Swedish
“Hen” represented among other personal pronouns in Swedish
Etymology 1
[Hen was] Created as an alternative to hon (“she”) and han (“he”). The coining of the word has probably been influenced by the Finnish
hän, a personal pronoun used about human beings and which does not specify gender (Finnish lacks grammatical gender entirely).
Hen was suggested as early as 1966 by linguist Rolf Dunås in Swedish regional newspaper
Upsala Nya Tidning and was proposed again in a 1994 article by linguist Hans Karlgren, but did not receive widespread attention until around 2010.[1]
Pronoun
hen (
third person singular gender-neutral personal pronoun,
oblique hen or henom,
possessive hens)
- (neologism) A third-person singular pronoun of unspecified gender; they, thon; alternative to hon (“she”) and han (“he”).
Usage notes
- Although the word has gained common use, it is not nearly as common as the gendered words han and hon. From 2011 to 2020, usage of hen increased hundredfold in the media, but no increase was seen in 2021.[2] It has been especially popular among activists for gender equality and adherents of queer theory, and with the transgender community.[3] In 2022, usage of hen was ranked in shared first place alongside misspelling of words as the most annoying language phenomenon in a Swedish survey.[4] ...