The Swedish Approach to Gender-Neutral Pronouns
It turns out Sweden is good at more than making meatballs.
When you think of Sweden, what comes to mind?
Probably meatballs, IKEA furniture, and ABBA. What you may not know about Sweden is its groundbreaking and thoroughly inclusive approach to gender-neutral pronouns.
In 2012, Sweden added the gender-neutral hen pronoun to its Swedish language dictionary. This small addition has had a huge impact.
What are Pronouns?
A pronoun is a word that substitutes for a noun or noun phrase. The most common pronouns in the English language include she/her/hers, he/him/his, and they/them/theirs.
My Experience with Pronouns in Sweden
I lived in Linköping, Sweden for about three and a half months in early 2020 as part of a university exchange study program. On the first day of a class called Swedish For Exchange Students, we were taught some of the basics.
The professor, Åsa, first taught us the basics like numbers, greetings, and prepositions, before we got to pronouns. In her neat handwriting, Åsa wrote that there are three singular pronouns in Swedish: hon (she), han (he), and hen (they).
