Pronouns: Little Words That Say a Lot | Otherwords
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- Опубликовано: 9 май 2024
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Pronouns may be little, but they say a lot, and they're always changing!
Otherwords is a PBS web series on Storied that digs deep into this quintessential human trait of language and fınds the fascinating, thought-provoking, and funny stories behind the words and sounds we take for granted. Incorporating the fıelds of biology, history, cultural studies, literature, and more, linguistics has something for everyone and offers a unique perspective into what it means to be human.
Host: Erica Brozovsky, Ph.D.
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I love it when my boss says "we need to get this done" when of course they mean just me
"You said "we". So, when are you helping?" ^^
Painfully relatable
I don't think you can expect any help from Dr. Brozovsky on that.
Legendary comment 👏🏾
Perfect :)
As a Texan, “y’all” is itself a pronoun rather than a contraction of “you all”. Because sometimes we gotta say weird stuff like “all of y’all”.
Side note: some languages distinguish between inclusive and exclusive “we”. Pretty cool.
We often drop the “of” as well & just go with “all y’all” .
Same for your neighbors over here in Arizona c:
I'm from the PNW, and definitely use "all of y'all" to indicate EVERY SINGLE ONE OF YOU in a more adamant way that "y'all" on its own can convey.
@@KristenRowenPliske Same here in Florida
I always love blowing the minds of my less cultured friends by informing them that y'all is singular.
“-which Shakespeare took full advantage of.”
The humor is everything in videos with Erica lol 😂😂
343 likes but only 1 comment?
let me fix that.
Heh?
I'm a school librarian. I used to always say WE when talking about library happenings in emails or newsletters, like the library is a plural unit when it's really only me. "WE are cataloging this week." "WE are getting ready for inventory." "WE checked out 100 books today!" It was a conscious rhetorical manipulation to make the reader feel more engaged and involved with the library, but I started to feel like that was undervalueing the work I do, especially this year when 1:1 technology has taken over my entire job (especially especially since they still refuse to rehire my clerk position.) WE didn't check out 400 laptops in a month and troubleshoot 300 more. I DID THAT. Alone. With little to no help. I'm still working on breaking the habit, but I'm trying to show myself more respect.
@@michaelmurdock4607 Thank you. Politicians here are making it harder every day. It's been a rough couple of days. I genuinely appreciate your support. ❤️
@@purcascade Freedom's disappeared in much of America. I've heard from teachers being scared to teach what they have always taught, or want to teach, being happy not teaching certain subjects, etc. It's a scary time.
It's so interesting that "You" used to be more formal and had much better staying power than the informal thee and thou!
YOU most definitely are providing some quality learning content right now 👌
It's very often (at least in European languages) that formal singular form is just a plural form. Like if it is a symbol of respect to treat a person as many people. Hence the mentioned 'royal We' or 'you' as singular formal pronoun. You can find traces of it in eg. German or Slavic languages as well
That's not the only instance of a formal word replace its informal equivalent. For example the German word for woman (Frau) stems from frouwe, which was reserved for married, noble woman.
Anyone knows more examples?
@@styrax7280 Words for women often have fascinating histories like that. 'Brid' in English used to refer to a noblewoman; it later mutated into 'bird', which is used in the vernacular to refer to any woman, but is now widely considered to be derogatory.
@@styrax7280
Ma'am basically went through the same mutation. It comes from French Madame or "my lady". Now it's used for any woman above early 20s-ish.
Same for the young/unmarried equivalent Miss.
@@styrax7280 você replacing tu in Brazilian Portuguese
In Tagalog, there’s the 3rd person singular ‘siya’ that’s gender neutral, meaning either ‘he or she’. There’s also an inclusive and exclusive 1st person plural ‘tayo’, (we, including the one spoken to) and ‘kami’ (we, but the one spoken to is not included). There’s also a singular and plural 2nd person ‘ikaw/ka’ for singular and ‘kayo’ for plural. But just like in French ‘kayo’ is also used as a polite singular (like ‘tu-vous’).
Then there’s also ‘kita’ which means something like ‘from me to you’ or ‘each other’. Like in ‘Mahal kita’, meaning ‘I love you’ or ‘Love from me to you’. But I’m still learning the language, so it’s a little difficult to wrap my head around sometimes.
Filipino is hellbent on keeping the gender secret sometimes LOL. The Tagalog "asawa" just translate to "spouse". Heard it's the same in Visayan where it's just "bana". There's no separate words for "husband" or "wife". Same goes for son/daughter, and niece/nephew, etc. That plus the gender-neutral pronouns can make conversations a bit confusing sometimes.
Up until you said you were learning the language, I thought you were a native speaker. You explained it so well!
Interesting, in NZ Māori, the third person singular is "ia" and is also gender neutral
Bahala na si Batman.
Oh you will have to analyze A LOT to learn our language. Even I’m still tripping up on other stuff in it. Also hellish verbs. That’s the kicker.
I wish you good luck with learning Tagalog!
"Otherwords" has to be my favorite in the Storied series. I am always so excited when I see a new otherwords episode in my subscription. I know it's going to be very interesting, and this one did not disappoint. Great job!
It also has the best intro of all the series. I'm always moving and whistling to the tune of the intro.
"...must not be much of a history buff" could apply to so many instances of pedantic arguments over language. One example, people will claim that Electrocuted can only mean executed by electricity when it could mean only harmed by electricity way back in 1889, right around the time when the word was first coined.
To be fair modern usage generally restricts it to harmed via high voltage. Though this might be the bias from my job working on an electrical plant. Day one safety lecture was a senior supervisor that ignored proper procedure and electrocuted himself.
