Siya And Niya: Personal Pronouns in Tagalog are Not Gender Specific

Should you wish to drop gender specific pronouns in English, Tagalog's Sya & Niya is the way to go.

This post will touch a little bit of my concern on how to go along in 2019 and beyond and how to speak appropriately when referring to friends, family and strangers as to whether they are male, female, no gender, gay, lesbian, trans-gender, sex-reassigned... and so it seems like the list could go on and on indefinitely.

My perception of America is that, this country is very sensitive of political correctness. I personally am not sensitive to it but it's difficult for me to be overly opinionated and I'm afraid people will throw stones at me whenever I say the things they don't like to hear.

There's recent discussion, suggesting that:

THEY be denoted singular.

Why? They needed one pronoun to use instead of:

HE or SHE!

They see the need to get rid of gender critical pronouns, and this also includes his/her. So there goes the singular THEM.

I don't want to use up my brain thinking about such thing or polarizing the issue but I've raised my Filipino pride because....

Tagalog, or any other Philippine dialects (I think) never keep gender critical pronouns.

SIYA

This is the pronoun we use when we want to say both he and she.

Example in straight Tagalog:

1. Si lola, may pitaka siya.
2. Siya si Tito Ben. Pinsan siya ng nanay ko.

Example in TagLish (Tagalog-English):

1. My grandma, siya ay may wallet.
2. Tito Ben siya. Cousin siya ng mother ko.

NIYA

This is the Tagalog term for both words his and her.

Example in straight Tagalog:

1. Naghihintay si Tatay mo. Ibigay mo ang passport niya.
2. Ito ang larawan ng lola ko. Puti na ang buhok niya.

Example in TagLish (Tagalog-English):

1. Your Dad is waiting. Give mo passport niya.
2. This is grandma's picture. Gray na hair nya.

Here's my video presentation:

Download audio file or just listen:

Introduction to Tagalog personal pronouns Niya and Siya in audio only format.