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In a genderless and sexless society, what would pronouns be based on? (lemmy.blahaj.zone)
submitted 2 months ago by to c/asklemmy@lemmy.world
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[–] [S] 5 points 2 months ago (2 children)

A distinction based on age. Different pronouns for children, adults, elderly or relative to the speaker's age.

That's the one I thought about after posting.

A distinction based on status and respect. A bit similar to what Japanese does with honorific name suffixes but in pronoun form.

It could actually be the evolved version of the age-based pronouns. The pronouns for older people become the pronouns for respectable individuals and stuff like that.

A distinction based on proximity. One set of pronouns for a person near the speaker, one for a person near the listener and one for a person somewhere else. Japanese does something similar for things (これ kore, それ sore, あれ are) but as far as I know, not for people.

A distinction based on familiarity. One set of pronouns to refer to close friends and family, one for acquaintances, one for strangers.

I like these weirdly practical pronouns! I can imagine them in a language of a highly rational alien species.

One of the conlangs I'm occasionally working on has pronouns based on the shortened form of names: the first syllable of the person's name plus a suffix. Plus one set of pronouns for if you don't know (or don't want to mention) a person's name.

I'd argue that shortened names aren't pronouns. Like, "Bob" isn't a pronoun after all. But that's a cool idea nonetheless.

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  • [–] 5 points 2 months ago*

    I’d argue that shortened names aren’t pronouns. Like, “Bob” isn’t a pronoun after all. But that’s a cool idea nonetheless.

    Counter-argument: the only two reasons why "Bob" isn't a pronoun are a) because English has other pronouns and b) because not every name has a form that's short enough to use in place of pronouns.

    I would say it's fully plausible that a language develops proper pronouns (with case markings and everything else you would expect) based on a rule that works with any name. As an arbitrary example, a Robert, Robin, Ronald and Rocinante might all use roki for the nominative case, ros for the genitive case and ron for the accusative case. In the absence of other pronoun systems, that would be indistinguishable from what you imagine as pronouns. Add a few centuries of sound shifts and you get something really interesting.

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  • [–] 3 points 2 months ago

    I like these weirdly practical pronouns! I can imagine them in a language of a highly rational alien species.

    This is how it works in Armenian - their personal pronouns are genderless and based on deixis (here, there, over there).

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