I've only ever heard it used to refer to receiving any kind of electrical shock personally. Using it only to refer to being killed by it seems way too unnecessarily specific and makes you wonder what everything else that's literally still just being electrocuted should be called. Should we invent a whole new word for what used to just be electrocuting? Since just being killed by electricity is electrocuting, by this logic maybe we need different words for how harmed by electricity you are. Ppl who wanna gatekeep language really completely forget context exists or something we really don't need that many words for some things.
@@kaydenstuff Same. If I stick my finger in an electrical outlet and receive a shock I was electrocuted, but not electrocuted to death. I've never heard someone claim that it only referred to people who are killed or exposed to high voltage. Must be a regional thing.
@@griffenspellblade3563 I am not an electrician (or trained as one or any trade for that matter) and this is how I understand it.
I've never seen it used as an exclusively execution term. Every time I've seen/heard "electrocution" it's always been just any form of receiving a (usually dangerous) electrical shock. Actually now that I think about it, I've never even heard "electrocution" used as a term for execution at all. For that it's usually been "death by electric chair" or some variation.
As a Dutch person I've always wondered why English doesn't have a formal version of "You". In Dutch we have 'jij' (informal), and 'U' (formal). 'U' is so similar to 'You', so it makes so much sense now! Also the fact that 'U' is even used as 'you' in English as well
And "thou" seems to be the same as the German "du" and even might have been pronounced the same way, given that "house" used to be "hus". My theory is that it all comes from the Saxons, who on their way to England had to pass dutch territory where they picked up the formal "U" :P
It was a feature in Old English, but dropped afterward.
Aush'dspleift! I studied in Leiden a semester.. Russian вы (vlee) formal ты (tlee) informal.. I grew up in northern Michigan and New Mexico so had French and Spanish around as well.. thought English efficient if not polite.. bedankt, tot ziens ))
english people: you can't just contract words, that's wrong!
dutch: u mad?
I think a lot of languages do eg. "on" and "nous" in french
Maybe it wasn't meant seriously, but I found three sentences with no pronouns
2:25 Of course, there was a fuss.
2:27 People are wary of change.
4:00 Gender aside, personal pronouns are an interesting bunch.
The third sentence has the word "pronoun", so I am not sure if that counts. But you are right, there were several sentences with no pronouns.
From the delivery, I would transcribe the first two timestamps as one sentence with a semicolon. Assuming this matches the actual script, that's probably "the" sentence, if we take the word "pronouns" itself as a gotcha.
"There", the way it's used in the first sentence, is a pronoun.
@@NovaSaber You know, I thought that was incorrect, but looking it up, "there" technically counts as a pronoun when used in that fashion since it is "used as a function word to introduce a sentence or clause" as per Merriam Webster. Just goes to show that the definition of "pronoun" itself is actually a lot wider than simply the words we use to refer to specific people (or groups of people). Learn something new every day!
Yes, I was hoping someone actually took the time to find out 😅
I for sure lean on "we" when someone in my team at work made a mistake and I don't want to single them out. It really irks me when people use it negatively though. Like, "we have come to this conclusion" and I'm like, "no, mate, that is definitely not MY opinion."
I do that too! :D I don't want to single them out and I don't want them to beat themselves up about it; stuff happens.
The example of we and they regarding sports teams is so spot on. I think about it every time I tweet about my teams. I try to say we as much as possible but sometimes I consciously say they to distance myself from a particularly bad performance. 😂
First off, I wanna say this isn't an attack or anything just throwing out thoughts here since this is a learning space.
But, I've always given a sideways look toward "we" in the context of fan-speech regarding sports teams; just because I feel like the fan investment in a team to the extent of referring to it in a "we" sense has always struck me as a false sense of involvement stemming from an individual's parasocial relationship with said team. And the development of this false relationship is cultivated and reinforced by sports/team marketing companies because producing that stronger sense of involvement leads to greater spending, sports fans /*are*/ the customers after all, so if you make them believe they're part of the team they'll spend more money to support it.
@@A.Filthy.Casual yup! "We" is a really powerful pronoun in that way. And some languages have different words for "we" that specify whether it includes the speaker and the listener, or just the speaker. The study of how humans establish ingroup vs outgroup membership is a major area of study in social psychology.
@@A.Filthy.Casual I feel the same way about the use of "we" in sports. My bf and his friends always use "we" when they say things like "we won!" or "we're going against this other team, so i hope we can do well", and it kinda makes me roll my eyes. I get it, sorta, but it's so weird to involve oneself in such a personal sense when you're literally continents away, and you're not doing anything at all. I find it odd, but it's a fun thing to analyze. Sadly, as you say, it is used in marketing a lot, so it's not always just a nice, collective feeling, but a way of selling things. Gotta be weary of that.
We win. They lose 😆
Or when talking about children. "Our son has applied to X university" "Oh great, your son didn't pass". 😂
In Indonesian language, we have two types of "we".
"Kita" means the locuteur and the interlocuteur.
"Kami" means the locuteur and another party other than the interlocuteur.
But the latter is mostly used in formal register so quite often we use "kita" for both contexts, even though it is not gramatically correct and may be ambigous.
Are you sure that is not Tagalog? 😅
@@ibvghgfvbnbcALL Austronesian languages from Rapa Nui in Chile to Malagasy in Africa, from Maori up south to Taiwan down north, have a distinction between "kita" and "kami", but not between "her" and "him".
I am learning English and I just found this channel. A huge treasure is in there. Also, It's a great video for those who are confused about gender language. I didn't realize what is 'they/them' for a single person until this video. Thank you so much.
I assume from your name you speak Turkish. You use the same pronoun "o" for both she, he, and singular they in Turkish, right? I think that's really cool!
Gather round friends and listen. I bring knowledge of pronouns from my nation.
Tagalog has certain pronouns that most other languages don't. Apart from having 2nd person singular (ikaw, iyo) and plural (kayo, inyo), it also has two types of first person plural, inclusive 1st person plural (tayo, atin) and exclusive 1st person plural (kami, amin), indicating whether or not the person spoken to is part of the "us".
