Gender neutral language in French

The French language has two grammatical genders: feminine and masculine. Activists have started seeking solutions to degender the language as much as possible and, therefore, make it more inclusive. These solutions entail neologisms as well as non-neologisms.
==Non-neologisms==
===Refeminization ===
Prior to the 17th century, French, like Italian, Spanish, and other Romance languages, utilized feminine inflections to distinguish female and male professionals. However, for a range of reasons — both societal, such as misogyny,Becquelin, H. (no data): Langage en tout genre. Argument historique. Article on non discriminating language. University of Neuchâtel. Online at: https://web.archive.org/web/20231213005251/https://www.unine.ch/epicene/home/pourquoi/argument-historique.html (retrieved 12.12.2023).Viennot, E. (2023): Pour un langage non sexiste ! Les accords égalitaires en français. Online at: https://www.elianeviennot.fr/Langue-accords.html (retrieved 18.12.2023). and linguisticMoreau, M.-L. (2019): L’accord de proximité dans l’écriture inclusive. Peut-on utiliser n’importe quel argument ? In: Dister, A./ Piron, S. (eds.): Les discours de référence sur la langue française (Presses de l’Université Saint-Louis), 351–378. 10.4000/books.pusl.26517., as French was being standardized and dialect speakers were expected to learn French — grammarians ensured that these feminine designations were effectively removed from the language.
Today, many people refer to the contemporary introduction of feminine designations as 'feminization,' believing that these occupational titles are newly coined terms. However, this is not the case, as they are being revived from an earlier iteration of the French language, making 'refeminization'Divergenres (2021): Guide de grammaire neutre et inclusive. Québec. Online at: https://divergenres.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/guide-grammaireinclusive-final.pdf (retrieved 12.12.2023). a more accurate term.
Even though it seems paradoxical, refeminization is part of a movement to degender the French language, as studies in various languages have demonstrated that the generic masculine, despite being considered gender-neutral by French prescriptive grammar ("Selon Le Bon Usage de Maurice Grevisse, l'adjectif se met donc au 'genre indifférencié, c'est-à-dire au masculin'."),Alchimy (2017): « Le masculin l’emporte sur le féminin » : Bien plus qu’une règle de grammaire. In: Usbek&Rica. is not actually cognitively neutral.Tibblin, J./Van De Weijer, J./Granfeldt, J./Gygax, P. (2023): There are more women in joggeur·euses than in joggeurs : On the effects of gender-fair forms on perceived gender ratios in French role nouns. In: J. Fr. Lang. Stud. 33, 28–51. 10.1017/S0959269522000217.Heise, E. (2003): Auch einfühlsame Studenten sind Männer: Das generische Maskulinum und die mentale Repräsentation von Personen [Even empathic students are men: The generic masculine and the mental representation of persons]. In: Verhaltenstherapie & Psychosoziale Praxis 35(2), 285–291. By incorporating the feminine form of a word, speakers acknowledge the presence of individuals of more genders than just one.
Masculine 	Feminine by the Académie	Refeminized
un auteur 	une auteur(e) 	une autrice
un professeur	une professeur(e) 	une professeuse
un peintre 	une peintre 	une peintresse
un chirurgien	une femme chirurgien 	une chirurgienne
===Doublets===
For example, « Nous prions les étudiantes et (les) étudiants de remettre leur copie à la personne responsable ». Some people don't enjoy the repetition,OMPI (2022): Guide de l’OMPI pour un langage inclusif en français. Online at: https://www.wipo.int/export/sites/www/women-and-ip/fr/docs/guidelines-inclusive-language.pdf (retrieved 12.12.2023). others consider that the doublets don't encompass all genders,Ménard, J.-S. (2021): Pour un français neutre et une inclusion des personnes non binaires : une entrevue avec Florence Ashley. Longueuil: Cégep Édouard-Montpetit. Online at:https://www.cegepmontpetit.ca/static/uploaded/Files/Cegep/Centre%20de%20reference/Le%20francais%20saffiche/Une-entrevue-avec-Florence-Ashley.pdf (retrieved 12.12.2023). others again are unsure which form to mention first, since the order conveys information about the value the speaker gives to each item.Pascal, G./Boschard, Μ./Cornet, G./Croci, M./Stegmann, N. (2021): Les outils - la (re)féminisation. Langage inclusif. Online at: https://web.archive.org/web/20231225213750/https://tube.switch.ch/videos/0xwYktNzRp, 00:50 (retrieved 12.12.2023).
===Shortened doublets===
The feminine suffix is attached to the masculine, rather than the whole word being repeated (as in classical doublets).
Middle dot	Dot 	Parentheses	Slash 	Dash
professionnel·les
professionnel·le·s	acteur.rice	employé(e) 	chanteur/euse	boulanger-ère
===Epicene person descriptions===
For instance, « Les élèves apprennent leur leçon. »; « L'enfant regarde la télévision. »; « Les juges ont pris leur décision. ». As singular articles indicate gender ('la' and 'le'), this technique works best with plural forms. However, it also works with singular forms if the noun begins with a vowel, because the article automatically becomes "l'...," which does not express gender. A drawback is that there are not epicene occupational titles for all professions or functions.
