Feeling at home in language
What makes us feel at home in life? We might think of a place, of where our affections and communities lie, or of an inner sense of safety and freedom. But what about language? In what ways can language include us, or exclude us? And is it we who feel at home in a language, or is it the language that makes us feel at home? Especially in a diverse society, language plays an important role in whether people feel seen, recognised and connected to others.
We spoke to language researcher Hielke Vriesendorp about how language can shape our sense of belonging when it comes to gender.
Hielke, what would you say language needs to do to make people feel at home?
"What I see as someone who researches non-binary pronouns in Dutch is that approximately half of non-binary people speakers do not want either of the binary pronouns hij and zij to be used for them. The rise of the pronouns die and hen has made it possible to still refer to them in a way that most people like."
People are creative: when words don't exist, they find ways to create them.
How does it affect people when they don't see themselves reflected in language?
"Research shows that this can have a significant impact on people's wellbeing. Many non-binary people report feeling erased, stuck or very limited by binary language. Also, generally, rates of depression, anxiety and suicide are much lower in trans individuals whose environments use inclusive language for them.
At the same time, people are creative: when words don't exist, they find ways to create them. In Swedish, for example, the fairly recently invented neutral alternative to han (he) and hon (she), hen, has been a major hit.
And then there are all the different ways that people have loosened up the meaning of gendered words: from gay men calling each other she to lesbians using he/him. There is a line in the 1993 novel Stone Butch Blues by gender-non-conforming activist and transgender icon Leslie Feinberg where at a certain point the butch, neither man-nor-woman main character yells, after being called a woman: "No I'm not. I'm a he-she. That's different."
How inclusive is the Dutch language?
"That depends on what you're trying to achieve. If you want to avoid assigning gender to people as much as possible, Dutch actually offers quite a lot of possibilities. Pronouns are the most heavily gendered part of the language, alongside a handful of words such as vader, moeder, oom, tante, neef and nicht. Beyond that, Dutch is relatively neutral. So if you want to make language as gender-neutral as possible, pronouns are really your only main challenge.
However, gender-neutrality might not be your goal. When you use a gender-neutral word like kandidaat, we know that this tends to still conjure up the image of a man for most people, which of course isn't very inclusive to women (nor most non-binary people). For this a language like Spanish, which forces a binary choice between male candidato and female candidata, may actually be better! It allows you to explicitly mention female candidates by talking about candidatos y candidatas, and even candidates, a newly introduced non-binary form. This we know counters the male bias that is hard to avoid with kandidaat."
Gender-neutral pronouns can be extremely important for people who don't feel at home with "he" or "she".
How did we arrive at the pronouns we use today?
"The most common Dutch non-binary pronouns, die and hen, became popular largely because they fit naturally within the existing grammatical system.
For a long time, Dutch speakers have used die in a gender-neutral way, for example in “Waar is Paul? Die is even naar de WC.” The same structure also works for Paula, making die already familiar as a non-gendered pronoun. Hen also already existed as a pronoun and has likely been borrowed from Swedish as well as from how English uses they.
Across languages, we see that the closer pronouns stay to existing language use, the more likely people are to adopt them. Introducing a completely new word would be harder to take hold."
Why do discussions about pronouns affect so many people?
"I think this is where two forces collide. On the one hand, pronouns can be extremely important for people who don't feel at home with he or she. On the other hand, pronouns are deeply embedded in both our grammar and the way our brains process language because we use them incredibly often. It's not strange for that to feel a little jarring. If you add to that the fact that there are many people who disliked transness anyway, it's maybe not too surprising we're currently seeing such an aggressive, violent pushback."
Just as language can divide us, can we use or adapt our language in order to belong?
"What we know from linguistic research is that people generally adapt to the person they're talking to—unless, perhaps, if you're an angry teenager. We adjust our language and even our body language to express warmth and to signal: ‘hey, this feels good’, ‘I like you’, or ‘this is going well’. It's largely an unconscious mechanism. In fact, it's almost impossible not to do it!"