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Chapter 10

Han means He or She Saying 'he or she' all the time when trying to give equal weight to both sexes is clumsy and tiresome. Gender in the English language sometimes gets in the way of what we want to say. Finnish solves this problem with han, one word for both genders. Linguists wonder whether the equivalence of the sexes in Finnish has some connection with women in Finland getting the right to vote long before other women in Europe. So let us call humans and animals han instead of presently calling people he or she and calling animals it. Using han instead of using he, she or it may help people treat each other and animals better. Our use of language influences our thoughts and attitudes (and vice versa).

By adopting han in English it would:

• Avoid you having to repeat he or she all the time.
  
  
• Avoid you saying only he when you mean both genders (even though in English grammar he can also stand for she, that is English normally subsumes the feminine under the masculine.)
  
  
• Avoid you belittling animals by calling them it, as if animals are lifeless objects like sticks and stones. (See the entry 'It'.)

Examples of using han:

• Han sat down to tea with scones.
  
  
• Han is a thoughtful and independent cat.
  
  
• The dog yawned, stretched, then han got up.
  
  
• I held out a banana and the monkey ate han.

We are all han. Han means he or she. Han could also stand for it if adopted into English. Computer generated image by Ernst Wilhelm Zwergelstern, 2004.

Two other good Finnish words are hanet, meaning him or her, and hanen, meaning his or hers.

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