In certain Swiss-French varieties, as in the canton of Vaud, masculine and feminine words ending in '-é' resp. '-ée' are pronounced differently (i. e. 'une employée' [ynɑ̃plwaje:]/[ynɑ̃plwaje:j] versus 'un employé' [ɛ̃nɑ̃plwaje]/[œ̃nɑ̃plwaje]). However, this linguistically conservative pronunciation is becoming increasingly marginal: it is primarily confined to Switzerland and, in major cities and among younger generations, the pronunciation is gradually converging with the standard French norm, meaning that the distinction between /e/ and /e:/ (or /e:j/, remnant from Franco-Provençal dialects, i. e. Patois, spoken in the region before linguistic homogenization) is being neutralized, resulting in a single phoneme /e/ and causing 'employé' and 'employée' to be pronounced identically. As a result, here, these words are considered orally epicene.
=== Monogender epicene nouns and collective terms ===
The table below shows gendered language on the left and neutral — i.e. grammatical gender that has nothing to do with biological sex or gender identity — language on the right.
Collective terms
Inclusive gendered language 	Inclusive neutral language
Les auditrices et auditeurs sont attentifs. 	L'auditoire est attentif.
Les spectateurs et spectatrices sont très calmes aujourd'hui.	Le public est très calme aujourd'hui.
Monogender (epicene) nouns
Explicit binary gender 	Grammatically fixed gender
Je ne connais pas cet homme. 	Je ne connais pas cette personne.
La mère de Jo ne parle pas le néerlandais.	Le parent de Jo ne parle pas le néerlandais.
===Proximity agreement===
Up until the 18th century, the masculine gender did not always take precedence over the feminine in instances where the genders could theoretically be congruent: proximityEPFL (2023): L’accord de proximité. Online at:https://www.epfl.ch/about/equality/fr/langage-inclusif/guide/principes/accord/ (retrieved 12.12.2023). and free-choice agreement coexisted alongside the masculine-over-feminine rule. For a significant portion of Old French history, proximity agreement was the most prevalent method for agreeing adjectives, past participles, etc. (cf. Anglade 1931:172).Anglade, J. (1931): Grammaire élémentaire de l'ancien français. Paris: Armand Colin, 157–196. Today, this agreement could facilitate gender equality in grammar instead of the masculine-over-feminine hierarchy that was suggested in the 17th and 18th century by French grammarians such as Malherbe, Vaugelas, Bouhours and Beauzée:« Le genre masculin, étant le plus noble, doit prédominer toutes les fois que le masculin et le féminin se trouvent ensemble. » (Claude Favre de Vaugelas, Remarques sur la langue française, 1647).
« Lorsque les deux genres se rencontrent, il faut que le plus noble l’emporte. » (Bouhours 1675).
« Le genre masculin est réputé plus noble que le féminin à cause de la supériorité du mâle sur la femelle. » (Beauzée 1767).
Masculine-prevails-over-feminine rule	Proximity agreement
Ces œillets et ces roses sont beaux. 	Ces œillets et ces roses sont belles.
Les nombreux filles et garçons. 	Les nombreuses filles et garçons.
==Neologisms==
===Personal pronouns===
====Subject pronouns====
French only distinguishes gender in the third-person singular (cf. 'elle' and 'il'). Up until the 12th century, French knew the neutral subject pronoun 'el'/'al'.Marchello-Nizia, C. (1989): Le neutre et l’impersonnel. In: Linx 21, 173–179. 10.3406/linx.1989.1139. Today, 'el' cannot be reintroduced from Old French as it would sound identical to 'elle', the current feminin subject pronoun. As for 'al', it sounds like 'elle' in spoken Canadian French.Ashley, F. (2019): Les personnes non-binaires en français : une perspective concernée et militante. In: H-France Salon 11(14). It could, however, still be a viable option for the rest of the Francophone community.Alpheratz (2018): Genre neutre.TABLEAUX RÉCAPITULATIFS de mots de genre neutre (extraits). Online at: https://www.alpheratz.fr/linguistique/genre-neutre/ (retrieved 15.12.2023). Nowadays, according to the Guide de rédaction inclusive (2021:14) from the Laval University,Université Laval (2021): Guide de rédaction inclusive. Online at: https://www.ulaval.ca/sites/default/files/EDI/Guide_redaction_inclusive_DC_UL.pdf (retrieved 12.12.2023). the Guide de grammaire neutre et inclusive (2021:5) from Divergenres, the Petit dico de français neutre/inclusif (2018) from La vie en Queer,La vie en Queer (2018): Petit dico de français neutre/inclusif. Online at: https://lavieenqueer.wordpress.com/2018/07/26/petit-dico-de-francais-neutre-inclusif/ (retrieved 15.12.2023). and Wiki Trans (2019),Wiki Trans (2019): Comment parler d'une personne non binaire ? Online at: https://wikitrans.co/2019/12/25/comment-parler-dune-personne-non-binaire/ (retrieved 15.12.2023). the most widely adopted subject (neo)pronoun is 'iel'. It was added to the prestigious dictionary Le Robert in 2021.Radio Télévision Suisse (2021): L'entrée du pronom "iel" dans Le Robert provoque des remous. Online at: https://www.rts.ch/info/monde/12651159-lentree-du-pronom-iel-dans-le-robert-provoque-des-remous.html (retrieved 15.12.2023). Alongside 'iel', Canadian French also uses 'ille'. In metropolitan France, the pronoun 'al', proposed by linguist Alpheratz in their book Grammaire du français inclusif (2018), has gained some recognition. The table below presents the primary gender-neutral subject pronouns found in the French-speaking world.
