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[cerapa]

What languages have gender neutral pronouns? The few i know all default to masculine as gender-neutral, which many people don't seem to like. :/

Estonian has gender neutral pronouns. Or more exactly, lacks non-neutral pronouns. I dont really understand what you are supposed to say in english when you dont know the gender of someone.

Comparing estonian and english is quite frankly hilarious. You basically have to learn a new alphabet cause you for example sai "i" as "ai" and "a" as "ei", and the best bit is that ai means ow and ei means no in estonian. Theres some other oddities, like hai(ai=i AKA hi), which means shark for us. So, if an estonian is screaming "Hi!" on a beach, dont treat it as a greeting.

[Il Palazzo]

I dont really understand what you are supposed to say in english when you dont know the gender of someone.

As mentioned before, the best strategy is pluralisation. It avoids the clunkiness of other approaches, like using "he or she", "he/she" or "one".
E.g.:
A customer is advised to waggle his or her ears.
Customers are advised to waggle their ears.

One does not simply walk into Mordor, one needs to pass the customs first.
People don't simply walk into Mordor, they need to pass the customs fist.

[kaijyuu]

I occasionally use "one" but pluralizations works better in most situations.

[scriver]

Comparing estonian and english is quite frankly hilarious. You basically have to learn a new alphabet cause you for example sai "i" as "ai" and "a" as "ei", and the best bit is that ai means ow and ei means no in estonian. Theres some other oddities, like hai(ai=i AKA hi), which means shark for us. So, if an estonian is screaming "Hi!" on a beach, dont treat it as a greeting.

Dude you guys are so totally speaking Swedish. Just admit it.

Also cool to see an Estonian on the forums.

[Glowcat]

I often try to use pluralization but it sounds off to me. I also got slapped for using it on an English paper once, so I'm not going to try it again in anything academic. It's not off in same sense as 'he or she' is clunky but rather it's something else done to the flow which I can't quite place my finger on. 'One' also tends to get a few eyebrows raised as it comes off a bit haughty and/or odd to use in modern English.

Hence why I said we needed better (in my subjective taste) gender neutral pronouns, not that we don't have any.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

I use pluralization out of school, but the Academic Party Line is that you should assume masculine if you don't know the gender.

[Silfurdreki]

English is a nice enough language, but it needs a spelling reform badly.

Just look at all the thousands and thousands of "how do you pronounce [only written, made up name from some game/movie/book]?" threads on various forums throughout the internet.

[Hubris Incalculable]

but it needs a spelling reform badly.

Except that any time that spelling reforms have been attempted, they haven't stuck. People have gotten used to this ugly mess, that's more a history of the language than a phonetic representation, and it would take a completely blank slate to effect a change.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Yeah, language is a chaotic unguided mess and trying to change that is an exercise in futility.

[Ancre]

And I'm pretty sure that even if a reform was succesfully made, discrepancies and exceptions would start to appear once again in less than a century.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

And I'm pretty sure that even if a reform was succesfully made, discrepancies and exceptions would start to appear once again in less than a century year.

[Seriyu]

Yeah, pretty much what they said. A language major of mine is always going on about how trying to correct people using words "incorrectly" is actually hampering the progress of the language, because, well, if the word starts being used in that way by the majority, then that word suddenly means a different thing doesn't it?

Meaning is assigned by the speaker, not the word. And the internet is doing a lot of shuffling around with it. 

[Tabbyman]

Yeah, pretty much what they said. A language major of mine is always going on about how trying to correct people using words "incorrectly" is actually hampering the progress of the language, because, well, if the word starts being used in that way by the majority, then that word suddenly means a different thing doesn't it?

Meaning is assigned by the speaker, not the word. And the internet is doing a lot of shuffling around with it. 

Yeah the evolution of the language is in process and people defending the OLD style are the ones calling themselves correct all the time. They're just living in the past.

[Mongol13524]

What languages have gender neutral pronouns? The few i know all default to masculine as gender-neutral, which many people don't seem to like. :/

Estonian has gender neutral pronouns. Or more exactly, lacks non-neutral pronouns. I dont really understand what you are supposed to say in english when you dont know the gender of someone.

Comparing estonian and english is quite frankly hilarious. You basically have to learn a new alphabet cause you for example sai "i" as "ai" and "a" as "ei", and the best bit is that ai means ow and ei means no in estonian. Theres some other oddities, like hai(ai=i AKA hi), which means shark for us. So, if an estonian is screaming "Hi!" on a beach, dont treat it as a greeting.

And for letters that have multiple ways to say them, we actually indicate what pronounciation to use in the word. Ü, õ, ö, ect.

[Blizzlord]

You know a language has problems when they start bleeding over to other languages. Most people incorporate English words into their Swedish speech, some of which are not even legitimate words in English!