Sometimes when one is writing there are awkward phrases that beg for a simple solution. One of these situations involves pronouns. He/She/It is not always something one wants to place into a sentence and alternating between genders in a paragraph or chapter is confusing for the reader. But to exclude one gender can get certain readers upset.
I think we ought to use a third person pronoun the same way they do in Hindi. They say vah which stands for he or she and also it. Vah also serves as the demonstrative relative pronoun which in English is the word “that”.
The gender in Hindi is expressed in the endings of nouns, verbs and adjectives. This is not necessary if one is using this new pronoun only to indicate “a person” “anyone” “one”. And further it should be used in all cases so no more he/she, him/her either.
With the influence of India ever increasing and the influence of Indian English, that is English as spoken by Indians and the Indian diaspora, the use of Hindi grammatical constructions and increasingly Hindi words (jungle, pajama for example) will also only increase. There, I just used an example of Indian English by injecting the word only into that sentence. This is very common as is the use of the reflexive pronoun “itself” such as in “The school itself was on fire.”
As I mostly live in India and have English as my first language, having been born in Canada of European ancestry, I tend to really notice this.
Let’s give it a go.
Therefore vah doesn’t have to worry about gender in such situations. And vah can express their ideas without needless pronouminal© concerns. Pass this suggestion on to a friend and ask vah what vah thinks of it.
So learning Hindi may be in our future. I’ve already got the pronouns taken care of.
Note: pronouminal© I don’t know if there is such a word. It’s probably pronominal and I’m too lazy just at the moment to race for the dictionary. In any case I am copyrighting it in case there isn’t
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Hi,
Thanks for linking to my blog… I added a link to yours on my blogroll as well. It’s weird seeing myself in the same list as Stephen Fry, whose book ‘The Ode Less Travelled’ I am reading at the moment.
You’re right, English could do with a gender-neutral third person pronoun which sounds less formal than ‘one’, but I notice you didn’t mention another English pronouminal (how much do I owe you for using that?) problem:
And vah can express their ideas
Depending on who you ask, it may be acceptable to use ‘their’ as a gender-neutral possessive pronoun for a single person, but it’s not really ideal. How is that handled in Hindi?
In French (which has the pronoun ‘on’ meaning ‘vah’) the possessive refers to the gender of the thing possessed, rather than the possessor, so there is no problem there. You could say ‘Jean is writing son blog’ (his or her blog) even if you don’t know whether it’s the English female name Jean or the French male name, all you need to know is that a blog is masculine.
However, in French there are plenty of other problems with gender-neutral language. Just to say ‘An intelligent Canadian’ you have to change all three words depending on whether it’s a male or female Canadian.
By the way, there’s a nice list of potential gender-neutral pronouns on wikipedia.
Thank you for your thoughtful and thought provoking comment Angela. I will check that wikipedia reference you gave. Hindi uses the gender of the thing possessed as well as in: Rat ki rani (रात की रानी) This means queen of the night (its the name of a flower) but literally it translates night of queen. There are no articles in hindi such as a, an, or the. One just says ek (one) to specify singularity or a specific item.
Grammar is an interesting thing. One of the many creative areas of human language. I find language a brilliant, astounding, occasionally frustrating but always interesting endeavor. It’s nice to know others have such an interest as well.
Thank you again for your comment.
I came across this exchange in an attempt to Google for confirmation of my suspicion that the use of the “salesman’s self” might be of Hindi (or at least Indian English origin).
What I call the salesman’s (or estate agent’s) “self” is the misuse of “-self” where the plain pronoun is the only correct form: “Steve will cover our direct sales in north-western Lincolnshire and report to myself.” “I will attempt to meet up with yourself no later than Friday,” This misuse appears to be widespread in upwardly mobile lower-middle-class English males, including the aforementioned professions, and most pronounced amongst white collar workers in blue collar environments dealing with middle class clients (such as service “representatives” at motor dealerships, or similar).
My question is really: is there a background in Hindi for this usage? My own Hindi never got beyond the most basic Ka-Kha-Ga, but I did notice the tendency amongst non-ENL Indians to use phrases like “your most worthy self” and suspect a perceived need to add that extra syllable as a sign of respect.
Regards, and thanks,
Martin
NB, I’d say a simple adjectival use of “pronoun” would do where you use your copyrighted “pronouminal”. I.e. “needless pronoun concerns”. English can do this, as can German, though French cannot.
Thanks for writing. I do believe in the case of Hindi it is a matter of politeness.Just as the answers to questions tend to add “ji” to a simple yes (hain ji) or no (Ji nahin) in order to indicate respect towards the questioner this additional wording seems to indicate an intention, feeling or mood rather than convey any straightforward information. Some interpret Ji to mean something like “Sir” or “Madam” but it is much more complex than that as it is also used between friends of equal status in certain situations and between intimates as well where formal greetings would not be used.
There is a lot of flowery formality in Indian English.That does come from Hindi and cultural practices here in South Asia. Some of it is quite profound and bordering on the poetic and some of it sycophantic in the extreme. Oratory at every occasion is well looked upon and speeches at social functions can flow on for hours. It sometimes gets a little tedious even for the participants. Much of it is related to social status and that is a crucial issue in Indian culture.
There is very much more that could be said on this but I will stop for now.
Thanks for the rapid response, and my apologies for then not checking up again until now.
Yes, it is exactly that “flowery” form of oratory that nurses my suspicions about the origin of the abuse of the reflexive pronoun (although the inclusion of “myself” in the abuse might in fact indicate a different background than Indian flowery politeness – hence my wondering whether there might actually be a grammatical cause, as there often is for eccentricities in accented speech).
Oh boy, can I agree with you about “speeches at social functions” in India!
I once had the pleasure to attend the “felicitations” on the occasion of the retirement of a well respected and widely known professor at an Indian research institute. Not only were there 23 scheduled speakers, but each exceeded his allocated 3 minutes by about an extra 4-6 minutes, the air conditioning in the lecture hall had failed, and it was early June. “Oratory at every occasion” was not entirely “well looked upon” at this occasion!
Cheers,
Martin
Thanks for checking back. Felicitations seem to be the most popular format followed by the remarks of The Chief Guest at any and every occasion.
It is in some ways nice though that the appreciation of language and oratory does survive and people do make such an effort towards it even if it does cause discomfort to the audience.
I recall being invited to a junior school function of some friend’s children outdoors in June….
Thanks again