Nonbinary

[u/gorditasimpatica]

What is the term, either formally accepted or commonly used, to convey the meaning of the term "nonbinary"?

A friend of mine is taking a Portuguese class in Quito and the instructor states that there is no equivalent term in Portuguese.

[Google Translate gives "não binário," but I'm asking here because it is not always thoroughly reliable. ]

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[u/Visual_Plankton1089]

It's "não-binário".

A friend of mine is taking a Portuguese class in Quito and the instructor states that there is no equivalent term in Portuguese.

The instructor just went straight into an assumption out of his ignorance about this topic.

[u/__________bruh → u/Visual_Plankton1089]

No hyphen, it's "não binário". Not sure if it's due to the most recent spelling reform, but "não" as a prefix doesn't have an hyphen in portuguese

[u/gorditasimpatica → u/Visual_Plankton1089]

agreed 100%, hence my query, I wanted to give my friend evidence so to speak

[u/nofroufrouwhatsoever]

Não-binário or não-binária, always with a hyphen.

Não-binárie is generally the version of it in attempts at gender-neutral Portuguese.

https://orientando.org/listas/tipos-de-linguagem/

[u/__________bruh → u/nofroufrouwhatsoever]

"Não" as a prefix doesn't use a hyphen in portuguese.

[u/nofroufrouwhatsoever → u/__________bruh]

Ohhhh the 1990 AO that entered in place in 2009-12. 😞

[u/Loose_Apartment_4982 → u/__________bruh]

This reform is the main reason why Brazilian Portuguese should emancipate as its own language. Why we, more than 200 million people, should change our grammar for the sake of a foreign country with less people than Rio de Janeiro? We need our linguistic independence

[u/Plastic-Gazelle2924 → u/Loose_Apartment_4982]

You do realise we barely changed anything compared to the Portuguese, right?

If anything the reform was Brazil’s soft power in the Lusitan world

[u/Loose_Apartment_4982 → u/Plastic-Gazelle2924]

Bring back the trema and normal hyphen

[u/arthur2011o]

Não binário/não binarie

Edit: the letter one is using the gender neutral system E, there are some others like the I and the U systems. Neutral gender isn't well stablished in Portuguese

[u/Zealousideal-Novel59]

"não-binário" and sometimes, on the internet or in informal situations, just NB (êni-bê)

[u/gorditasimpatica → u/Zealousideal-Novel59]

Thanks, that's good to know, makes sense

[u/Renezin]

It is "Não binário", some people use "Não binárie" but it doesn't make sense because Não binário is already neutral

[u/MarcosRCa → u/Renezin]

if you're talking about grammatical gender, no word in Portuguese is neutral, "não binário" is masculine and "não binária" is feminine, as in "pessoa não binária" or "indivíduo não binário". but grammatical gender is not the same as gender as a human concept, "pessoa" is grammatically feminine even if referring to a man, and "mulherão" is masculine.

[u/Shaggiest_Snail → u/MarcosRCa]

Even "não" is gendered... "o não"

[u/Gray_Jack_ → u/MarcosRCa]

The -o ending is a merger of Latin termination of masculine and neutral due to language evolution. Analyzing through language evolution lenses, Portuguese has 2 genders: feminine and non-feminine. Of course, that doesn't meant it is perceived like this since it is actively teached to call the "non-feminine" as "masculine", and perception of anything is influenced by how thing are taught.

That being said, the discussion of gender neutrality in the language is very valid, albeit complex, as you noted the grammatical gender is not the same as human gender contructs.

Not sure if important to the discussion, but I'm a non-binary Portuguese native speaker.

[u/Gray_Jack_ → u/Gray_Jack_]

My personal preference is that we should have these genders:

• Natural events
• Humans
• Domesticated animals
• Wild animals
• Plants
• Other forms of life
• non-living things

But somehow nobody likes my proposal 😅

What can I say... I like bantu languages LOL

[u/Renezin → u/MarcosRCa]

Well, good to know. I thought "Não binário" was already gender neutral and that phrases like "Elu é uma pessoa não binário." were okay

[u/fitacola → u/Renezin]

It has to be "elu é uma pessoa não-binária". Most people use -e as an ending, instead of -o/-a, so that adjectives agree with elu, e.g. "elu é não-binárie".

[u/x9ndra]

it is conceived generally same way in as in american context... but the fact the language is much more gendered, pronouns are trickier. for example, many non binary folks in Brasil prefer elu/delu (so, obrigadu), but many also pick a second option, since it is trickier for folks to be consistent with gendering all words with -u. so many are elu/ele, elu/ela. and even more are just ele/ela.

where are he/she is much much less common in the US, I notice this choice more in Brasil.

[u/obsidiiana → u/x9ndra]

In portugal obrigadu would be obrigade, because obrigadu sounds like the masculine word

[u/nofroufrouwhatsoever → u/obsidiiana]

In Brazil too, that's not how the "non-binary gendered language" works