Bonus 74: Neopronouns, gender-neutral vocab, and why linguistic gender even exists - Liveshow Q&A with Kirby Conrod (Patreon)

In this bonus episode, originally recorded as a liveshow on the Lingthusiasm patron Discord server, your host Gretchen gets enthusiastic about how languages do gender with special guest Dr. Kirby Conrod. Since we last saw them in our episode on the grammar of singular they, Kirby is now a Visiting Assistant Professor at Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania, USA, where they are doing fun new research about neopronouns (like xe/xer) and reflexive pronouns (like themself) and have two new cats (pic below!).

We answer your questions about lots of things related to language and gender, including: gender-neutral versions of sir/ma'am and dude/bro, why linguistic gender even exists, how people are doing gender-neutral and nonbinary things across related languages, like final -e in Spanish and Portuguese and using the -ende (-ing) form in German and Swedish, and how neopronouns are often made by recycling bits from a language's canonical pronouns, such as ey/em/eir and xe/xem/xer in English, iel in French (from il+elle), elle in Spanish (related to él/ella), Swedish borrowing a gender-neutral pronoun from Finnish, and fruit-related pronoun riffs in Vietnamese. Plus: experimenting with pronouns for fun and cats and if you know of more examples in more languages, you should send them to Kirby!

Read the transcript here.

As promised, here are Kirby's delightfully-named cats: the gray one is Debt Forgiveness and the tabby is Universal Healthcare.

Announcements:

This liveshow was first recorded on the Lingthusiasm patron Discord server. If you're seeing this post, you already have access to it! You can join a community that's enthusiastic about linguistics by linking your Patreon account with your Discord account (if you don't already have one, they're free to make). To connect Discord to your Patreon account, go to “apps” under “My profile settings”.

Here are the links mentioned in this episode:

• Kirby Conrod on Twitter
• Kirby Conrod's website
• 'Pronouns Raising and Emerging' - Kirby Conrod's dissertation on singular they
• 'German’s Gender Gap: A Morphosyntactic Analysis of Gender-Innovative Nouns' by Mia Limmer
• Lingthusiasm episode ‘Making speech visible with spectrograms’ to learn more about Praat spectrograms
• testosteronetwunk's Tumblr post about non-binary pronouns in Vietnamese
• Lingthusiasm bonus episode ‘When books speculate on the future of English’
• Lingthusiasm episode ‘How languages influence each other - Interview with Hannah Gibson on Swahili, Rangi, and Bantu languages’
• Lingthusiasm episode ‘Arrival of the linguists’
• Lingthusiasm bonus episode ‘Is X a sandwich? Solving the word-meaning argument once and for all’ for more on prototype theory
• ‘the president of pronouns gives you permission to just kind of try stuff out’ Kirby Conrod article on medium
  

You can listen to this episode on this page, via the Patreon RSS or download the mp3. A transcript of this episode is available as a Google Doc. Lingthusiasm is also on Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, and Mastodon. Email us at contact [at] lingthusiasm [dot] com or chat to us on the Patreon page. Gretchen is on Twitter as @GretchenAMcC and blogs at All Things Linguistic. Lauren is on Twitter as @superlinguo and blogs at Superlinguo.

To chat about this episode and other lingthusiastic topics with your fellow linguistics fans, join us on the Lingthusiasm Discord server.

Lingthusiasm is created by Gretchen McCulloch and Lauren Gawne. Our senior producer is Claire Gawne, our production editor is Sarah Dopierala, and our production assistant is Martha Tsutsui Billins. Our music is ‘Ancient City’ by The Triangles.