And while you may have heard that Tagalog doesn't have gendered pronouns, this wasn't always the case. I learned recently that there used to be gendered 3rd person singular pronouns*, but like how "you" came to be used for all 2nd person pronouns in English, gendered 3rd person singular pronouns were dropped and the gender neutral 3rd person singular pronouns (siya, kanya) came to be used for all 3rd person singular pronouns.
*I remember learning what they were, but my mind must've filed them as unimportant, cause I have no idea what they are right now
damn i never learned about the gendered third person singular pronouns!! wala man lang namention even in passing :o
edit: i think its also really fun to mention the fact that we use the second person plural as the "second person singular but with respect" :D
As a hungarian native I can just say hold my beer...
I wish english would get rid of gender specific pronouns. It feels like a status thing to me, part of ye old patriarchy.
The intro here was magnificent, immediately hooked
We also have a similar situation with English’s “you” and “thee”. We use 2nd person singular for those we’re in equal standing with (ikaw, iyo) and 2nd person plural for those in authority or people who are senior to the speaker (kayo, inyo).
It’s one of the ways you can tell if someone’s well-versed in the language or not since it’s kind of an unwritten rule. I’m still not the best in Tagalog and I remember there were awkward moments when I called my teachers by “ikaw”
I'm Trini and just wanted to say I feel seen and heard! It's active anticolonial work here to get people to recognise Creole English is a language and not 'broken' English. When you started talking about plural you I thought immediately of 'alyuh' but didn't think it would be an example... then it was. Appreciate your work!
Ent? I love seeing us represented like this:)
I'm sure your Standard American English is much better than my Trinidadian English.
Creoles are pidgins not languages
They still lack structure and technical vocabulary of their own
A science book written in creole will sound like the mother language
Ma native language is Mauritian Creole
You can hear the french in it once the subject matter is technical
When my older sister was in grade school, she was told it was wrong to use they when you didn't know and should defer to he. She felt that was stupid and refused to change.
It's also simply not true.
I can remember being taught the same thing in school.
I was told the same thing, but the convention was to use "he or she" which is just clunkier than using the actual noun. The only case where it's an issue is it you're talking about a plural and an unknown singular in the same couple sentences. But you have the same issue when referring to multiple same-gender singulars.
"He" as gender-neutral is a far newer linguistic innovation in English than singular they, and sounds incorrect.
Great video! Minor aside: the Irish yiz is very Dublin, and is said with a short i, like in 'is' or 'kiss'. There's also youse, but ye is the most common second person plural.
And don't forget yourse guys haha
My Mom says that one pretty often to
@@sgvincent100 Youse is just got a powerful sound to it XD
I must admit, I find myself using singular they/them now almost as a default, especially in textual chat where I don't know the gender of the person I'm referring to. My only real quibble is using themselves as a singular; despite my spell-checker not liking it, I use themself.
Great video Dr. B. If in all the comment thread mud wrestling that's about to happen, noone else says it I will. It was concise; to the point and thoughtful. Your videos on Storied are some of my faves.
+
I think our job today is to make sure this is the top comment. I agree. Many people don't understand what a pronoun is.
@@bensonprice4027 Auwww thank you! To be honest I think Galvaton deserves top spot. Great humour is an even stronger force for positivity than raw sincerity. I'm just glad the Storied team got to see a few nice comments. And I'm happy they at least saw it ❤
I'm currently learning a language that almost doesn't have gendered words and only geneder neutral pronouns. It's heaven!
What language might that be? I'm in a quest of learning new languages lol
@@Nick-dx2pt Mapudungun.
Y'all might be fussing over pronouns, but wait until you start to learn my language that the use of pronouns is so big that you have to juggle at least 5 version of "I" each day based on social context.
As a native English-speaker, the mere idea makes my head hurt. But then, you almost certainly don't have the arcane, obsolete and all too frequently enigmatic or cryptic spelling 'rules' we deal with every day, either.
Also, respect. you're clearly far better at English than I am at any other language, and it's not nearly an easy one to learn.
I don't think "y'all" gets much use among the Māori in Aotearoa New Zealand, "yous" is certainly common.
Little Shakespeare popping up in your videos always makes me smile.
After studying Chinese (Mandarin, more specifically) for quite some time, I must say that I feel grateful that Chinese has a character that allows you to automatically make something singular plural (们, men). Me and languages such as Spanish, in which I have to memorize all certain weird and wacky forms of "you" and grammar structures don't mix. to be fair, it could be because I've been out of college since 2017 and as such, I don't have the time or patience to learn another language without being reminded of the times that I've been harassed by my family and so-called friends for thinking that I could do more than teach with a BA in English in order to make money. In any case, awesome video! I never realized how powerful pronouns can be. Now I understand why "they" can be both singular and plural contrary to what the Chinese originally thought of it as.
Have a look at parts of speech in Finnish and be thankful you only had Spanish to deal with. ;)
@@thekaxmax I’ll keep that in mind, thanks! And speaking of Finnish, I can only hope that Finland would still be around with Putin being loco cabesa right now.
I think Japanese has that too, it's tachi (達). What's cool about this is that it can be added not only to pronouns, but names, as well. So instead of "I called Jamie and her friends over for dinner", you can just say "I called Jamie-tachi over for dinner". Can 'men' do that in Chinese also?
@@m.s.5370 Sorta?
These I'm sure work:
Pronoun: singlular
Pronoun+们: plural
(你: you
你们: y'all)
noun: singlular
noun+们: plural
(工人: worker
工人们: workers)
I'm not sure about this though:
name: singlular
name+们: plural
Another thing I appreciate in Chinese is “it” “she” and “he” are all pronounced Ta. There was no distinction in written language between “he” and “she” until a poet invented one Chinese Hanzi to specifically refer to “she” in the 50s.
