The advantage [of Lemmy] is that you do not end up in an echo chamber.

I wouldn’t be so sure about that haha

When my friend came out as trans to me years ago, I reacted poorly at first. A few days after that, I had a dream about accepting her as she is. I guess it was just the result of me feeling guilty but it made me really think it through. Then I apologized and our relationship was great ever since.

Words ‘gender’ and ‘pronouns’ tend to make some people really upset lol.

Of course one could always use names. Having ‘I’, ‘you’ and ‘them’ is just more convenient it seems.

Yep, something that’s easy to remember and that immediately catches your eyes.

Ah thanks for the clarification! I completely misread the comment somehow lol.

implying that there has to be some sort of gender-based polymorphism among pronouns.

Pronouns are a shortcut for a noun. They do not need to be linked to genders. Singular third-person pronouns benefit from some variance based what is talked about. As other comments pointed out, these third-person pronouns could be based on social status, age, physical proximity, familiarity, etc.

That’s all there is about my question.

There’s !worldbuilding@lemmy.world although I don’t know how many people care about languages there. It seems like a small community.

That would require monarchy to develop before pronouns are established!

That’s a cool fact! My GF is learning Japanese but I didn’t think of asking her on the topic, now I know I should!

Why do we need to base it on something?

Humans like naming things after other things. Like how we name people after concepts we like (love, hope, faith, etc).

He vs. she is already not that useful of a distinction anyway.

I agree.

We don’t gender any other pronouns, hasn’t ever been an issue.

Well, first-person pronouns don’t really need any distinguishing since it can only mean one person/group. Second-person pronouns are generally favored by context so they can be non-specific. But third-person pronouns can mean literally any person (including the speaker and the listener) so some way to limit who that ‘them’ might be is useful. At least, that’s my experience from writing notes about a society with no gender - I got really tired of endless ‘thems’ so I started using two sets of neopronouns.

That sounds inconvenient :p

A distinction based on age. Different pronouns for children, adults, elderly or relative to the speaker’s age.

That’s the one I thought about after posting.

A distinction based on status and respect. A bit similar to what Japanese does with honorific name suffixes but in pronoun form.

It could actually be the evolved version of the age-based pronouns. The pronouns for older people become the pronouns for respectable individuals and stuff like that.

A distinction based on proximity. One set of pronouns for a person near the speaker, one for a person near the listener and one for a person somewhere else. Japanese does something similar for things (これ kore, それ sore, あれ are) but as far as I know, not for people.

A distinction based on familiarity. One set of pronouns to refer to close friends and family, one for acquaintances, one for strangers.

I like these weirdly practical pronouns! I can imagine them in a language of a highly rational alien species.

One of the conlangs I’m occasionally working on has pronouns based on the shortened form of names: the first syllable of the person’s name plus a suffix. Plus one set of pronouns for if you don’t know (or don’t want to mention) a person’s name.

I’d argue that shortened names aren’t pronouns. Like, “Bob” isn’t a pronoun after all. But that’s a cool idea nonetheless.

Probably active/passive actor

That’s what I’ve been using to write notes on my worldbuilding. Using only they/them got annoying real quick.

more short forms of names

I’m curious how practical would it be for a language to avoid pronouns whatsoever. Sounds hard.

What languages base their pronouns on status? I’d like to read about them.

I mean, yeah, that’s why I’m asking. Since it’s beneficial to have several pronouns based on a person’s intrinsic characteristics, a genderless society would also end up with several - but the question is, what would they base these pronouns on? Their age? Their role in society? Their personality?

That would require a lot of pronouns! But sounds interesting ngl

Pronouns would be based on they/them? ;)

When I meet people who share my ideals and principles, it feels like finding an oasis in a desert.

It’s very likely that other people think the same of me. My existence ensures that some people won’t feel alone in this world.

I can’t believe I didn’t mention Crow Country! It translates the original REs to modern audience in an elegant manner. It is a bit too easy on the default difficulty level though - classic RE players should start with Murder of Crows instead!