A Linguistic "Discovery"

Ne ( ni) - third person, singular, asexual human pronoun

Singular..................Plural
it, he, she, ne............they
it, him, her, nir.........them
its, his, hers, nes........their

Today, my friend Amy Roberson and I were discussing the need for an asexual pronoun for the third person singular. We settled on "ne." Our reasoning and discussion, to an extent, are as follows...

Linguistic change occurs within a community when a reality is no longer adequately expressed by the lexicon. Numerous instances of this exist in the English language, from irregulars to borrowed words.

Though langue is, in fact, a property of the total speech community, I suggest that change occurs on the level of parole. Thus, linguistic change occurs as an isolated incident (possibly even by a single individual) and spreads to through larger community. One can see this trend within an isolated speech community with the language variation of slang. It has been my experience that, taking a school to be a small isolated speech community, slang usually begins with a small group then spreads following the trends of fashion, meaning that social elites are act as catalyst for change in the system. For slang, the reality void which is filled is often social differentiation by age, class, or other distinguishing lines.

If one examines our high-speed connected culture, one can see that language variation occurs in an extremely rapid manner. To see an example of this, just chizzle Snoop Dizzle fo' shizzle, nizzle. Though this occurs, much of the linguistic change has been predominated by slang, which follows the life span of fads and other trends associated with fashion. I believe that, for the most part, people, especially those in academia, espouse the old linguists' assertion that one cannot actively change the system. Thus, in dealing with the increased reality that professionals are no longer strictly men, academia has substituted "she" for "he."

As I have just hinted to, there exists a conceptual inadequacy in our modern lexicon. Though this problem is not new, the fact that labeling the world through a male-bias has an impact psychologically and sociologically is receiving more attention as the years progress. As I have just typed, most "progressive" professors substitute the female third person singular for the male. Though this appears to be a good faith effort, it maintains gendered differentiation where there should be none; this, realistically there is no real chance that the male dominance would be reversed in the near future, not without very drastic, outlandish, occurrences. Another solution is the use of the word "one," which does have its place, but makes for rather wordy writing, as well. Thus, if true equality is desired, an asexual pronoun must be used to support this conceptually.

The first possible solution would be to use the one already in existence: "it." The problem is rather obvious, "it" relates to objects, not humans (though this could be considered pretensious on our part...). In looking at the use of "one," the problems are easily observed. The first problem is the lack of intimacy between the speaker and the subject, one tends to feel, as a reader, as though one is being lectured to. Another problem is found in the lack of efficiency that "one" allows. However, if a writer were to use a different pronoun, ne would find that nes writing can avoid these problems.

I could go into how Amy and I came up with it, but that doesn't really matter. We got a laugh and gave ourselves pats on the back (very tongue-in-cheek like). The point is to use it (I'm referring to "ne," of course), since a word has no value outside of the lexical system. Thus, if some one agrees with us, ne should start using "ne" and impress nes friends. You can use it, too! And maybe then you go up to your favorite progressive pal and tell nir about "ne." Then all of us can start using it!