronoun.

* "Thou and I will go." <- ancient pronoun

* "Thee and I will go." <- neopronoun

I've seen "thee" and "thi" suggested as neopronoun options in the past. In the first case, the declensions were:

* thee, thim, ther, thers, thimself

In the second case, the declensions were:

* thi, thim, ther, thers, thimself

(Note that the first neopronoun set, "thee" / "thim", uses the voiced "th" (ð) that appears in words like "this" and "that", and the second neopronoun set, "thi" / "thim", uses the unvoiced "th" (θ) that appears in words like "thing" and "thick". Also, both neopronoun sets are designed to merge the various forms of "he" and "she" together.)

Going back to your idea, I also imagine that "thy" and "thine" would be more consistent in neopronoun-form than in ancient pronoun-form. To my understanding, in Old English, you used "thine" as the possessive adjective if it immediately preceded a word starting with a vowel (eg: "thine eyes", not "thy eyes"). We don't do that with "my" and "mine" today - we say "my eyes", not "mine eyes" - so it would make sense not to do it with "thy" and "thine" as well. Thus, "thine" as a neopronoun should only be used as a possessive pronoun, never as a possessive adjective.

It might also be worth considering changing the reflexive from "thineself" to "thyself", just so it's more consistent with "myself". Also, I think "thyself" is easier to say; "thineself" is a bit of tongue-twister. And, again, this would make it less likely to be confused with the ancient pronoun when it appears in old texts.

Overall, a really interesting idea for implementing a neopronoun. Thanks for sharing!

Edit: Oops! I went and did a thing. I have a weakness for tables. X_X

So I keep thinking, they/them notwithstanding as a perfectly fine solution on its own, that English already has an existing unused pronoun set that could easily fill the nonbinary pronoun gap that we keep trying to fill with e/em and ze/hir and bun/bunself, if we wanted to resurrect it.

Cause most neopronouns have at least one of the following issues:

unintuitive or non-obvious pronunciation

homophone with other words

unintuitive tenses

not obviously a pronoun

doesn't really fit in with the other pronoun sets

and of course, getting everyone to know about and agree to use a certain set is the biggest one

And while I can't solve the latter, and we get the new problem of making Thor sound like he's never talking to you directly instead of just being overly familiar/condescending in an old-fashioned way, I think there is some merit to bringing back thee/thine but as a third person singular pronoun this time.

Everyone already knows it's a pronoun and has a decent idea of how to pronounce and conjugate it, it doesn't overlap with any other words in writing or speech, it fits with the extant pronouns, since it was originally meant to be there.

he / him / his / his / himself she / her / her / hers / herself it / it / its / its / itself they / them / their / theirs / themself thou / thee / thy / thine / thyself

or

thee / thee / thy / thine / thineself if we wanted to parallel the others more and simplify a little.

[linguistics-and-such]

"Bro" isn't a pronoun. It's a bronoun. 😎

[linguistics-and-such]

If someone goes by no pronouns, you can also re-word sentences sometimes to avoid using pronouns as much.

* "Adam did it himself."

= "Adam did it alone."

* "Adam asked me if I saw his new kitten."

= "I was asked if I saw Adam's new kitten."

* "Adam loves peanut butter with his toast."

= "Adam loves peanut butter on toast."

The reflexive presents some difficulties when referring to people who don't use pronouns, but I honestly think the reflexive is annoying all the time. It's not a real case (unlike the other forms, namely nominative (subject), oblique (object), and genitive (possessive)).

The reflexive is a relatively new phenomenon in English (Old English didn't have it, as far as I know). Many languages lack it completely and get by with attaching suffixes or prefixes to verbs (eg: "Adam self-hit" or "Adam hit-self" instead of "Adam hit himself"). Some languages, like Japanese, use the same word for all pronouns' reflexives. So, in Japanese, "jibun" covers "myself", "ourselves", "yourself", "themselves", etc.

(Side-note: I also think the fact that English uses the same form for both the reflexive and the intensive is incredibly annoying and confusing.)

I think it would be better if English followed the patterns of other languages in the reflexive and intensive: either use the same word for all pronouns (or lack of pronouns, in this case), or use a verbal suffix or prefix to denote the form. That would make things much easier for everyone.

One last note! (Sorry, I'm rambling.) Another indication that the reflexive isn't a real case in English comes from the fact that you can get the same effect by simply using the possessive adjective, a space, and "self" (or "selves"). This usually only happens when there's an adjective in the middle of this construction, though.

See: "my best self", "our honest selves", "your wonderful self", etc.

Hello Dr. Linguistics!

I've recently been made aware of the concept of "prefered pronouns: none", as in, this person should not be referred to by ANY pronouns, and said person should only be referred to by name. Firstly, I just want to say that I dont mean for this to come across as an argument against 'no pronouns', I'm just new to the concept and trying to learn more about it. That said, what are your thoughts on this from a linguistics perspective?

It seems like it would be very awkward and difficult to form sentences that way. On the other hand, I also struggled with singular 'they' the first time I met someone who preferred it. After some getting used to it though, it has basically become my default. I don't personally know anyone that prefers no pronouns, so I'm not getting the exposure to it like I did with singular 'they', but it also seems like a much larger change to the language. Do you think "no pronouns" is something that can be practically applied in English, or is it too at odds with the grammatical structure to catch on?

I also wonder if there are languages that lack pronouns altogether. As far as I know Japanese kind of has pronouns, but the grammatical structure allows them to be dropped when it can be implied by context. Do you know of any precedents for the lack of pronouns in other languages?

Thanks for your time!

no pronouns, like gender-neutral (in english) or neopronouns, just takes practice! it can feel a little unwieldy at first, but your brain will get used to it eventually, because it's really not at odds with english grammatical structure — just with our status quo of pronoun use. (a pronoun is simply standing in for the noun, of course! they fill the same syntactic and semantic niche.)

"pro-drop" is very different from lacking pronouns in the underlying structure. i'm not personally aware of any languages entirely without pronouns, but there are a lot of languages out there, so as usual, if anybody knows of a case please share!

[linguistics-and-such]

I actually love "gij". I don't use neopronouns (I typically go by "he" / "him" in English and "hij" / "hem" in Dutch). But I'm sympathetic to people who want to be referred to with gender-neutral pronouns in Dutch because of the "zij" problem you mentioned.

I've previously proposed "nij" / "nem" as a gender-neutral option, but I don't know enough Dutch to know how well this would work. Doesn't "nij" mean "new" or "curious" in some Dutch dialects?

I think "gij" should be a normalised pronoun in Dutch.

I am aware I have no dutch mutuals, so noone will understand this. So I will explain, the entire situation at hand.

In the Netherlands, there's no easy to use genderneutral pronoun. We use she->"zij" and he->"hij", the problem? The Dutch variant of they is also "zij". You could potentially use hun and hen, but those mean their and them. She/her->"Zij/haar", they/them->"Zij/hen", he/him->"hij/hem". As you can see, it's not distinct. Kind of difficult to use. I see many Dutch genderneutral people in real life who don't know what to do with their pronouns. And people who have difficulty using it, as it's not as normal to use in the Netherlands. It's less usual to use non-singular pronouns for a singular people here, while in English you use those anyway if you don't know someone's gender.

The solution? Handed to us on a silver platter by our Belgian neighbours. Instead of "hij" and "zij". They use "gij/ge" for everyone. And as much as Dutch people make fun of them for it because it sounds a little odd yet loveable. It's the perfect solution, and I think "gij" pronouns should be normalised in the Dutch language.

Thank you for reading my ted talk.