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==History==
Historically, there were two gender-neutral pronouns native to English dialects, ''ou'' and ''(h)a''. According to Dennis Baron's ''Grammar and Gender'':{{CitationNeeded}} Baron goes on to describe how relics of these gender-neutral terms survive in some British dialects of Modern English (for example ''hoo'' for "she", in Yorkshire), and sometimes a pronoun of one gender might be applied to a human or non-human animal of the opposite gender. This aforementioned ''hoo'' is also sometimes used in the West Midlands and south-west England as a common gender pronoun.
In some West Country dialects, the pronoun ''er'' can be used in place of either ''he'' or ''she'', although only in weak (unstressed) positions such as in tag questions. These pronouns may not strictly fit the definition of neopronouns, as they developed naturally in the language and, as far as can be discerne, were not created by an individual with the goal of creating a gender-neutral pronoun. Additionally, in Essex, in the south-east of England, in the Middle English period, the spelling "hye" could refer to either he or she.{{CitationNeeded}} More recently, in the city of Baltimore, and possibly other cities in the United States, ''yo'' has come to be used as a gender-neutral pronoun.{{CitationNeeded}}▼
Both the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) and Wright's English Dialect Dictionary confirm the use of "a" in place of "he," "she," "it," "they," and even "I." It is a reduced form of the [[wikipedia:Old English|Old English]] pronoun, "he," meaning "he" and "heo" meaning "she".<ref>https://web.archive.org/web/20100418022839/http://www.aetherlumina.com/gnp/history.html</ref> Some surviving British dialects still use this pronoun.<ref>http://web.archive.org/web/20080630041424/http://www.bartleby.com/64/C005/004.html</ref>
▲In some West Country dialects, the pronoun ''er'' can be used in place of either ''he'' or ''she'', although only in weak (unstressed) positions such as in tag questions. These pronouns may not strictly fit the definition of neopronouns, as they developed naturally in the language and, as far as can be discernediscerned, were not created by an individual with the goal of creating a gender-neutral pronoun. Additionally, in Essex, in the south-east of England, in the Middle English period, the spelling "hye" could refer to either he or she.{{CitationNeeded}} More recently, in the city of Baltimore, and possibly other cities in the United States, ''yo'' has come to be used as a gender-neutral pronoun.{{CitationNeeded}}
Various proposals for the use of other non-standard pronouns have been introduced since at least the 19th century. Ou was first recorded in a native English dialect in the 16th century. In 1789, William H. Marshall documented the use of ''a'', used by 14th century English writer, John of Trevisa, the existence of a dialectal English epicene pronoun, singular ''ou'': '"Ou will" expresses either he will, she will, or it will.' Marshall traces ''ou'' as possibly deriving from [[wikipedia:Middle English|Middle English]] ''a''.
There are several very similar sets of pronouns with the nominative form ''e'' which have been independently proposed over the last hundred years. The earliest known example may be created in 1890 by James Rogers of Crestview, Florida.<ref name=":12">http://www.english.illinois.edu/-people-/faculty/debaron/essays/epicene.htm</ref><ref>https://web.archive.org/web/20070310130020/http://aetherlumina.com/gnp/listing.html</ref> It was made in response to the ''thon'' set, and was derived from the ''he'' and ''them'' pronoun sets. This version does not have a recorded predicative possessive or reflexive form.
In 1977, a version in which all forms starts with capital letters was independently created by psychologist Donald G. MacKay of the University of California at Los Angeles. In 1989 an identical version it was independently created by Victor J. Stone, Professor of Law.
In his 1920 novel, ''A Voyage to Arcturus'', David Lindsay invented the ''ae'' pronoun set for an alien race, which were born from air and of a third sex. These pronouns are still somewhat well known on the internet.
''Co'' was created by Mary Orovan in 1970. It is derived from the Indo-European ''*ko'', as an inclusive alternative to ''he'' or ''she''.<ref>http://www.english.illinois.edu/-people-/faculty/debaron/essays/epicene.htm</ref> Today, ''co'' is still used in some communities, such as in the legal policies of Twin Oaks in Virginia, which provides information on the pronoun in its visitor guide web page.<ref>https://www.twinoakscommunity.org/twinoaks-visits-60/visit-tour-intro</ref>
Several variants of ''ze'' have been proposed, with different object forms, to meet the need of unspecified gender situations and transgender persons. Kate Bornstein, an American transgender author, used the pronoun forms ''ze'' and ''hir'' in the book "Nearly Roadkill: an Infobahn erotic adventure" in 1996.{{CitationNeeded}} Jeffrey A. Carver, an American science fiction writer, used the pronoun ''hir'' in the novel "From a Changeling Star" for a different-gendered nonhuman, in 1989.{{CitationNeeded}}
It is unclear where the word "nounself" itself was first coined, although it may be on Tumblr because of the amount of popularity that nounself sets gained, starting in 2015.
=====Thonself =====
The earliest example of what could be called a nounself pronoun was proposed by by American lawyer Charles Crozat Converse in 1884. Converse took the words "this one" and "that one" and proposed ''thon'' as a gender-neutral pronoun set.American composer Charles Crozat Converse who proposed the pronoun set thon/thons/thonself in 1858.<ref>https://www.dynamicchiropractic.com/mpacms/dc/article.php?id=43422</ref> It was based on a contraction of "that one". The ''thon'' pronoun was included in some dictionaries such as Webster's International Dictionary (1910), Funk & Wagnalls New Standard Dictionary (1913), and Webster's Second International (1959). The pronouns are not widely used in the present day. In the 2019 Gender Census, 18 (0.2%) people said that they were happy to be referred to by ''thon''.<ref name=":0">https://gendercensus.com/post/183832246805/gender-census-2019-the-full-report-worldwide</ref>{{Quote|thon. Pronoun of the 3rd person, common gender, meaning “that one, he she, or it”: a neoterism proposed by Charles Crozat Converse, and apparently complying with the neoteristic canons, since it supplies an antecedent blank, obeys a simple and obvious analogy, and is euphonious.|Funk and Wagnalls, Supplement to A Standard Dictionary of the English Language, 1903|https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/third-person-gender-neutral-pronoun-thon}}
For most of the 20th century, ''thon'' appeared in various publications of Funk and Wagnalls, and also spread to another dictionary, Merriam-Webster’s Second New International Dictionary (1934 edition). ''Thon'' was removed from abridged dictionary in the third edition.