I started using "they" as a singular pronoun decades ago when it became clear that there were many situations that I didn't know a person's gender, and using the wrong one could be awkward. I did some research on the usage of a "singular they," and though not common, it wasn't grammatical unheard of or incorrect. Over the years, it has become more widely used, and I think that's a good idea. 👍 Thanks
Beyond being respectful of people's identities, it's definitely more clunky than saying "he or she" every time.
Remember when singular they meant it was *either* a man or a woman?
Pepperidge farm remembers.
When in doubt, go neutral. My first name in Europe is sometimes more associated with men than women. I understand when mistakes are made, but I think most of us get our feathers ruffled a bit when we get called by the wrong gender pronoun. If we're not sure what that is.. it's great that we have options.
People who get butthurt over pronouns are just hilarious. Good way to make a mountain out of a mole hill
It is better than the rule that my English teacher taught me: the pronoun for an unidentified person was he. This was becasue all the default nouns are male.
When I started studying English I was astonished “you” could be used in singular and plural, because in Portuguese we pretty much use “S” all the time to represent plural (imagine Yous 😂)
I think in some dialects it is used lol
I don't even HAVE pronouns.
Oh, wait, there they are!
Left 'em on the nightstand again, silly me.
They had us in the first half, not gonna lie.
Dr.B is awesomeness!! Topics well researched and explained so well! Otherwords is the best!!
The example I always give is “if someone calls, tell them to leave a message” implying no gender but not assuming there are multiple people calling you on one phone
📞👯👯👯
It would be "Did [Vince] tell Archibald that Archibald's mother is looking for Archibald?"
You is a pronoun.
I think that speaking without pronouns is very common in Japanese.
It's pretty common to create a sentence without pronouns. You'd have a phrase like "hazukashi desu" which would translate as "I'm shy" but would literally be "is shy".
This can leave some ambiguity that's understood in context. I saw a door sign (reposted online) that said "deguchi wa nai desu" and it was translated as "there is no exit" instead of "not the exit". They're both technically correct - it was literally "exit is [negative]".
On the other hand, Japanese has a plethora of pronouns indicating gender, age and social position. There's a lot that can be said in a couple words.
It is, and it can frequently come across as stiff, and either very formal or impolite depending on the context.
Yes, Japanese very rarely uses third person pronouns (it can be argued that the language doesn’t actually have any, though there are words that can be used in a similar way), but it has a broad array of first person pronouns. Though as you noted, it’s very common to drop the subject of a sentence if it can reasonably be inferred from context.
That’s interesting how someone in authority uses the word ‘we’ when speaking to their subordinate. Great informative video, Dr. B. 👍
David Landsay used ae/aer as a gender neutral pronoun in his science fantasy book Voyage to Arcturus in 1920. Always thought that was cool for the time, even if obviously it didn't exactly catch on.
As a Trinidadian thank you for brining up allyuh, it's so fun to say and our dialect is so cool.:)
2:41 i agree with him. The fact that different regions have ways of differentiating singular and plural you shows that we needed thy and thou.
It’s interesting how the most polite pronoun was the one to survive in English, when in German it looks like the informal one will eventually replace the formal one
I'm interested (learning german) - Do you mean "ihr" will replace "Sie"?
This is the first time I've seen someone say that the singular they was originally only used for an unknown person. I had noticed it on my own before, but couldn't find a reference to that usage online. Like the video said, it's only recently that singular they has been used for a known person as well.
So she didn’t say it was “only” used for an unknown person. Only that it was used for unknown persons or persons of unidentified gender. And then stated that today we use it to talk about known persons as well. That’s not quite the same statement. For instance, in her example about the soldiers, the author could have used a gendered pronoun there bc it’s likely the soldiers were male. But they still chose “they.”
@@UgUg15 True. Basically just saying it originally when it was used, it contained a degree of ambiguity, whereas now it may or may not contain that ambiguity depending on how it is used
Yeah, the first known use of "they" a singular for a known person isn't much more than two centuries old.
Fun fact: 'Usted' in Spanish comes from the constraction of 'Vuestra merced' (Your Grace)
Antes de eso el 'Vos' era más popular
2:38 my favourite line
"they/them" linguist here.
I really love that they differentiated btwn the definite & indefinite singular "they". So often well-meaning ppl who know that, say, Chaucer "used singular they" ignore the actual shift in language that has happened when singular "they" is now used to refer to a single, definite person. Fellow "they/them" linguist Kirby Conrod describes this shift as a "definiteness shift" bc it shifted from being used strictly in indefinite contexts (where the referent is unknown) to either indefinite or definite (where the particular referent is known).
While a lot of ppl making the argument that "singular they is really old, actually" generally mean well, imo our arguments for the legitimacy of nonbinary ppl, nonbinary genders, & the personal pronouns they use should be grounded in accuracy & grammatical specificity. And quite frankly, language changes; society & our cultural ideas of gender change; & imo that's all there is to it.
-- Michael-Giuliana
(they/them)
I'd rather have it when people use "themself" instead of "themselves" to make it more clear if it's singular or plural.
@@romanski5811 I'm a linguist, not a fortune teller, so idk whether "themselves" or "themself" will stick around as the dominant reflexive form. I can see more issues w/ "themself" bc it does represent a deviation from current reflexive forms, but it's not that weird & it's easier to adapt functional vocabulary like this than to create it whole-cloth.
Interestingly, if "themself" does stick around as a reflexive form, there would be a strong argument that both forms for singular they are actually in their own agreement class distinct from the plural. But we'll check in in 200 years, ig.
@@spuriusbrocoli4701
Oh, I should also add that once it gets started to be added to the tables in English class, then "themself" serves itself up on a platter quite naturally. I hope people will make it useful when editing the tables for pronouns.
people shouldnt hate on this just because the topic they took, this video is awesome, well made and i enjoyed hearing this person talking, im interested on hearing about more words, cuz as you can see, words have a lot of power on people
also im learning english so thank you.