 	gender-neutral subject pronouns	gender-neutral subject pronouns	gender-neutral subject pronouns
Dominant usage 	iel [jɛl] 	ille [ij] 	al
Peripheral usage	ol 	ul 	ael
====Clitic and tonic pronouns====
French distinguishes between clitic and tonic pronouns. A clitic is a word that attaches in a syntactically rigid way to another word to form a prosodic unit with it, lacking prosodic as well as distributional autonomy.Michel, L./Levet, D. (2017): La catégorie de la personne. Saint-Denis: MSH Paris Nord. Online at: https://web.ac-reims.fr/casnav/enfants_nouv_arrives/aide_a_la_scolarisation/LGIDF/LGIDF.LA%20PERSONNE.02.03.17.pdf (retrieved 15.12.2023). Currently, there is no prevailing gender-neutral clitic direct object personal pronoun; the most common ones are detailed below.
Clitic pronouns
Subject	Direct object 	Indirect object
il 	le, (l') 	lui
elle 	la, (l') 	lui
iel 	lae [lae]/lo/lan/Wiki LGBTQIA FR (2021): Al/lan. Online at: https://lgbtqia.fandom.com/fr/wiki/Al/lan (retrieved 11.01.2024).li/lu/lia, (l')	lui
ils 	les 	leur
elles 	les 	leur
iels 	les 	leur
Tonic pronouns are also called 'autonomous' because, in opposition to clitics, they form their own prosodic unit and can stand alone in the sentence, hence their distribution is not as fixed as the clitics' one. There are currently two competing systems:Spencer-Hall, A./Gutt, B. (eds)(2021): Trans and Genderqueer Subjects in Medieval Hagiography. Amsterdam University Press. DOI: 10.2307/j.ctv1ks0cj4.
French cultural and linguistic translation from Maillet C. online at: https://d1wqtxts1xzle7.cloudfront.net/88291459/Maillet_Trad_Terminologie_20pour_20les_20e_3Ftudes_20trans_20et_20non_20binaire_2021-libre.pdf?1657042694=&response-content-disposition=inline%3B+filename%3DTerminologie_pour_les_etudes_trans_et_no.pdf&Expires=1704980549&Signature=aHUqRbpWbQ8K1jtiqQoQV6cgYM~YTcaZmgDhb8U2KTMDILHd8PhO9peeR0SLWNPOlX5RCo1E7aQcCdQzxBeyKmzPDgp9QbYArmWmHSmtOH-QZRUvrjeFeEZSp6qzmIGyZD3ebRNlOH5aMrJViI1eQ32o53Bw2ghAge~D9upEEx~KXPQe9FIUArfFQo0ylInGK9jqh-OM60Qz2pXRc8llTJ3ovtnVPiL2cu2l1mcfBODJyb~IZZZ1MPczrVu-79y1RjeMr8f5BGtMbRD5nv8jtmLex6vWmIl1svtYZTpOaFPy8LwWBa70VogboWPqfAoOL1~CDZPuhlGuDmDErNknDA__&Key-Pair-Id=APKAJLOHF5GGSLRBV4ZA (retrieved 11.01.2024). one consists in syncretizing (cf. analogical levelling)Campbell, L. (1998): Historical Linguistics. An Introduction. First ed. Cambridge/Massachusetts: The MIT Press. clitic and tonic pronouns, following the paradigm of standard French 'elle', which equates keeping the gender-neutral subject pronoun — be it 'iel', 'ille', 'al' or 'ol', etc. — as such; the other approach, exemplified in the table below with 'iel', supports differentiating (cf. analogical extension) clitics from tonic pronouns, thereby aligning with the paradigm of 'il'.
Analogical extension
Clitic subject pronoun	Tonic pronoun
il 	lui
elle 	elle
iel 	ellui [ɛllɥi]
ils 	eux
elles 	elles
iels 	elleux [ɛllø]
===Determiners===
====Indefinite and definite article====
The distinction between 'analytic gender-neutral' versus 'synthetic gender-neutral' is usually referred to as 'inclusif' versus 'neutre'. Compounds — such as 'maon', from 'ma' and 'mon' — and portmanteau words, like 'utilisateurice', could be cognitively interpreted as neutral; at least, there have been no psycholinguistic studies disconfirming this, to the extent that these forms could technically also be called neutral. Furthermore, since gender-neutral forms are inherently inclusive of all genders, there is no reason why they cannot be called that way either. The subsequent interchangeability of these terms makes them unsuitable for differentiating these two methods of creating gender-neutral/gender inclusive words in French. For this reason, the following table distinguishes them based on their morphological properties — blend words being more analytical and non blend words being more synthetic.
The currently most widely accepted neutral forms are denoted in italics in the table. Apart from them, most of the forms depicted in the tables are not in use. The tables thus merely represent suggestions that have been made for degendering French, and feature the items that have been retained by most blogs, researchers and LGBT communities in the French-speaking world.
The underlining of phonemes in the IPA transcription of certain words does not carry any phonetic meaning: it is used solely to highlight which phonetic elements from the feminine and masculine forms have been incorporated into the analytic gender-neutral neologism.
