I know that non-binary identities aren’t common in Russia (they are here in America), but is there a neuter form of друг/подруга?

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singlych

7 дек. 2022

Подходящий ответ

Русский

Well.
Grammatical gender concept in Russian goes through out all nouns, verbs, adjectives etc. And it is not equal to biological or social gender. So one has linguistical troubles for reflecting non-binary ideas in Russian, it is not just "cultural" question. Probably some nb persons use some tricks like personal pronouns in plural instead of singular, but it works only with pronouns.
For nouns that have masculine and feminine versions, in most cases, I would say, masculine gender works as default gender. So, to me at least, "друг" is quite "neuter". I guess it can be argued by feminists. But looking in the history, their opinion about feminitives changes in time. Will see.

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dest1ny-

6 дек. 2022

Русский

I don't think there is, but maybe smb will have smth to say:)

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Atoma

6 дек. 2022

Русский

Друг. Дружище.

In Russian, masculine words are used to denote a person's social role.
Even if we wanted to use the neuter gender, we couldn't. The Russian language has almost no words in the neuter gender for living creatures (about a dozen words: дитя, существо, чудовище...).

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Elenichka

6 дек. 2022

Русский

We're a traditional society. We don't need neutral genders 🙄 We want to be boys and girls, men and women 😁

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Kaptor178

6 дек. 2022

Английский (американский вариант)

@Elenichka I understand that culturally, it’s not something typically seen in Russian society, but not everyone has that opinion. I was strictly asking in order to be respectful of someone who would rather not be gendered under the standard binary. I don’t need to agree with something in order to to respect it. Especially when it’s someone I care for asking of me something as simple as referring to them as “they”.

Elenichka

6 дек. 2022

Русский

@Kaptor178 I'm saying about the tradition. The majority stick to the tradition in Russia.

In terms of linguistics, I noticed that in the US neutral gender pronouns are used, while in the UK they still follow he/she. Am I right? Do you know?

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ns1991

7 дек. 2022

Русский

@Kaptor178 we don't promote wokeism in Russia, therefore the question is irrelevant. Since the biology defines only 2 possible combinations of chromosomes it is either друг or подруга. The rest would be an indication of mentally unstable individual whose cravings should not be supported by the society for the better of the society.

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Kaptor178

7 дек. 2022

Английский (американский вариант)

@Elenichka thank you for clarifying!! in the US, it’s a big thing. A large amount of people that live in the region I’m in identify as non-binary. I know that it’s becoming more of a thing in the UK, but I don’t know how prevalent it is there since I don’t live there.