Unfortunately, the type of folk who hate on videos like these are too bull-headed to consider anything other position
Like DoubleMonk (Love that tag) said. Also I highly doubt even half of thoae who will go off about unsubscribing even were fans in the first place. There is a fascinating subset who deliberately spin themselves into knots to find material they actively don't enjoy/are willing to learn from.
@@Firegen1, thanks
@@Firegen1 I mean, as someone who is an OG to this channel, i literally subscribed when there were only Monstrum, if you check the views you can easily see that most people dont care about these type of videos. A lot of the subscribers( myself included) only stay subscribed because of Monstrum.
@@Xiol02 im also here thanks to monstrum, this is my first video abot words, i dont know why youtube didnt bring out these words videos and i enjoyed prtty much, great content they have here, im now watching all of them
I’m so glad you talked about neopronouns!! I use them, and sometimes I feel like my pronouns aren’t real. But hearing what you had to say about neopronouns made me feel validated. Thank you!
@Revo 2100 If no one cares, then why did you say no one cares?
@Revo 2100 you replying to the comment kinda makes it seem like you care ngl
If you don't care, dont reply. Not that hard.
@Revo 2100 I care and clearly you do too
I feel like when a server or other persons similar to that uses the word "we" He's trying to make it feel like he's included in the group of people doing the activity but if the person says "you" It's usually in a place where you don't have to interact with that person as much.
In my language there's a separate singular and plural for "you" and "your". To be formal, we use the plural since it's less direct.
Aahh, a new Otherwords always brings me joy ! Lovely video as always on a very interesting topic ! (Hopefully no ones gets stuck in "George Fox" mode too much down here, pronouns are lovely and so is this episode !)
I'm a Trinidadian and the way she says "allyuh" is so funny lol
How do you pronounce it?
@@SquirrelNutkins we say it like ollyuh
In middle school I had a crush on a girl I lived somewhere where that isn t quite that strange, I moved somewhere where i knew it was and I referred to her as "them"
I remember studying french as a kid gendered words was so difficult to understand
I can kinda relate to your pain. My native language is Portuguese, which is gendered, but this doesn't make learning other gendered languages easier. For instance, I also studied French, and for a long time it felt EXTREMELY weird to write many things, because the genders were (for seemingly no reason) the OPPOSITE of those in Portuguese, despite the words themselves being very similar both in form and in meaning.
English's also more convenient than both Portuguese and French in a lot of ways. For example, in English one can easily use compound words (e.g thought-provoking) to describe things, and no one will find that weird. Sometimes, even words that were literally invented just now will be understood without issue.
Disclaimer:
I'm NOT saying that I find my language, or any language, inherently "uglier" or "more/less evolved" than any other, just that I personally enjoy writing (or even thinking) in English more than I do in Portuguese, because it's literally easier for me to do so in the former than in the latter.
i get that it makes some kind of sense to say, but hearing "we're pregnant" always makes my eye twitch lmao
If partner and I for some reason decide to birth babies (instead of adopt), I'd want us both to be pregnant just so that we can say "we're pregnant" and see how long it takes people to figure out it's both of us.
(Don't worry, we definitely plan to adopt 😁)
I always try to speak in a way that wont offend anyone. It's the right thing to do, and it only takes an extra two seconds to think about. (This is actually helpful when writing emails. Everyone should take a few extra moments to think about what they are writing and who they are writing to) You're not a 'liberal' if you don't want to make someone feel bad, you are a decent human being.
Anyone find the pronoun-less sentence yet?
That's quite a way to make your audience watch your video a second time. Kudos!
0:17
Oh lord the comments on this one
Thank you so much. I'm a trans guy, and really appreciate this. I think Gordan Ramsay's approach with Robert on Hell's Kitchen is exactly the way to handle being told that you've been addressing someone incorrectly. I pass well, but have always understood that people don't always get it. But taking someone else seriously and respecting that makes a huge difference. Also nonbinary people have always existed throughout history and across cultures!
I'd love to watch that episode
@@alymaldonado I *think* it's " Chef Robert Has An Emotional Chat With Gordon Ramsay | Hell's Kitchen " (edit: Yeah it's absolutely that, hit that up on youtube)
Gordon Ramsey was sensitive?
If I could choose my pronouns it would be "supreme commander of the galactic fleet/emperor of the eternal empire"
Kinda defeats the purpose of a pronoun if its longer than your name lol.
That we or us section really reminds me of that meme;
*me after winning the lottery-my estrange dad: "Hey kiddo, so how are are we doing today?"
I study Finnish, a language without grammatical gender, so the 3rd person pronoun is just hän, for men, women and everything in between. What's even more interesting though is that, in the spoken language, it merged with the inanimate 3rd person singular pronoun, se (3rd pers. plural pronouns did that too). So in the spoken language you basically use se for both objects and people.
This really tells us something about what we "need" in language. We don't "need" a distinction between masculine vs feminine, animate vs inanimate, or even singular vs plural. Every language has some (or all or none) of these characteristics. Every language community has to adapt to modern social questions based on the characteristics of their tongue, and the results are fascinating, to say the least.
Great video and series, I love Otherwords :)
This is very interesting to me as my family comes partly from Hungary and in Hungarian there is only one 3rd person pronoun as well, so one for all genders. Even more fascinating to me is that there seems to have been a shift to using this pronoun for objects recently. My mother finds this very weird when she is watching current hungarian tv shows. She left the country in the late 60s and does not know this usage.
So, Finland also using the pronoun for people as well as objects is almost kinda spooky. There is some discussion whether the two languages really are from the same root or not, so the fact that they have developed closer together regarding this aspect is just so interesting.