 	Masculine 	Feminine	Analytic gender-neutral	Synthetic gender-neutral
Indefinite article	un [œ̃]/[ɛ̃]	une [yn]	eune [œn] 	an [ɑ̃]/[an]
Definite article 	le 	la 	lae [lae], lea [ləa] 	lo, li, lu, lia
'an' is quite common, particularly in the [ɑ̃] pronunciation, where it shares a core feature with 'un': both consist solely of a nasal vowel. 'eune' [œn] combines the roundedness and degree of aperture of 'un' [œ̃] with the terminal nasal consonant [n] of 'une'. In metropolitan French, where 'un' is typically pronounced as [ɛ̃], 'eune' shares a phonetic characteristic with 'une' through the final [n], and one with 'un' through the similar degree of aperture of their vocalic nucleus.
A drawback of 'an' pronounced as [ɑ̃] is its nasality, a factor known for making vowels challenging to distinguish and learn, even for native French speakers.Sicard, E./Menin-Sicard, A./Rousteau, G. (2022): Oppositions de voyelles orales et nasales : identification des formants selon le genre. INSA Toulouse: ffhal-03826558v2f. Consequently, [ɑ̃] might be perceived as a mispronunciation of 'un' or simply not distinct enough from 'un' to be recognized as a different morpheme.
====Possessive adjectives ====
 	Masculine	Feminine	Analytic gender-neutral	Synthetic gender-neutral
1SG	mon 	ma 	maon [maõ] 	man [mɑ̃]/[man], mo, mi(ne), mian [mjɑ̃]
2SG	ton 	ta 	taon [taõ] 	tan [tɑ̃]/[tan], to, ti(ne)
3SG	son 	sa 	saon [saõ] 	san [sɑ̃]/[san], so, si(ne)
The possessive adjectives 'mon', 'ton', and 'son', which are generally masculine, are also used as feminine possessive adjectives when combined with a feminine noun that begins (phonetically) with a vowel: 'mon amie', 'ton employée', 'son hôtesse', etc. Therefore, there is no need to use a possessive neologism in words starting with vowels, as the masculine and feminine gender are syncretized in this context.
The pronunciation [sɑ̃] of 'san' is a homophone of 'sang' ('blood'). Alpheratz proposes 'mu(n)', 'tu(n)', 'su(n)' as synthetic forms. However, 'tu(n)' is a homophone of the subject pronoun 'tu', and — i. e. [y] — is a linguistically marked phone.Rice, K. (2007): Markedness in phonology. In: The Cambridge Handbook of Phonology, 79–98. 10.1017/cbo9780511486371.005.Carvalho, J. (2023): From binary features to elements: Implications for markedness theory and phonological acquisition. In: Radical: A Journal of Phonology 3, 346–384. Alternative forms could be 'mi(ne)', 'ti(ne)', 'sine', as only the roundness parameter (cf. [y] and [i] in the IPA) distinguishes them from the original neologisms suggested by Alpheratz. 'si(ne)' could be pronounced with an '-ne' ending to avoid homophony with 'si' (i. e. 'if'). Similar-sounding possessive adjectives can be found in Spanish ('mi'), in English ('my'), in Swedish ('min', 'din', 'sin', the last one being a gender-neutral reflexive possessive pronoun),Duolingo Wiki: Swedish Skills. Possessives. Online at:https://duolingo.fandom.com/wiki/Swedish_Skill:Possessives (18.12.2023). in Norwegian,Norwegian University of Science and Technology (no data): 8 Grammar. Possessives. Online at: https://www.ntnu.edu/now/8/grammar (retrieved 18.12.2023). in Swiss-German,Klaudia, K. (2017): Schweizerdeutsch. Schlüssel zu den Übungen. Online at: https://silo.tips/download/schweizerdeutsch-schlssel-zu-den-bungen (retrieved 18.12.2023). and in other Germanic languages. As 60% of of humans are multilingual,McGibney, S. (2023): What Percentage of the World’s Population is Bilingual? Introduction to Bilingualism: Exploring the Global Language Diversity. Online at: https://www.newsdle.com/blog/world-population-bilingual-percentage (retrieved 18.12.2023). cross-linguistic influence could be used to facilitate the memorization and adoption of neologisms.Van Dijk, C./Van Wonderen, E./Koutamanis, E./Kootstra, G.J./Dijkstra, T./Unsworth, S. (2022): Cross-linguistic influence in simultaneous and early sequential bilingual children: a meta-analysis. In: J. Child Lang. 49, 897–929. 10.1017/S0305000921000337.Van Dijk, C./Dijkstra, T./Unsworth, S. (2022): Cross-linguistic influence during online sentence processing in bilingual children. In: Bilingualism 25, 691–704. 10.1017/S1366728922000050.
====Demonstrative adjective====
Masculine	Feminine	Analytic gender-neutral	Synthetic gender-neutral	Plural
ce/cet 	cette 	 	cèd 	ces
La vie en Queer proposes 'cet', which sounds the same as the feminine 'cette'; Divergenres retains 'cèx', but notes that it sounds like the word 'sexe'. A third possibility is to voice or to devoice the final consonant of the feminine word, for instance turning [t] to [d], or [g] to [k]. This would allow the word to remain easily recognizable while being distinct from both the masculine and the feminine forms. This approach has the advantage of minimizing misunderstandings and memorization effort.
