Celtic languages question

[jesuslovesbono]

Are there any gender-neutral third-person singular pronouns in any Celtic language?

Thanks.

Comments

[catsidhe]

There is some evidence that Old Irish infixed pronouns still distinguished between masculine and neuter in the 3rd sing.

Just. Barely. And the neuter case was assimilated into masculine or feminine by Middle Irish (900-1200). The neut 3s pronouns merged with masculine.

[jesuslovesbono]

thanks.

[embryomystic]

Sort of. Irish ea comes from Old Irish ed 'it' (cognate to Latin id). But it's more of a dummy pronoun, a pronoun that you use with is in the absence of an alternative.

That's definitely the case with all three Goidelic languages. Not sure about the Brythonic languages just, but I suspect they're similarly lacking. My vague recollection is that their third-person prepositional pronouns come in gendered flavours, anyway.

[embryomystic]

er. To be clear, by 'definitely the case', I meant that there isn't really. Manx she is cognate to Irish is ea, but it's become the basic form. Scottish Gaelic doesn't seem to have a reflex of it at all.

[sollersuk]

The neuter seems to have dropped off of (or assimilated with masculine) before Early Welsh was written down.

The default pronoun for impersonal verbs like " it is raining" is feminine.

[jesuslovesbono]

thanks.

[muckefuck]

"Neuter" and "gender neutral" are two completely different things, however. I assume the OP was asking about epicene pronouns such as Finnish hän or English ze. AFAIK, these don't exist in modern Celtic languages and none have been seriously proposed.

[jesuslovesbono]

neuter is fine too, for my purposes, unless it's a word like "it" that would imply dehumanization. but either that or epicene pronouns are what i what i was looking for, yes.