Le or la in French. Der, die, or das in German, the das is for neuter.

也就是可以把名詞分為陽性或陰性。例如法文的 le 或 la；德文的 der、die 或 das—— das 是中性的。

In Zande, which is found in a few countries in Central Africa, there are four grammatical genders: human male, human female, animate, and inanimate.

許多中非國家使用的贊德語，則有四種語法性別：男性、女性、有生命、無生命。

There are even occasional languages with even more complicated systems than that.

甚至有些語言。還有更複雜的系統。

Now, I'm a descriptivist linguist⏤I am not meant to judge whether language features are good or bad; I'm just meant to describe what they do.

我是描述性語言學家，因此我的職責不在於判斷語法好壞。

But grammatical gender is just such a stupid concept.

我只是描述語言的特性而以。可是語法性別真的是一個很蠢的概念。

I sort of hate myself for saying that, but it is really silly.

我很討厭自己這麼說，可是真的很沒意義。

So, that's a... that's a computer, is it, French? So it's male. All computers are male.

噢，那個法文的電腦是陽性的，所以所有的電腦都是陽性的。

And that's a bottle, is it French? So it's female? All bottles are female? Really? Should I dress it up in a friggin' pink apron and give it a rolling pin as well?

然侯那個瓶子是陰性的，好喔。我應該幫它穿上一件粉紅色的圍裙，然後給它一個桿麵棍？

(Descriptivism. Don't judge).

(描述主義。不要評斷)。

I'm exaggerating, but I genuinely have tried searching the literature for any advantages of grammatical gender.

我知道我有點誇大其詞，可是我真的有去找過文獻，探究語法性別到底有沒有好處。

There's only one vaguely convincing argument, which is that it can help clear up ambiguities and speeds up recognition of words by a small amount.

只找到一個只有一點點說服力的解釋。這個觀點認為語法性別能夠解決雙關的問題，也能稍微加速學習新字詞的速度。

Okay. But three-quarters of the world's languages manage just fine without it. And meanwhile, grammatical gender causes a heck of a lot of problems.

好的，可是全世界四分之三的語言沒有語法性別也運作得很好。同時，語法性別也帶來很多問題。

First problem: it affects the way you think. When asked to describe a key, German speakers -- who classify key as male -- were likely to associate it with "hard," "heavy" and "jagged".

第一：它會影響你的思考方式。當們被要求形容一把鑰匙的時候，德語母語者——在德文鑰匙是陽性的——會用「堅硬的」、「沉重的」和「鋸齒狀的」來形容。

Whereas Spanish speakers -- who classify key as female -- were more likely to say it was "golden," "intricate," and "little". That also says a lot about gender roles in society, but my word, that's something I ain't qualified to talk about.

可是西語母語者——在西文鑰匙是陰性的——則會傾向說是「金色的」、「繁複的」、「嬌小的」。這也對一般社會的性別刻板印象具有指標性，可是這不是我能評斷的。

Second problem: it's really clunky. Job adverts in languages with grammatical gender have to either use both terms or a half-assed marker to clarify that they're asking for anyone.

第二個問題：它真的很冗長。用那些有語法性別的語言刊登求職廣告必須同時使用兩種形式，或是用一些沒誠意的附加詞彙讓大家知道他們沒有限定特定群體。

Which brings me to English. English doesn't have grammatical gender -- it used to, in Old English.

這讓我想到英文。英文沒有語法性別——曾經有，在古英文階段。

We've still got a couple of words like blond and blonde that change depending on gender, but we don't have to worry about having to file everything into one box or another.

我們還是有一些遺留的詞彙跟隨描述的性別改變，像是「金髮的」，可是我們不必煩惱究竟一個事物是屬於這一組詞彙，還是那一組。

But what we do have is the third-person pronouns "he", "she", and "it". And that's a problem.

可是第三人稱代名詞有「他」、「她」和「它」，這是個問題。

If I want to refer to you, the viewer, I have to use the pronoun "he or she".

如果我要指稱你，也就是我的觀眾，我必須使用「他或她」。

Which is ludicrous for several reasons: one, it's an unwieldy three syllables, and it sounds awful.

這很可笑，原因有很多：第一，三個音節真的很冗，也很難聽。

Two, there are folks who don't fit into, or don't want to declare as, either of those categories, and if that surprises you, you need to get out more.

第二，有些人不是用這種二分法，或不想被分進這兩種類的任一種，如果你對此感到驚訝，我只能說你該多出去見見世面。

Since "it" is a bit dehumanising.

而因為「它」感覺有點羞辱人。

There's really no suitable pronoun to use.

所以在這種情形下真的沒有適合的選項。

Except. English does have a solution. And lots of people are using it.

但其實有，而且很多人都在用。

And a lot of old stick-in-the-mud folks hate it. The answer is "they".

很多保守人士對此厭惡至極。答案是「他們」。

Facebook is using "they". I signed up to Facebook before they started asking for gender.

臉書也有在用。我在臉書還沒要求選性別時就加入了。

And I've never actually told them that I'm a guy. So my friends will see "Tom Scott updated their profile picture".

所以我從來沒告訴他們我是男性。所以我的朋友們會看到：「 Tom Scott 更新了他們的大頭貼」。

And you know what? That sounds absolutely fine to me.

而你知道嗎？對我來說這根本不是問題。

It just seems normal now. It's going to depend on your dialect whether it sounds good to you, but brace yourself, 'cos singular they? It's spreading fast.

現在這很正常。當然你的接受度跟你使用的方言有關，可是你應該準備好使用單數的「他們」了，因為這是很明顯的趨勢。

I bet you didn't even notice.

我相信你根本沒發現。

When I used it in the very first sentence of this video. And it's got history. Even Shakespeare used it.

我在影片中的第一句就有使用了。而這是有利是淵源的。就連莎士比亞都是用單數的他們。

Better yet, because "they" sounds natural, it gets around the problem of trying to force invented pronouns into English -- which, let's be honest, has never actually worked.

更好的是，因為「他們」聽起來很自然，所以就沒有要再發明一個新的代名詞的問題了。而且你憑良心自問，這根本行不通。

So there you go. I've gone against my descriptivist training, and said that one linguistic trait is better than another.

所以就是這樣。我違背了我的描述主義背景，表達了一種語法現象優於另一種。

And I'm okay with that. Because... some people are "they". Get over it.

我也覺得這沒什麼大不了，因為有些人就是「他們」，你只能接受。