===Non personal pronouns===
====Possessive pronouns====
 	Masculine 	Feminine 	Analytic gender-neutral	Synthetic gender-neutral
Singular	le mien [lə mjɛ̃] 	la mienne [la mjɛn] 	lae mienn [lae mjɛ̃n] 	lo miem
Plural 	les miens [le mjɛ̃]	les miennes [le mjɛn]	les mienns [le mjɛ̃n] 	les miems
Currently, there is no established combination of definite article and possessive pronoun. In this table, the definite article "lae" is simply paired with the possessive pronoun "mienn" for morphological reasons, as both words are of the analytic gender-neutral type. This also applies to the definite article "lo" and the possessive pronoun "miem", both of which are of the synthetic type.
====Demonstrative pronouns====
 	Masculine 	Feminine 	Analytic gender-neutral	Synthetic gender-neutral
Singular	celui [səlɥi]	celle [sɛl] 	cellui [sɛlɥi] 	ciel [sjεl]
Plural 	ceux [sø] 	celles [sɛl]	celleux [sɛlø] 	ciels [sjεl], ceuxes [søks]
====Indefinite pronouns====
 	Masculine 	Feminine 	Analytic gender-neutral	Synthetic gender-neutral
aucun·e 	aucun [okœ̃]/[okɛ̃] 	aucune [okyn] 	aucueune [okœn] 	aucan [okɑ̃]/[okan]
chacun·e 	chacun [ʃakœ̃/[ʃakɛ̃] 	chacune [ʃakyn] 	chacueune [ʃakœn] 	chacan [ʃakɑ̃]/[ʃakan]
certain·e 	certain [sɛʁtɛ̃] 	certaine [sɛʁtɛn] 	 	certan [sɛʁtɑ̃]/[sɛʁtan]
tout·e 	tout 	toute 	 	toude
tous/toutes	tous 	toutes 	toustes 	
quelqu'un·e	quelqu'un [kɛlkœ̃]/[kɛlkɛ̃]	quelqu'une [kɛlkyn]	quelqu'eune [kɛlkœn] 	quelqu'an [kɛlkɑ̃]/[kɛlkan]
The indefinite pronoun 'quelqu'une' is extremely rare in modern French and its pendant 'quelqu'un' not necessarily perceived as masculine,Liam (2023): Coming out day. 11.10.2023. Mon vécu de coming out. In: ekivock.nb (Instagram account). Online at: https://www.instagram.com/p/CyP-j_Tobbj/?img_index=3. thus it is not clear how essential the degendering of this pronoun is. 
===Nouns and adjectives ===
Words such as 'professionnel' and 'professionnelle', which are orally epicene and, thus, indistinguishable in speech, are not included; the use of their shortened doublet form enables inclusivity and gender-neutrality in written language.
==== Endings from Latin '-or' and '-rix'====
Endings from Latin '-or' and '-rix'
 	Masculine 	Feminine 	Analytic gender-neutral 	Synthetic gender-neutral
-eur/-euse 	enquêteur 	enquêteuse 	enquêteureuse 	enquêtaire
-eur/-rice 	acteur 	actrice 	acteurice 	actaire
-eur/-_resse1	docteur 	doctoresseDoctoresse Joséphine Tornay. Online at: https://cm-latour.ch/team/josephine-tornay-medecine-interne-generale/ (retrieved 18.12.2023). 'Doctoresse' is a very common Swiss French denomination for female doctors.	docteuresse 	doctaire
-eur/-_resse2	enchanteur	enchanteresse 	enchanteuresse 	enchantaire
-e/-esse 	maître 	maîtresse 	maîtré/maîtrè (or maîtræ)	maîtrexe
-ard/-asse 	connard 	connasse 	connarsse 	connarde
The analytic gender-neutral forms derived from words that originate from Latin '-or' and '-rix' are already being used,Viennot, E. (2023): Pour un langage non sexiste ! Acteurice, visiteureuse... Des néologismes de plus en plus employés. Online at: https://www.elianeviennot.fr/Langue-mots.html (retrieved 15.12.2023). although they have not been officially recognized by any French dictionary yet. Some podcasts where you can hear them are Les Couilles sur la table, Parler comme jamais and Papatriarcat.
Synthetic gender-neutral forms have the advantage of preserving the original syllable number of the word, making them less cumbersome than analytic forms. Moreover, the '-aire' suffix does already exist in contemporary French, forming epicene nouns like 'un·e destinataire', 'un·e secrétaire', 'un·e volontaire', 'un·e bibliothécaire', etc. However, several psycholinguistic studies conducted in FrenchBrauer, M./Landry, M. (2008): Un ministre peut-il tomber enceinte? L'impact du générique masculin sur les représentations mentales. In: L'Année Psychol. 108, 243–272. 10.4074/S0003503308002030.Xiao, H./Strickland, B./Peperkamp, S. (2023): How fair is gender-fair language? Insights from gender ratio estimations in French. In: J. Lang. Soc. Psychol. 42, 82–106. 10.1177/0261927X221084643. and in GermanStahlberg, D./Sczesny, S./Braun, F. (2001): Name your favorite musician: effects of masculine generics and of their alternatives in German. In: J. Lang. Soc. Psychol. 20, 464–469. 10.1177/0261927X01020004004. have found that "gender-unmarked forms are not fully effective in neutralizing the masculine bias"Spinelli, E./Chevrot, J.-P./Varnet, L. (2023): Neutral is not fair enough: testing the efficiency of different language gender-fair strategies. In: Front. Psychol. 14. 10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1256779. and that "contracted double forms [such as acteur·ice] are more effective in promoting gender balance compared to gender-unmarked forms." Regarding this issue, specifically, analytic gender-neutral forms could then be a more effective solution than synthetic ones.