@@hederahelix4600 oh this is really interesting. Just so you know, there are some Finnish dialects and adjacent languages that do not do this at all (like Karelian), but it is interesting, maybe there is something about this language family that encourages this usage of inanimate pronouns for people
That's cool, I didn't know about the history of ze and hir! Funny how change doesn't always mean new, sometimes it means revisiting the old
In polish when we are writing official emails we tend to use non-object (probably this isn't correct word) forms; like „the meeting were cunducted”, „email was send”, „it has been done” etc. instead of first person forms
My mom likes to use our local inclusive 1st person plural to delegate errands when she obviously means just "you".
In my native language there is no: he or she/his or her it is always they or them when addressing or relating to some other person in context.
fun fact, that's how most languages operate. Languages with gendered pronouns are in the minority of world languages (though they do tend to be the most spoken)
In TN "you'uns" is pronounced like "yuns"
So glad to have found this series - as fellow word nerds, this is totally our jam!
Hearing you talk about "yinz" made my little Pittsburgh heart soar 🙌😂.
Black Sun by Rebecca Roanhorse uses "xe" and "xir" for a non-binary character, the first time I'd come across this. This was a very informative video.
I really enjoyed that book! I’m looking forward to the second one. Long ago, I read a book called “The Golden Witchbreed”. A non-human species had a non-binary gender before adolescence so the children (and some adults who just didn’t go through the change) were called “ke” & “kir”.
This was back in the late 80’s, I think, back when society was beginning to accept gays & lesbians as valid. It obviously made some sort of impact on me because I still remember most of the story several decades later.
@@KristenRowenPliske the sequel Fevered Star has just been published.
I wonder if that was somewhat inspired by Futurama's usage of the words "schlee" and "schler/schlir" (idk how they spelled it officially) as their gender-neutral pronounes back in the 2009 episode "Into the Wild Green Yonder."
Y'all, Becky Chambers's Wayfarer Series does that too! It's also a phenomenal series 🙂
I wonder if they’ll co-author a book with J K Rowling. 😂🤣
Fascinating history! I love this information. English "you" is such a complicated catch-all, I do prefer languages that break "you" down further.
Indonesian language and Malay language have different 'we' pronouns to signal whether or not the 'we' includes the person being talked to. 'Kita' involves all the people in the conversation (including the person being talked to), 'kami' means the speaker and one or more people, but does not include the person being talked to.
It's interesting to note this difference from the English 'we' which has no such distinction, since it is mentioned here that 'we' can be used in both singular and plural form in various situations, even to shift blame and decentralise the person speaking.
ooh the use of 'kami' in indonesia is also the same in tagalog :D
I actually looked at the transcript to find that sentence where she didn't use a pronoun 😂
Your videos are so easy to understand (audio wise) and fun to watch I often forget to turn on captions! (Auditory Processing Disorder)
Hello from another language lover with APD! Always good to see someone else and not feel alone 😊❤️
Thirded! Captions becoming more common has made watching video so very much easier/less taxing.
Now if only (mostly US) TV and movies could get over whatever it is that keeps them having the sound effects track encoded much louder than the dialogue track, thing's be near perfect!
Using someone’s preferred pronouns is simply the kind polite thing to do. Attempting to force or limit speech is not!
A lot of the people who say that language can't change forget the Tower of Babbel. And you'd think they'd remember that.
If I remember right, in Chinese we have several evolutions of pronouns:
1) third person singular used this o be just 他 (ta1), which just meant “other”. The distinction between he/she/it (他/ 她/ 它, all pronounced ta1) was a relatively modern invention.
2) first person singular pronoun went through a similar change as the English “you”, where it used to be 吾 (wu2), but it is now considered archaic (and hoity toity). The modern version is 我 (wo3). I’m not sure the details of this transition though.
3) first person plural nowadays is just the singular plus 們 (men2, “a group”) to make 我們, which is basically “a bunch of I’s”, but a more informal (and arcahaic?) way is to say 咱 (zan2/ za2). This rule applies to second and third person (你們, 他們/她們/它們).
It’s so nice to hear someone who’s educated and articulate affirm chosen pronouns. It reassures me that the world is headed in the right direction! Thank you for this video!
Depending on the speaker, "y'all" can be used as a singular "you," while "all y'all" is the plural you. At least, according to my cousin in East Texas.😉
According to my mother also.
@@EmeralBookwise I've heard some few claims that there is also 'alla y'all' (or similar) for when you are addressing a collection of groups (like, say a crowd of pairs/teams of 2-4 people).
But I'm far from an expert, being pretty much antipodean from the region in question.
In my experience in Georgia (USA), y'all as singular is generally limited to the hospitality industry. If the server at Waffle House asks if they can "get y'all anything" to a solo diner, it's not out of place, but it would be a bit odd if the solo diner replied back "can y'all get me some more sweet tea?". Perhaps the singular usage of y'all has some sort of vestigial formality.
@@michaelmurdock4607 That's a good point. It wouldn't be uncommon to say "y'all take care" to a singular person. That said, I've always taken the "y'all" in that context to mean "you and your people/your mom and them/all them youngins". Or maybe it's inherited formality - Lord Byron says "fare thee well" and Ellie May Clampett says "y'all come back now, ya hear". It's interesting to think about.
I can't stop thinking of how Rufus Xavier Sassparilla would appreciate this video.
And then in American Sign Language, you just point to the person/object being indicated for the pronoun, lol. Don't have to worry about "she, he, it, they." Truly beautiful.
This was interesting to watch. In Jamaica we use "unnu" as plural you
The problem with the singular "they" as a person who speaks English as a second language is that a lot of early ESL textbooks aimed at children (and sometimes teens) will still oversimplify and say that "they" is only ever plural, forcing students to learn about the singular "they" on their own through exposure to songs, movies, TV shows, RUclips, or whatever their preferred source of more advanced English may be. Thus, unlike the basic grammar learnt in early childhood, the singular "they" will often feel clunky, unnatural and hard to use to non-native speakers who only realized it existed later in life. At least, that was my experience learning English as a second language between the late '90s and the 2000s; ESL textbooks may have been updated by now.
yeah that's the big issue. even in native english textbooks and teachings, people always say "they/them is only plural, never singular" which. is just false in normal speech.
