Swedes Hack Their Own Grammar
Swedes, it appears, love to tinker with their language. A few decades ago, they decided that their formal pronoun Ni (the equivalent of Spanish usted, German singular Sie, and French singular vous) sounded too stuffy, so they abolished it. Just like that, the Swedes became knights who formerly said “Ni.”
Now reformers there are trying to introduce a gender-neutral pronoun to supplement the standard han (he) and hon (she). A couple of writers have produced a children’s book that uses it exclusively to refer to all the characters.
The pronoun is hen.
Hm… Why does that sound familiar? Have the Swedes been reading MuseBlog?
Date: May 19, 2012
Categories: Non-Muse news, The Universe