====Endings with '-x' in the masculine====
Endings from latin '-ōsus'CNRTL (2012): -EUX, élément formant. Online at: https://www.cnrtl.fr/definition/-eux (retrieved 15.12.2023).
 	Masculine	Feminine 	Analytic gender-neutral	Synthetic gender-neutral
-eux/-euse	amoureux 	amoureuse	amoureuseux 	amoureuxe [amuʁøks]
amouré·e
-eux/-esse	dieu 	déesse 	dieuesse 	dieuxe
Endings with '-x' (♂︎) and '-[s]' (♀︎)
 	Masculine	Feminine	Analytic gender-neutral	Synthetic gender-neutral
-x/-sse	roux 	rousse 	 	rouxe
-x/-ce 	doux 	douce 	 	douxe
The synthetic gender-neutral forms in which the silent consonant of the masculine form becomes audible mantain the original number of syllables. They have an audible suffix, like the feminine forms do, without that suffix being the same as the feminine. Additionally, the fact that the audible consonant in gender-neutral form matches the consonant in the masculine suffix could facilitate the learning of these neologisms for literate French speakers. However, in cases where the masculine does not contain a silent <x> and the feminine has a distinctive suffix, such as with 'dieu, déesse', adopting the analytic approach may be more consistent in terms of spelling and inclusivity (see previous paragraph).
====Endings with nasal vowels in the masculine form====
 Endings with nasal vowels in the masculine form
 	Masculine 	Feminine 	Analytic gender-neutral 	Synthetic gender-neutral
-ain/-aine 	écrivain [Ekʁivɛ̃] 	écrivaine [Ekʁivɛn] 	 	écrivan [Ekʁivɑ̃]/[Ekʁivan]
-ain/-ine 	copain [kɔpɛ̃] 	copine [kɔpin] 	copaine [kɔpɛn] 	copan [kɔpɑ̃]/[kɔpan]
-in/-ine 	cousin [kuzɛ̃] 	cousine [kuzin] 	cousaine [kuzɛn] 	cousan [kuzɑ̃]/[kuzan]
-an/-anne 	paysan [pɛizɑ̃] 	paysanne [pɛizan] 	 	paysaine [pɛizɛn]
-ien/-ienne	citoyen [sitwajɛ̃] 	citoyenne [sitwajɛn]	 	citoyan [sitwajɑ̃]/[sitwajan]
-un/-une1 	brun [bʁœ̃]/[bʁɛ̃] 	brune [bʁyn] 	breune, brunn [bʁœ̃n]/[bʁɛ̃n] 	braine, bran [bʁɑ̃]/[bʁan]
-un/-une2 	opportun [ɔpɔʁtœ̃]/[ɔpɔʁtɛ̃]	opportune [ɔpɔʁtyn] 	opporteune, opportaine [ɔpɔʁtɛn]	opportan [ɔpɔʁtɑ̃]/[ɔpɔʁtan]
-on/-onne 	mignon [miɲõ] 	mignonne [miɲɔn] 	migneune [miɲœn] 	mignaine, mignan [miɲɑ̃]/[miɲan]
The '-aine' suffix has gained popularity. However, its use in monosyllabic words like 'brun·e' may hinder comprehension, which could explain why 'bran', a form that preserves the nasality of the final vowel while only changing its place of articulation, is more widespread. Words with a '-ien/-ienne' (and obviously also '-ain/-aine') suffix cannot form a synthetic gender-neutral form with '-aine', as this would result in a word pronounced exactly the same way as the feminine one (cf. 'citoyenne'). Here, the synthetical neutral forms created with '-an' only retain masculine phonetic traits (i. e. its manner of articulation — vocalic — and its nasality trait — which is positive). Theoretically, this could lead to similar issues as discussed in the Endings from Latin '-or' and '-rix' subchapter. The same could be true with synthetic gender-neutral forms ending in '-aine', but this time in favour of the feminine. However, even though the suffix '-aine' could sound feminine, the resulting form is still easily distinguishable from the original one, since the vowels implied are oral and not nasal, and can therefore be less easily mistaken for mispronunciations — while 'écrivan', 'citoyan' and 'bran' could be (for more information, see the Indefinite and definite article subchapter).
====Endings with silent consonant X in the masculine and audible consonant X in the feminine====
Endings with silent (♂︎) and audible (♀︎) consonant
 	Masculine 	Feminine 	Analytic gender-neutral 	Synthetic gender-neutral
-t/-te 	pâlot 	pâlotte 	 	pâlode, pâlat, pâlasse
-d/-de 	grand 	grande 	 	grante, granxe, gransse
-iet/iète	inquiet 	inquiète 	 	inquiède
-g/gue 	oblong 	oblongue 	 	oblonk
-er/-ière	premier [pʁəmje]	première [pʁəmjɛʁ]	premiérère, premiér [pʁəmjeʁ]	
-c/-che 	blanc 	blanche 	 	blank
-s/-se 	antillais 	antillaise 	 	antillaisse
-s/-che 	frais 	fraîche 	fraîchais 	fraisse
-s/-sse 	bas 	basse 	babasse 	base
As the table demonstrates, no approach has achieved widespread acceptance among this category of nouns and adjectives. As discussed in the Demonstrative adjective subchapter, one intuitive approach to creating a gender-neutral form involves making the silent consonant of the masculine form audible in the neologism while voicing or devoicing it, so that its pronunciation is different from the feminine form — e. g.: 'palôt' → 'palôte' (sounds like 'pâlotte') → 'pâlode' . However, masculine words ending in a silent pose a challenge: when put in the feminine form, the can either become a voiced sibilant [z] or a voiceless sibilant [s] (the outcome [ʃ] is irrelevant in this issue). This inconsistency means that the silent of the masculine form can represent either a voiced or a voiceless sound. While the silent consonants of other words can simply be transformed into their voiceless resp. voiced counterparts to differentiate them from the feminine, creating gender-neutral forms from words like "antillais·e" and "bas·e" requires more careful consideration. If the feminine form is pronounced with a [s], the pronunciation of the gender-neutral form must be [z] to avoid homophony; conversely, if the feminine form is pronounced [z], the gender-neutral form's pronunciation must be [s] to maintain distinctiveness.