The textbooks are correct. The only time (up until gender politics shook the language up) that we use they/them in the singular is when we refer to an ANONYMOUS individual. Example: "Someone lost their wallet. I hope THEY find it." I find it super annoying and disingenuous hearing people say that we use they/them in the singular; we don't do that when speaking about a specific individual. Asking people to use old and invented pronouns based on arbitrary identities is simply not feasible. Pronouns play a structural role in language. It is not easy to change the structure of a language based on arbitrary demands.
@@JessNVee it's literally the future of language dude. Gen z has already started doing it, and a lot of people are starting to subconsciously pick up on it. It isn't even that confusing to get down. Try it out for a bit and you'll realize it's a super helpful tool to use in the language. It doesn't detract. It only adds to the language by giving a word a new meaning.
And if u think that's bad, then let me introduce you to half of the English language where literally every other word has 10-20 different definitions, slang usages, and archaic(but still occasionally used) forms.
@@JessNVee Elementary level ESL textbooks in my country don't even contemplate "they" for an anonymous person as in your example sentence. ALL instances of the singular "they", whether the person is anonymous or non-binary, are something you learn later in life where I live.
@@MG-mh8xp In your second paragraph, you are speaking about open class, content words. Pronouns belong to neither of those categories. Pronouns carry little meaning. Their purpose is structural. Asking people to change the structure of language based on arbitrary identities is not feasible. I have observed trans advocates stumble and misuse pronouns when they are referring to those with they/them or invented pronouns. Sure we can certainly try, but I can assure you that it is not as simple as you are suggesting.
I'm sure I'm not the only one, who's in love with her (voice, appearance, knowledge, character)
You’re not the only one. I just learned about this series yesterday and I’m just watching all of them.
“Gender aside, personal pronouns are an interesting bunch.” I found it
Is anyone aware of any other examples of formal "you" as in Italian where "Lei" is used? (essentially a capital 'She' for all formal situations, regardless of gender.)
French utilizes Vous and a separate set of conjugation on all verbs as a formal "you"; this is in contrast to Tu and it's associated conjugation for more familiar "you."
In German, the formal "you" is "Sie" which is both the female singular and neutral plural pronoun. When used as formal "you" the verbs referring to it are plural. There's even a verb for when you speak like that: "sietzen"
This is a phenomenon in some languages; in English for example, "thou" was historically the familiar and "you" was used as the formal second person singular pronoun. This structure in Italian, German, French, and (historically) English is called the "T-V distinction".
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T-V_distinction
Spanish actually has three in some dialects! You might be familiar with "tú" and "usted" for first person singular, but in some places "vos" is used as a sort of in-between. It's used to indicate respect for people who are related or more familiar to the speaker such as grandparents ... Or whenever it's too formal for "tú" but "usted" is too unfamiliar/distant ... It's very nuanced, and my studied dialect doesn't use "vos," so I probably got something wrong 😅 Probably better to ask a Colombian!
The plurals are the same though, with "vosotros" for both "tu/vos" and "ustedes" for "usted." In my dialect "vosotros" is very uncommon and more often we just say "ustedes."
Dutch uses 'u'! The informal you is je/jij
If I'm honest, I think the huge focus our society has on pronouns is kind of silly. I do tend to think that people are too sensitive about it, which is a really hot take coming from me because I'm super liberal. But I guess my mindset isn't so much people shouldn't be allowed to choose- I will always respect pronouns and call you by whatever pronoun you tell me (or at least try to-as long as it's he/him, she/her, or they/them. I get a little bit confused beyond that, but will still try 😂)
I think my mindset is that people are just too focused on it. I don't understand why our society tends to tie our identity to our pronouns. If you come up and call me if he/him, why would I care? No matter what pronoun you use to identify me, I'm still the same person. My gender has no impact on my personality. I literally don't care what pronouns people use for me, because it doesn't matter at all. I don't understand why people care so much about it. But that's just my view on it. I'll respect everybody elses View (to an extent, of course), and will always call them by the pronouns they prefer. What does not matter to me makes a huge difference to them, even if I don't understand it and find the way our society handles pronouns to be a bit silly.
I'll bite. So it comes off a bit crass, but I do get the gist of what you are saying. I think you are missing a subtlety. In my (limited) experience, it depends how the pronouns are used. As an insult, then yeah, that's somebody insulting you, of course you'll be upset (pronouns are sometimes used as a means of intentionally misgendering, or as a way to say "I don't respect your preferred pronouns”).
Sometimes it's unintentional, like a stranger who genuinely doesn't know, and that's fine [among the trans folks I know, self included]. The only time that would make a trans person upset is if they were misgendered, but they aren't upset at the person, but rather themselves ("I don't 'pass' well enough" if they are binary trans, for example).
I'm not a trans individual so this is a very different perspective from theirs probably but you think there is an over focus because for you like you said, your gender has no impact on your personality. I think that's honestly a wonderful thing that I myself wish I could say but I can't.
Where I come from and where I was raised, there is a very very deep emphasis on gender roles. My gender has shaped so much of my life. Childhood ,decisions, opportunities, thoughts, experiences and so so much more I would never be able to count. It's a constant factor that has affected me since birth and will continue to be so in the future. All of those things have shaped my personality and identity in so many ways. I would not be who I am today without the impact that my gender (whether positive or negative) has on me. That's why for me my gender matters. If someone deliberately kept calling me with the wrong pronouns I'd feel a bit insulted. It's just not who I am. I bet you can guess which gender it is now 🤣🤣
For trans individuals, at least those with gender dysphoria I imagine the focus with gender is a *lot* worse. Especially if they're raised in a household/country where they're discriminated against based on gender. Dysphoria is not something to be controlled, and when you think about it. They're not harming anyone. In general, I think it's the fault of our societies that we are so hung up on gender to begin with that we assign so much value and importance to what gender others' have been assigned at at birth.
