Thereās 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.
Thereās 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 ātheyā in arabic, but unlike english it is exclusively meant for plural. And in arabic, verbs also are conjugated with amount, So you just canāt say āThey ateā in a singular form, you have to explicitly mark āateā in plural.
Itād be like saying āthey ate(plural verb)ā. It sounds very weird but thereās not much better.
Thereās a similar ā though very localised ā thing in English with āthemself.ā
The singular form is used, but itās far less common than the plural form āthemselves.ā I often hear āthemselvesā 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 āIā changes the form of the sentence based on your gender (ie masculine: āana juāanā fem: āana juāanaā
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 āhua kabirā He (it) is big. So most enbies I know of just use masculine pronouns. There may be an alternative I donāt know of. Itās an interesting yet complex topic.
Isnāt there a dual case (as in, specifically for two of something) in Arabic? Or is that primarily a formal thing?
There is. Itās absolutely necessary, no exceptions at all. Itās one of the only languages that really use it. It just adds to the complexity lol