====Endings with a rounded vowel in the masculine and '-_(l)le' in the feminine====
Endings with a rounded vowel (♂︎) and '-_(l)le' (♀︎)
 	Masculine 	Feminine 	Analytic gender-neutral	Synthetic gender-neutral
-eau/-elle	jumeau 	jumelle 	jumelleau, jumeaulle 	jumalWiki LGBTQIA FR (2023): Néopronoms. Online at: https://lgbtqia.fandom.com/fr/wiki/Neopronoms (retrieved 11.01.2024).
-ou/-olle 	fou 	folle 	follou, foulle 	
-aux/-ales	spéciaux 	spéciales	spécialaux, spéciaules 	
-eux/-lle 	vieux/vieil	vieille 	vieilleux, vieuille 	
The pronunciation of /a/ as [ɔ] in Canadian French can lead to ambiguity in gender-neutral forms like 'spéciaules', as they could be interpreted as the feminine singular and plural, or masculine singular form of 'spécial·e'.
==== Endings with consonant X in the masculine and consonant X with phonetic change triggered by presence of final '-e' in the feminine====
Masculine consonant X and feminin consonant X modified by '-e'
 	Masculine	Feminine	Analytic gender-neutral	Synthetic gender-neutral
-c/-che	sec 	sèche 	seckèche, sèchec 	
-f/-ve 	naïf 	naïve 	naïfive, naïvif 	
Florence Ashley argues that the order in which the feminine and masculine morphemes are combined does not matter. Usage, intelligibleness and personal preference ultimately determine which forms will gain traction. However, the prosodic sequencing of syllables in French can impact intelligibility. For instance, in the pronunciation of 'naïvif' (neutral form) as [na'i'vif], contrary to 'naïfive', the end of the word is acoustically identical to 'vif' (i. e. 'vivacious') and can thus lead to confusion.
==== Some gender-neutral nouns from irregular substantives====
Irregular substantives
Masculine	Feminine	Analytic gender-neutral	Synthetic gender-neutral
roi 	reine 	roine 	
héros 	héroïne 	héroïnos 	héroan [Eʁoɑ̃]/[Eʁoan], héroal
frère 	sœur 	frœur, srère 	adelphe
Monsieur 	Madame 	 	Monestre
==Illustrative narrative text with neologisms==
Neologisms from different paradigms and approaches are depicted here.
"Lae maîtrè accueillent les enfants et leur demande de prendre place. La leçon du jour concerne les métiers. L’instituteurice interroge les élèves sur leurs souhaits professionnels et les professions exercées par les membres de leur famille. Eune élève dans la deuxième rangée prend la parole :
*Plus tard, j’aimerais travailler en tant qu’infirmiér ou chirurgian, parce que mi frœur aîné·e, Amel, est eune brillande médecin à l’hôpital de Lyon et que je l’admire beaucoup. Malheureusement, al est très occupé·e en ce moment et je ne peux lo voir et passer du temps avec ael que le week-end.
An autre élève réagit :
*Quand j’étais à l’hôpital parce qu’il y avait un problème avec mon glucomètre, li docteuresse qui s’est occupé·e de moi m’a dit qu’iel s’appelait Amel ! Est-ce que ton adelphe est rouxe, par hasard ?
*Non, al est pas rouxe, mais al se teint régulièrement les cheveux avec du henné !
*Alors je suis sur·e que c'était tan frœur ! Moi, quand je serai grante, j’aimerais m’occuper aussi bien des autres que le fait Amel. J’aimerais devenir éducataire spécialisé·e.
*Moi aussi j’adore aider les autres ! Souvent, le matin, j’aide mi jumal à s’habiller, à préparer sa récré et à mettre ses chaussures, parce qu’iel a un chromosome de plus que moi alors certaines choses sont moins faciles pour ellui. Je me montre toujours patiende et douxe parce qu’iel fait pas ça exprès ! J’écrirai des livres sur ce dont les personnes qui réfléchissent différemment ont besoin et je découvrirai pourquoi elles pensent comme ça : du coup, quand je serai vieuille, je serai écrivan-chercheureuse.
*Comment ça, quand tu seras vieilleux ? Tu crois que tu vas commencer à travailler quand ?
*Je sais pas, quand je serai adulte, quand je serai vieuille, quoi.
* Ce que tu es mignan de penser que je suis vieilleux, moi, merci bien.
*(ricanements)
*Moi, je suis un peu inquiède parce que je ne sais pas ce que je voudrais faire plus tard.
* Peut-être tes camarades peuvent te donner des idées.