==Community==
===Statistics===
25% of LGBTQ youth use they/them exclusively, a combination of he/him, she/her, or they/them, or neopronouns such as ze/zir or fae/faer.<ref>https://www.thetrevorproject.org/2020/07/29/research-brief-pronouns-usage-among-lgbtq-youth/</ref> In the 2019 Gender Census, 18 (0.2%) individuals said that they were happy to be referred to as ''thon''.<ref name=":02">https://gendercensus.com/post/183832246805/gender-census-2019-the-full-report-worldwide</ref>
===Controversy ===
File:Neopronoun gay.png|alt=A flag with six stripes. From top to bottom: Red, burnt orange, pale yellow, light green, blue, and purple.|Neopronoun [[gay]] flag.
</gallery>
==== Specific Pronoun Flags ====
<gallery>
Ae aer by mourningmogaicrew.png|Ae/aer pronoun flag ([https://mourningmogaicrew.tumblr.com mourningmogaicrew], 17 June 2021<ref>[https://archive.ph/Ebdvu mourningmogaicrew's ae/aer pronoun flag.]</ref>|alt=A flag with three horizontal stripes. From top to bottom: pink, white, and magenta. The middle stripe is half the width of the others.
Ae aer pronouns flag by queerso.png|alt=A blue and white flag with two swirl patterns on it. They are on the top-left and bottom right, and curl counterclockwise. The area inside the curls is white, and the other area is light blue. A thick band of slight darker blue curves between the outsides of the curls, and a thin, darker band of blue is in the middle of that.|Ae/aer flag (January 7, 2020, [https://queerso.tumblr.com/ queerso]{{Icon|Tumblr}}.)<ref>[https://archive.is/NH80g queerso's Ae/aer flag]</ref>
Ae aer by mogaifanboy.png|alt=A flag with five stripes. From outside to inside: Deep red, green, and blue. The center blue stripe is twice as thick as the others.|Ae/aer flag (December 11, 2020, [https://mogaifanboy.tumblr.com/ mogaifanboy]{{Icon|Tumblr}}.)<ref>[https://archive.is/hv7so mogaifanboy's Ae/aer flag]</ref>
Ae aer by bebbls-craft-blog.png|alt=A flag with seven stripes. From outside to inside: Dark blue, blue, sky blue, and white. The center white stripe is slightly thicker than the others, and the sky blue stripes outside of it are slightly thinner.|Ae/aer flag (January 4, 2020, [https://bebbls-craft-blog.tumblr.com/ @bebbls-craft-blog]{{Icon|Tumblr}}.)<ref>[https://archive.is/e74mE @bebbls-craft-blog's Ae/aer flag]</ref>
Ae aer by craftgender.png|alt=A flag with four stripes. From top to bottom: Tan, brown, dark brown, and dark tan. The outside stripes are four times thicker than the other two.|Ae/aer flag (September 2, 2019, [https://craftgender.tumblr.com/ @craftgender]{{Icon|Tumblr}}.).<ref>[https://archive.is/L31QR @craftgender's Ae/Aer flag]</ref>
Ae Aer - @neopronounz.flagz.png|alt=|Ae/aer flag (January 21, 2021, [https://www.instagram.com/neopronounz.flagz/ neopronounz.flagz]{{Icon|Instagram}}.)<ref>[https://www.instagram.com/p/CKcHg2dpyAk/ neopronounz.flagz's Ae/aer flag]</ref>
Ae aer @edenmogai.png|alt=A flag with seven stripes. From top to bottom: rose pink, a sligtly lighter pink, lilac, white, pale pink, pink, and a darker pink. The center 3 stripes are half as thick as the others.|Ae/aer flag (January 16, 2021, [https://www.instagram.com/edenmogai/ @edenmogai]{{Icon|Instagram}}.)<ref>[https://www.instagram.com/p/CKHff6RJkFo/ @edenmogai's Ae/aer flag]</ref>
Ae aer @edenmogai 2.png|alt=A flag with seven stripes. From top to bottom: rose pink, a sligtly lighter pink, lilac, white, sky blue, blue, and a darker blue. The center 3 stripes are half as thick as the others.|Alternate Ae/aer flag (January 16, 2021, [https://www.instagram.com/edenmogai/ @edenmogai]{{Icon|Instagram}}.)<ref>[https://www.instagram.com/p/CKHff6RJkFo/ @edenmogai's alternate Ae/aer flag]</ref>
Ae Aers.png|alt=A flag with a gradient background and three spaced out stripes in front of it. The gradient is from lilac purple at the top to sky blue at the bottom. From top to bottom, the three stripes are: Yellow, pale green, and light blue.|Ae/aer flag (March 22, 2021, [https://archive.is/pfXpe pride-flags]{{Icon|DeviantArt}}. Original source currently unknown.)
</gallery>''Further examples of flags for specific pronouns can be found on the [[Pronoun/List|Pronoun List]] in each pronoun set's entry.''
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