Ai propose to you, dear reader, «ale» – plural form being «ales».

The word derives from the prefix allo-. These two syllables are affixed to the words for the categories of stuff that are other from, apart from, and/or aloof from the categories of stuff that are considered most important by the dominant sources of metanarrative production in our society (what ai like to call “the dessemp”, based on the acronym DSMP).

For example, Québec’s allophones, who are not perceived as those with the most agency or the most responsibility in the conflict between the Province of Québec’s official French unilingualism, on the one hand, and the threat of «le bilinguisme grimpant» and/or English-language hegemony, on the other. Then there’s the word «allosexuelle», a French translation of “queer” that never really caught on. It sounds a bit clinical, for sure, and it’s pretty obvious why it couldn’t compete with that sexy single-syllable anglicism that has swept the world (or at least a large number of European languages). Right now, though, in this paragraph here, ai’d like us all to appreciate «allosexuelle» for what it is. Ai think it implies a certain vastness, one as diverse and far-reaching as the human animal’s propensity for creativity, experimentation, desire, and resourcefulness. It’s not infinite, but for limited subjectivities like ourselves, it is effectively so. (EDIT: while the main thrust of this paragraph remains relevant, research done for a later post revealed some important information about the word «allosexuelle» which is probably worth looking into).

My motivation here, for the record, is that ai want to have a French word that ai, myself, can feel comfortable using to refer to the people in my life who, in English, prefer to use they as a personal pronoun. Ai don’t feel comfortable using «il», ai don’t like the gendered «lui» (as opposed to the non-gendered «lui» that you can also use for someone who is otherwise an «elle» – such is the intricacy of proper French grammar), and ai don’t like the needlessly ugly and binary-affirming «ille». It doesn’t seem like any of the other gender-neutral pronouns ai’ve seen (all of which come from this blog post, incidentally) have caught on very much, and ai don’t like any of them anyway.

The sort of go-to in Montréal, at least among the small number of people that ai’ve ever had this conversation with, is to use «ille», which you may notice ai just shit-talked in the last paragraph.

Ai came up with «ale» because «ille» is terribly inadequate as a when-in-doubt pronoun. To be clear, if someone told me to use «ille» when referring to them, ai would do so, just as ai have used “e”, “ze”, and even “it” in English when people have told me that such or such is the pronoun that so or so uses. But in English, if ai’m uncertain about someone’s preferred pronoun and ai can’t just find out easily, ai’m going to use “they”. It seems to me that «ille» isn’t appropriate for this same function, though, because of a few reasons. First, «ille» sounds pretty much the same as the masculine pronoun in French unless you really stress the final letter-ee [e, E] and get another syllable out of it, like you might do for certain chants or songs. That sounds a bit weird in regular speech, though, and it’s still going to sound pretty much the same as «il». Second, the orthography of «ille» is simply a cross between «il» and «elle». There is an implication here that the person to whom this pronoun refers is simply between masculinity and femininity, rather than completely beyond the two of them. It is entirely possible that the person in question does feel “in between the two” (or feels like an embodiment of the two, or whatever other subjective experience they might have of their gender), but it’s also possible that they don’t, and frankly, ai am rather unlikely to know for sure. Once again, it’s subjective!

Ai like to think, though, that «ale», in contrast to «ille», is closer to «hen», the Swedish gender-neutral pronoun that has been generating a lot of controversy in some circles as of late. Like «hen», «ale» has a different vowel sound than its masculine and feminine counterparts (which, in Swedish, are «han» and «hon» respectively), but the word has the same consonant structure, so it doesn’t look completely out of place alongside the other two. In French, of course, the orthography is also a bit different between the masculine and feminine pronouns, with «il» having two letters and «elle» coming in at four. «Ale» has three letters. There is a risk, of course, that it will look like it is “in between” masculinity and femininity because of this, an apparent compromise that ai don’t like about «ille» and something ai want to avoid. But hopefully ai’m reading too much into it, and no one else will care! The purpose of the three letters is to render it different enough in form from both of the predominating pronouns, not necessarily to be “in between”.

So the final thing here is finding a word that corresponds to «ale» for those situations where «lui» is not epicene. In this case, ai am not sure if ai should propose another word formation in order to differentiate «ale» even further from the predominating pronouns (using, for example, «aule»?) or if it’d be better to go with the standard that is set by «elle». It’s basically a question of whether «lui-même» (“himself”) and «elle-même» (“herself), and all other situations of this kind, will be joined with the obvious «ale-même», or with the alternative «aule-même». Considering that ai can’t actually speak French properly, ai doubt it’ll be much of a problem for me, but there should be a standard, and considering that ai can’t decide between the two, ai am going to unilaterally propose that both are appropriate!

Of course, the introduction of a gender-neutral pronoun doesn’t resolve the problem of adjectives which, in French, can have either of two genders, masculine or feminine. Short of making a new version of each adjective that corresponds to a third grammatical gender, which is an absolutely daunting task, the only solution seems to be for people who use neither masculine nor feminine pronouns to simply pick an adjectival form they feel more comfortable with. In many cases, the adjectival forms are not going to matter too much, at least when spoken, because the difference in pronunciation is very subtle. It is going to be more difficult in cases where the masculine and feminine versions of the same word are markedly different from one another in both pronunciation and orthography, as with the words «beau» and «belle».

Today, many English-speaking anarchists ask for and offer pronouns when in the midst of introductions. Ai think this cultural practice is good and useful, and ai think it would be nice if this practice could be imported to French-speaking anarchist scenes too. In French, though, due to this matter of gendered adjectives – something that, at least as far as ai can see it, can’t be torn down or reformed without a total negation of the French language itself – introductions may sometimes need to include the question «Et c’est quoi ta forme adjectivale préférée?» after name and pronoun come up. This may not be necessary if a person has already told you that their preferred pronoun is «elle» or «il», but for someone who uses «ale» (or whatever other gender-neutral pronoun, since there’s no guarantee that the one a cis boy anglo came up with is the one that will eventually actually catch on), it is definitely pertinent information.

Of course, asking for adjectival forms in English might not be a bad idea either, at least if you live in a city where the French language predominates. Ai might be anglo, and you might be anglo, and so you might think that ai don’t need a preferred adjectival form since we’ll be speaking to each other in English, but there’s a chance that ai’m going to have a conversation about you (using adjectives!) with a francophone later. If ai don’t have know what to do, ai’m going to be staring at my phone, trying to tell someone that you are “determined” or something (in French, either «déterminé» or «déterminée»), not knowing whether ai should add that extra letter-ee to my text or not, and generally freaking the fuck out.

(This has actually happened, although “freaking the fuck out” is a bit of an exaggeration.)

So here’s my proposal, once again, in a nutshell. Unless another French gender-neutral pronoun has been specified as appropriate (for example, «ille», which some people do prefer), use «ale» when referring to people for whom you would use the singular “they” (or any other gender-neutral pronoun) if you were speaking in English. Use «ale» when referring to someone whose gender identity you do not know, in the same way as you would use “they”. Bring the practice of asking for pronouns to the other solitude, and when necessary, ask for adjectival forms as well. Expect some confusion, but do it anyway, because it’s a good thing to do.

In any case, whatever you choose to do yourself, you’ll now know what I’m talking about if you ever hear me say «ale».