*Je peux te raconter ce que fait mo grante cousaine, Anh : comme al adore les animaux, al est devenu·e paysaine, comme ça al peut les caresser tous les jours !
* Mi voisaine, à moi, iel est enseignande de Yoruba, et parfois iel donne même des cours à domicile.
*Mais, je lae connais, tan voisan André·e, al est kazakhstanaisse, ses langues maternelles, c'est le russe et le kazakh, al peut pas enseigner le Yoruba.
*Bien sûr qu’iel peut ! Tu as pas besoin d’avoir une nationalité spécifique pour savoir une langue ! La preuve, moi je suis allemante et italian, mais je parle que français.
*On a discuté de beaucoup de métiers dans le monde du social. Est-ce que vous connaissez des gens dans des domaines plus techniques ?
*Oui, mi paman, par exemple, al travaille en tant qu’ingénieureuse de logiciel. Parfois, al est de piquet et, ces soirs-là, quand quelque chose tombe en panne, al devient toude blank et se précipite sur son ordinateur pour réparer le problème. Mapa dit toujours que je dois pas rire de Paman, dans ces moments, mais j’arrive pas à me retenir, la tête qu’al fait est trop drôle.
*Et to mapa, iel fait quoi ?
*Ellui, iel est politician : iel vérifie que vous continuez à toustes vous comporter en bans citoyans !
*Tu es bien naïfive si tu penses qu’en général on se comporte en bans citoyans !
*Moi, j'ai pas pu parler encore.
*Vas-y, Ariel·le, on t'écoute.
*Mi tancle, iel est champian de para hockey.
*C'est pas un métier, ça, le sport.
*Oh que si ! Iel s'entraîne dur tous les jours, d'ailleurs sine entraîneureuse est très fier·e d'ellui parce qu'iel est an capitan si engagé·e que son équipe est régulièrement sélectionnée pour les Jeux Paralympiques. Moi, plus tard, j'aimerais aussi être eune sportifive de haut niveau, comme iel.
*Bien, sur ce, je vous propose à toustes d'aller enfiler vos affaires de sport : on se retrouve dans la salle de gymnastique pour une partie de unihockey.
Les élèves :
*Yes, merci Ariel·le !"
==Discussion==
According to linguist Roswitha Fischer, citing Renate Bartsch,Bartsch, R. (1987): Sprachnormen: Theorie und Praxis: Studienausgabe. Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter. 10.1515/9783110935875. the adoption of neologisms into a language's lexicon depends on three factors:
#Prestige: The neologism must be championed by a group of influential individuals who hold social, political, and economic power.
#Written Usage: The neologism must gain traction in written communication, becoming accepted in literature, media, and formal communication.
#Linguistic Contact: The neologism must circulate in areas where multiple dialects and varieties of the language converge, fostering mutual understanding and assimilation.Fischer, R. (1998): Lexical Change in Present-Day English. A Corpus-Based Study of the Motivation, Institutionalization, and Productivity of Creative Neologism. Tübingen: Gunter Narr Verlag.
Currently, gender-neutral French neologisms lack widespread adoption, even within LGBT and nonbinary communities. Their presence is marginal in written form,Café aux étoiles. maison d'édition sereine et onirique (no data): Littérature. Online at: https://cafeauxetoiles.fr/litterature/ (retrieved 18.12.2023).Les Ourses à plumes. Webzine féministe (2022): Les elfes noirs ne sont jamais noirs (1) : enjeux de la représentation dans les fictions de l'imaginaire. Online at: https://lesoursesaplumes.info/tag/une/ (retrieved 18.12.2023). and their usage in spoken language limited. However, the Internet serves as an area for these neologisms to reach a global audience of Francophone speakers from Africa, America, Europe, and minority language communities all around the world. Additionally, descriptive approaches to language (cf. Le Robert), contrary to prescriptive approaches (cf. L'Académie), have lead to the acceptance of one of them — 'iel' — in written discourse.
For neologisms to gain wider adoption, they must be learnable and user-friendly. This means they should be easy to understand and easy to remember (due to morphological motivation); easy to pronounce while adhering to the phoneme inventory and phonotactics of the language; familiar to the target audience; and responsive to a genuine need. If these criteria are met, neologisms will start being adopted by avant-garde language users. As these avant-garde figures gather large online communities, the frequency of usage of these neologisms will increase, fostering familiarity among the Francophone community. From then, some of these neologisms could potentially enter the standard vocabulary.
== Main resources ==
# ★La vie en Queer (2018): Petit dico de français neutre/inclusif. Online at: https://lavieenqueer.wordpress.com/2018/07/26/petit-dico-de-francais-neutre-inclusif/.★
# Divergenres (2021): Guide de grammaire neutre et inclusive. Québec. Online at: https://divergenres.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/guide-grammaireinclusive-final.pdf.
# Wiki Trans (2019): Comment parler d'une personne non binaire ? Online at: https://wikitrans.co/2019/12/25/comment-parler-dune-personne-non-binaire/.
# Wiki LGBTQIA FR (2023): Néopronoms. Online at: https://lgbtqia.fandom.com/fr/wiki/Neopronoms.
# Alpheratz (2018): Genre neutre.TABLEAUX RÉCAPITULATIFS de mots de genre neutre (extraits). Online at: https://www.alpheratz.fr/linguistique/genre-neutre/.
==References ==
Category:Gender neutral language