A place to meme about the glorious ROMAN EMPIRE (and Roman Republic, and Roman Kingdom)! Byzantines tolerated! The HRE is not.
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Explanation: Latin looks and sounds cool, but it is a Hell Language with infinite declensions and conjugations and other minor grammatical nuances. You want to learn someone’s pronouns in Latin? Best get a paper and pad, it’ll take a while. Pronouns aren’t as important in Latin, though, as it’s a pro-drop language. Context usually fills in for pronouns.
Also, mandatory statement that ‘they/them’ is a perfectly good singular gender-neutral pronoun and I will die on this hill.
Might as well info-dump, as it's something I struggled a fair bit with, so I hope it helps someone else.
Latin lacks "true" personal third person pronouns.
But what about is, ea, id?
They're internal reference only. You can use them for things you just mentioned, so you don't repeat the word, but not for "random" stuff you expect your hearer to know.
For example, *"ea eum laudāuit" (she praised him?) sounds broken. It's like saying "who told whom" in English, with no context whatsoever. But you could say something like "alumnus prōnōmina doctrīcī dīxit, et ea eum laudāuit" (the student told the pronouns to the teacher, and she praised him), and then it's fine:
But what about ille, illa, illud?
Well, while the Romance languages transformed this into a full-fledged personal pronoun, it wasn't like this in Latin. It was part of a set of demonstratives:
They mostly work like English this, these, that, those. You can use them either alongside the noun or instead of the noun:
I mentioned this in another thread, but avoid using neuter forms of grammatically gendered words to refer to people; it is not gender-neutral, it's as dehumanising as English "it". For example, if you got a non-binary student ask them if they'd be rather called an "alumnus" (masc.) or "alumna" (fem.), don't simply call them "alumnum".
And although I'm cis, from what I've chatted with trans people in real life, I feel like this issue with the pronouns is way, way more relevant in English than in languages with a full-fledged gender system, like Latin. English "hot-wires" he/she to refer directly to the social gender; in a gendered language I feel like there's that intuitive knowledge stuff like ille/illa belong to word categories, and might not reflect directly something in the real world.
And although I'm cis, from what I've chatted with trans people in real life, I feel like this issue with the pronouns is way, way more relevant in English than in languages with a full-fledged gender system, like Latin. English "hot-wires" he/she to refer directly to the social gender; in a gendered language I feel like there's that intuitive knowledge stuff like ille/illa belong to word categories, and might not reflect directly something in the real world.
It's not that we dissociate gendered words from real life gender, but simply that Romance languages don't offer the same amount of flexibility that English does. Even so, there has been a push in recent years for more inclusivity in language, and as you would expect, a counter-push from conservative parties to oppose it and protect the children from being exposed to the Gay Agenda.
For example, "teacher" in Italian is either "professore" (male) or "professoressa" (female). But up until recently, we only had a male variant for words like "sindaco" (mayor) and "ministro" (minister). Why words that refer to positions of power only have a male variant is, of course, a complete mystery.
But anyway: while those words have been gender-locked until recently, there has been a push for "Sindaca" (referring to female mayors), while our far-right prime minister has made a point to be called "ministro" even if she's a woman.
In a completely different context, my non-binary friend has told me that they prefer they/them in English, but since Italian doesn't offer near as close the amount of customisability that English does, they are fine with both he/him and she/her in spoken Italian, while using a neutral "x" in written form - so, for example, if they were to say I'm tall, they would either say "sono alto" or "sono alta" in spoken language, while defaulting to "sono altx" in written form.
The reason why "x" is used in written form only, is that because you just can't read "sono altx" in Italian. It makes no sense, and it's quite literally a placeholder for a neutral pronoun that doesn't exist.
There have been attempts to create gender neutral pronouns and such, for example, using ə in place of either the masculine o or the feminine a (ie. "sono altə" in place of "sono alto" or "sono alta) but they have largely failed because they just sound off and aren't intuitive at all, and create unnecessary confusion.
It's less about "dissociation" and more about "indirection". For example:
At least for me that "la" doesn't imply a woman; it's there because "persona" requires it. You could force a "lo" instead, to highlight social gender, but it feels like agreeing with an omitted word (uomo? tipo? ragazzo? etc.).
This shows gendered pronouns in Italian (and other languages with a similar grammatical gender system) aren't directly associated with the social gender; the association is indirect, intermediated by word choice. And people often do exploit that feature to hide social gender, not just for non-binary people but also others.
In the meantime, check how English handles it:
There's no way to interpret that "her" as referring to a man. You actually need a non-binary pronoun, like "them", to avoid implying gender. I believe this happens because English lost the grammatical gender system, so all those gendered leftovers (like "he" and "she") are now referring directly to things outside the language, like social gender.
altx, alt[ə]
I've seen both in Portuguese, too. Plus "alt@". But mostly to highlight the issue; "altx" and "alt@" are unpronounceable so usually only written, while "alt[ə]" only in the spoken language (it feels natural or off depending on dialect, since some erode the ending vowels quite a bit.)
Now I'm curious on how to handle this in Latin. For your typical accusative -əm works fine, but for the nominative most masc words use -us, that dangling -s throws a monkey wrench.
