Is ‘he’ still here?
Exploring the contemporary use of masculine subject pronouns for women in Dutch dialects
Various non-standard language varieties in the Netherlands traditionally allow for the use of masculine personal
subject pronouns (i.e. regionally distinct variants of hij ‘he’) in reference to women. While this practice is
well-documented within Dutch dialectology, especially during the twentieth century, it is unclear to what extent this feature
still exists nowadays. Moreover, the use of masculine subject forms for female reference has not previously been described for
Limburgian dialects. This paper offers a start to filling these gaps, by providing insight into the contemporary use of ‘he’ for
women in Dutch dialects, with a specific focus on occurrences in Dutch Limburg. We report on a Twitter query and three interviews,
showing (i) that the use of ‘he’ for women still exists in various Dutch dialects, and (ii) how
native speakers of a Limburgian dialect use and perceive this feature of their dialect.
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.A Twitter query
- 3.Interviews
- 3.1A conspicuous local feature
- 3.2
Hae in everyday conversations
- 3.3Referents
- 3.4
Hae vs. het
- 3.5A gender-neutral term?
- 4.Discussion
- Data availability
- Acknowledgements
- Notes
-
References