How will they/them challenge binary genders in Romance languages?
Linguists must find the they/them idea remarkable. Just two single-syllable words with a slash, powerfully and consistently practised by the mass public, challenge age-old ideas of genders. Truly a demonstration of how simple language use can spark colossal movements.
It is hence ironic that language itself can also be the barrier that slows down social movements with the best intentions. Gender in language sparks a sensitive line of communication, especially in modern times when a binary, either-or, strictly male-female chasm doesn't seem to quite fit into the gender narrative anymore. Romance languages such as French, Spanish, and Italian have traditionally displayed an arbitrary design of gendered pronouns - tables are females in Spanish and Portuguese but male in Italian and French, books are males across most Romance languages for some reason, and presidents are … well… apparently always male (-e ending with a masculine pronoun), according to older patriarchal beliefs.
If objects can be assigned gender like so, then human gender nouns seem to be a no-brainer for our early ancestors who spoke gendered languages – those born male would have the masculine ending, and those born female would naturally have a female one.
The Applied Linguist Lightbulb Insights:
'Sex' and 'gender' are not exactly synonyms. 'Sex' is more of a biological concept (your biological sex at birth), whereas 'gender' is more of a social construct (e.g., identifying as a certain gender over time).
But of course, such ideas don't live long unchallenged today. Whatever you identify with, pronouns are welcome in North America and Western Europe - sometimes even expected. As the LGBTQ movement gains power, voices of gender neutrality mean that language has to adapt, and they have to adapt promptly.
So, Romance languages of binary gender, how are you adapting?
In Spanish for instance, they/them traditionally translates to ellos or ellas depending on the sex of the crowd- which as one can imagine, isn't ideal when describing gender neutrality because the -os and -as ending still hints at masculinity and femininity. Despite this, people who identify as they/them would sometimes alternate between ellos and ellas.
But languages are ultimately created by the mass public and there is no need to confine within the lexicon passed on by ancestors. Non-binary folks have therefore been creative with variations of the word, creating new ones such as 'elle' in Spanish (still not 100% given that it means 'her' in French and 'iel' and 'ellui' in French - new pronouns that do not obviously give masculine or feminine vibes. How quickly it picks up across different generations and regions, though, is another challenge ahead.
The Applied Linguist Lightbulb Insights:
Why do some languages have three genders, others only two, and some, none?
Many Western European languages have Latin as their common ancestor, but languages developed quite differently over the years. German, for instance, retained a lot of original features of Latin, such as the three-gender system and also multiple cases in grammatical use (dative/genitive). To the west and south of Europe, the neutral pronoun was eventually dropped to simplify speech. The English language also used to carry gender, but the Norman and Viking settlers in England gradually simplified the language to settle into society more easily.
Pronouns in Other Languages
The concept of gender pronouns, even in LQBTQ-friendly countries, is not necessarily picking up in other languages as quickly as in the West. It isn't necessarily always linked to religion and beliefs though - language design can also play a role. Chinese and many of its dialects have phonetically used the word tā to refer to a singular third person, so in speech, one can't truly decipher a third person's gender unless obvious clues are given in context. In written form, though, Chinese does have a masculine tā 他 and a feminine tā 她, although arguably it still doesn't have a tā for the non-binary.
El, Ella, and Ell(o), Ell(e), Elli?
Whatever word form is chosen, there is one thing that remains certain: representation of gender, along with society, is likely to evolve in everyday language - simply an expected course to run under the influence of popular media. Whether it be El, Ella, and Ell(o), Ell(e), or Elli, this movement won't cease to ellui-minate either-or concepts of gender.