Tbh, when i don’t understand someone’s gender i just default to genderless pronouns, the fact is that in my main language genderless pronouns are used in formal settings, so it has the side effect of the fallback sounding more polite than usual.
Italian, but i feel like other neolatin languages should have something along those lines
Ex. Lei è molto gentile.= You are very kind.
It’s more complicated than in English, because in italian stuff like adjectives are also gendered.
In this case of my first comment yes, it’s just that i have way too few hours of sleep in me right now to come up with a more encompassing example.
The only one that comes to mind right now is “they are too old”:
Masculine form: lui è troppo vecchio.
Femminine form: lei è troppo vecchia.
In this case in italian the higher register/more polite way of saying it corresponds to the femminine form.(i know talking about age isn’t that polite, but just bear with me).
in that case it is correct regardless of the gender of the one you are speaking to. If it is someone you don’t know it is also less strange to default to a higher register of speech. So it is more “hidden”
Tbh, when i don’t understand someone’s gender i just default to genderless pronouns, the fact is that in my main language genderless pronouns are used in formal settings, so it has the side effect of the fallback sounding more polite than usual.
Which language is this?
Italian, but i feel like other neolatin languages should have something along those lines Ex. Lei è molto gentile.= You are very kind. It’s more complicated than in English, because in italian stuff like adjectives are also gendered.
I love language stuff so I would also like to know more!
Interesting, although I don’t quite understand as a non Italian speaker, isn’t that just replacing ‘tu’?
Italian has gendered nouns and adjectives too, how do you deal with that? I’ve heard of people using ‘-e’ instead of ‘-o / -a’ in Spanish.
In this case of my first comment yes, it’s just that i have way too few hours of sleep in me right now to come up with a more encompassing example.
The only one that comes to mind right now is “they are too old”:
Masculine form: lui è troppo vecchio.
Femminine form: lei è troppo vecchia.
In this case in italian the higher register/more polite way of saying it corresponds to the femminine form.(i know talking about age isn’t that polite, but just bear with me). in that case it is correct regardless of the gender of the one you are speaking to. If it is someone you don’t know it is also less strange to default to a higher register of speech. So it is more “hidden”
southern italian Loro lurks in the background with a steel chair