Pronouns for a Three-Sex Society

I'm writing a story about an alien society with three sexes, which I'm tentatively labeling alpha, beta and delta. I'm a bit stumped as to what third person singular pronouns to use. I can't use he and she, because they aren't really male and female, and I would have a hard time trying to figure out who to call what.

My top two choices:

To use 'he' for everyone regardless of gender, which I dislike because it implies masculinity but I like because it's relatable and not confusing.

Or to use the pronouns from their language, ko (alpha), ki (beta), ka (delta) and ke (neuter). I like this better because it helps convey more nuance and it has more of the feel I want, but it might be too clunky and confusing for readers.

If you could give me your input, tell me which one you prefer or possibly suggest some alternatives, that would be really appreciated!

You could a variation on these guys for one of 'em. I think there's a few other odd sets of gender-neutral pronouns out there (like "ze") you could appropriate.

'Ere ya go.

edited 20th Apr '12 10:42:01 AM by YamiiDenryuu

I considered them, but I figured if I really wanted to go the nontraditional pronouns route my invented ones would serve my purposes better.

Well... care of Mary Gentle, you can use ke and kir. This actually has something of sense to it, etymology-wise: he is older than she, and both the 'h' sound and the 'sh' sound are linked to variations on 'k' (the sound in 'cat' crossed a little with the 'ch' in 'loch') in Old English.

So, you could change it to che and chir.

My conlang lacks the ch sound, so I don't think I'll be going with that, but I might end up using ke, because it's already the neuter form of 'he' in their language.

How serious is this supposed to be? 'Cause I can think of two examples. One, just like you, used invented pronouns. The other played with the human protagonist's troubles to wrap his head around the idea, and had him settle on arbitrary "he".

edited 20th Apr '12 11:40:44 AM by lordGacek

Ah, well, no human protagonist. The story is an ancient alien epic. It's being translated by a human studying their culture, but I'm not sure whether she'd be more likely to use their pronouns for accuracy or 'he' for relatability.

edited 20th Apr '12 11:46:04 AM by ChocolateCotton

All are nice, but think that "gender" it´s something cultural. An alien race language could express rather different than yours. Captain Obvius aside.

Example: In Spanish all noun has gender, regardless he has sex or not.

Look:

The/El pencil/lapiz is/es white/blanco.

The/La eraser/goma is/es white/blanca.

edited 20th Apr '12 12:39:40 PM by Picheleiro

Presumably the human character is translating that to English, so even if the aliens had one gender-neutral pronoun, it'd have to be translated to something.

I realize that, but one of the reasons I wrote this was to play with gender roles, so it'd defeat the point to some degree if they didn't have at least similar perceptions of gender.

Mmm, well, sometimes words just don't have a direct translation into another language. Assuming that gender neutral pronouns haven't come into common use by the time this human translator reads the text, she/he might just use the actual pronoun used for the third sex as is, only Romanizing it. (Assuming it's getting translated to English.) I imagine that the translation of such a text would come with an index and small dictionary for the words that just couldn't be changed.

Oh, an index is a good idea. I actually hadn't thought of that.

The thing I have discovered about language is this; there are some words that don't translate smoothly. Either one word can translate into an entire sentence or simply needs that in order to be defined, or the cultural concept itself is just that; a specific cultural concept that didn't develop elsewhere. Quite often they are both.

Still, having gone over that wikipedia list I'll suggest using thon because that sounds kid of badass. And also like they're cyborgs. But yeah, going back to what I said. You've got the beginnings of a grammatical set up there, if you're going to involve bits of the native language anyway using their words for the extra sexes would be okay.

Also, indexes would be a good place to add cultural info and flavor text.

Pronouns are often a headache. I think in this case I'd lean towards invented pronouns of some kind, even though they risk sounding very forced and unnatural. If the third sex is 'equal' to the others I think it should use the same language for pronouns, otherwise it risks seeming tacked on. Using alien words for all three would force readers to adapt some of their cultural preconceptions to the alien point of view.

I think it helps if the story is long, because then there's more time to adjust. Just be aware that readers will be coming in from a different perspective, and do your best to ease them in to the alien frame of mind, I suppose.

I'd say that in my experience, depending on the idea involved, it usually take me between maybe one and five chapters before an introduced word stops sounding weird. Basic elements of grammar are probably harder to shift but I think it's doable.

Yes, I definitely want to give the impression that these are three distinct genders instead of just "male", "female" and "other".

I think I will go with my constructed pronouns. I'll try to add some notes and maybe a brief introductory passage to help ease the readers into it. Thanks for the help, everybody!