Welsh tutors on a government-funded course have changed their lessons to make the language more “inclusive” for non-binary people.
Like many languages, Welsh nouns are gendered and professions are gendered, meaning that those who use non-gendered pronouns are struggling to make themselves heard.
Some tutors working for the Welsh learning programme, Dysgu Cymraeg, have begun to alter their teaching to try and solve the problem.
Changing lesson materials
Tutor Tomas Hopkins has changed his lesson materials for new learners to be inclusive to non-binary identities, saying Welsh needed to evolve.
He said: “It’s extremely important the Welsh language evolves and is inclusive, the language dies if it gets stuck in a box that stays with the old ways.
“This is just a natural step for the language.”
Many non-binary people use the plural “nhw” as a gender-neutral singular pronoun.
However, lots of professions are gendered in Welsh, such as “athro” for a male teacher and “athrawes” for a female.
Often unable to be understood
It means those using gender-neutral Welsh are often unable to be understood or end up being corrected by first-language speakers.
Rowan Gulliver, a 22-year-old teacher in Barry, Vale of Glamorgan, works in a Welsh-speaking school and uses the non-binary Mx prefix.
They said: “You should be able to speak about your identity and other people in your first language.
“It’s like a little part of you is dying when you have to say it in English.
“It just makes you feel like you’re some strange thing that doesn’t belong or have value within society.”
They added that they believed the non-binary Welsh should be taught in schools.
Didn’t want to use gendered words
Ems Rixon, 38, from Llandeilo, Carmarthenshire, felt they were causing issues when learning Welsh because they didn’t want to use gendered words.
“Often I feel like I am causing problems in my speaking classes when I say that I don’t want to say one gender or another,” they said.
Mx Rixon said they had often been corrected when using the plural version of words.
Dr Gareth Evans Jones of Bangor University, who is editing the first Welsh-language anthology of LGBTQ+ rights, said many words were yet to pass into common usage.
“I think because Welsh is so deeply rooted in gendered terms, it would be difficult to try to de-gender the language,” he said.
“But if newer terms were coined as alternatives to these gendered terms, that certainly is a possibility.”