There’s definitely some additional nuance (like a pronouns in bio/username situation) but this should cover the broad needs of anyone who is approaching this with good faith.
There’s definitely some additional nuance (like a pronouns in bio/username situation) but this should cover the broad needs of anyone who is approaching this with good faith.
Some non binary people use the pronoun “they” in arabic, but unlike english it is exclusively meant for plural. And in arabic, verbs also are conjugated with amount, So you just can’t say “They ate” in a singular form, you have to explicitly mark “ate” in plural.
It’d be like saying “they ate(plural verb)”. It sounds very weird but there’s not much better.
There’s a similar — though very localised — thing in English with “themself.”
The singular form is used, but it’s far less common than the plural form “themselves.” I often hear “themselves” used to refer to one non-binary person and it always sounds weird.
I guess we have to work with what we have. Is there an alternative in Arabic, like neopronouns?
Your comment made me try to think of one, and all I got was a headache.
In arabic everything is gendered. Even the most simple pronoun “I” changes the form of the sentence based on your gender (ie masculine: “ana ju’an” fem: “ana ju’ana”
Even the numbers and verbs are gendered. To try to add a new gender would be rethinking the entire language.
But in Arabic masculine pronouns are considered normal. Even with feminine objects like the sun, you can use a masculine pronoun “hua kabir” He (it) is big. So most enbies I know of just use masculine pronouns. There may be an alternative I don’t know of. It’s an interesting yet complex topic.
Isn’t there a dual case (as in, specifically for two of something) in Arabic? Or is that primarily a formal thing?
There is. It’s absolutely necessary, no exceptions at all. It’s one of the only languages that really use it. It just adds to the complexity lol