HiddenLayer5,
@HiddenLayer5@lemmy.ml avatar

The first verifiable use of singular they for when the gender is unknown was in a novel some 100 years ago. The concept of ‘they’ as a personal pronoun was only developed in the latter half of the last century in the UK and has only been formally taught there for about three decades.

Shakespeare used the singular they in his works. itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/…/002748.html

I think I would prefer two new sets of pronouns: one for when the gender is unknown, and another as personal pronouns other than he/she.

One could also think of they as that new pronoun. A lot of languages reuse sounds (including English) even in fairly common grammar components so one could think of this as a new word with a familiar sound assigned to it.

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