I could be very wrong on the last part and it would be wonderful if someone who's trans can take the time to correct me. That is just a part of how I think about it.
TLDR; what I mean is basically there are certain things and feelings we will never really "get" about from each other but we try our best to understand, empathize and be supportive.
Just don't get why people bother about changing prounous, I never even thought about it until I saw it online.
If people simply didn't gave af about it no debates would have started ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I've noticed that people on social media all over the world use "y'all" now
Really great video, with some stuff I really did not know, especially Ze being around for so long. That was really fascinating!!
I think the beef most folks have with neopronouns has less to do with what they are in and of themselves and more to its association with genderqueerness in general. The fact is most folks simply do not believe in the validity of neutral gender identification, at least in the US. This is a country with deep protestant roots, and despite what is written by our forefathers, there is generally a strong adherence to that faith in all circles of life. How people identify is up to them, and neopronouns are a fascinating etymological topic, but the unfortunate fact is that any rational discourse regarding it will eventually be steamrolled in the long run by our society's general distrust of "deviancy".
It's even more sad when I see these attitudes from inside the trans community saying that gender queerness in abstract ways and neo pronouns dilute the concept of being transgender as if there's a right and wrong way to be trans trying to exclude these people so that the trans community can supposedly be more palatable to a society that doesn't want to accept us throw on one minority under the bus just to elevate ourselves a tiny bit it's despicable it's the same argument that pushes trans people out of the LGB community intel's gay people to act more straight so they can blend in and not embarrass the rest of the community and other bs like that no one should have to change their identity to conform to society and if we ask people to do that within our community we're no better than the haters outside the community. it's not gonna do any good it's just a tool that they use to divide us to oppress us while making us think it's our choice! until we can present a united front will that supports all identities within our community then how can we face society as a whole!
neoprouns are stupid and defeat the entire purpose of pronouns
And if you think about it. Wasn't all words at one point we're also "neopronouns" before they got their official seal of approval by the general population? Because neo-pronouns just means "new pronouns". New words by the looks of it in development. I personally see it. That way.
Hopefully though each new generation will become more and more tolerant and open. I see that in the U.K. and NZ but maybe it’s wishful thinking in the USA???
@@ARuiz-eu3hk If with "At one point" you mean tens of -hundreds- thousands of years ago, sure. New words are rarely created out of the blue though, if ever, they usually have roots somewhere
My mother tongue, Bengali, does not have any grammatical gender. So, naturally, personal pronouns are also gender neutral.
@@michaelmurdock4607 um, the to be conjugation is usually absent in present tense.
In Mandarin the word for he/she/it (animal or object) is pronounced the same way, but written slightly different. 他=he, 她= she, 它=it. It made me understand why some of my Chinese friends would mix he and she up.
In the Philippines, tagalog in particular,
We only use gender neutral 3 person singilar pronoun, siya or s'ya
We have to yous, ikaw (singular) and kayo (plural)
And we have to wes, tayo (including you) and kami (not including you)
My language is gender neutral.. we don't have she/he.. (finnish.. she/he =hän, "hän meni kotiin" = he/she went home..).. And when I talk or write in English, I have to remind myself to use those he/she..
*They went home
You are not alone. I'm Swedish and regularly notice how some 🇫🇮 colleagues do this mistake. This is however one of the benefits of learning new languages, especially from different language families, you learn to think in other patterns.
@@platina1502 I could use "they", but it could mean that more than one went home.. they = he, "he menivät kotiin" = they went home..
@@Jackejakobsson True 😊
I loathe "we" used to deflect, because my mom did this to me for all my "chores" (some my responsibility, but mostly things she didn't want the responsibility for. I was regularly shamed and punished for not doing it right, with no instruction).
It’s especially dumb of people to say they can’t be singular when every person uses it subconsciously all the time
“You guys” is my favorite way to say the multiple “you”
She: Find the sentence without a pronoun.
Her next sentence: Good luck finding it.
Me: You told us the answer?!? 😃
"it" is a pronoun in that sentence.
It.
Can I now use thee and thou as my personal pronouns? Not for gender reason but cos I love the words. My old boss told me off for using thou, thus and alas in emails. Thou art no fun.
Hell yeah dude, go nuts. That’s the fun thing about language, you can do whatever you want with it.
When I was in Journalism school we learned about the "editorial we."
in Malay, we have the pronouns call 'Dia' and it means he/she so anyone could be refered as 'Dia.
He's not here = Dia tak ada di sini.
I don't think she's awake = Saya tak rasa dia bangun. Basically it's kinda like they.
I've known I lot of Maori from all over NZ, and don't really recall "y'all" being too common. Unless it's a very recent thing.
I've also never heard "yiz" and I'm Irish, though in Northern Ireland you do hear "yous" and "yous'ns" a lot.
They're pulling their arguments out of their asses, that's why.
@@justanotherrandomfilipino9018 Okay pissy troll.
I think “youse” is more common in Aotearoa NZ, among Pakeha as well as Māori. I’m starting to here “y’all” more often, but mostly among those who are extremely online, and it seems a fairly conscious choice to use that, derived from American vernacular. Whereas I remember “youse” since the 70s.
@@wellurban Yeah youse is the common plural. Often followed by fullas.
Shadow the hedgehog will only be referred to as Shadow.
Well, at least he gets the concept
Deldarel lol
those videos are all so random and so funny.
A pronoun is a noun that gets paid, whereas an amateur noun does not get paid.
Lets bring back "ye"