Hen - the Swedish third pronoun

How did OLIKA get the idea to create a children's book that used him?

We knew he existed, but that it was not a widely used pronoun, but quite limited. At the same time, we had worked for a long time to create gender-neutral books, and then it is always a challenge to write as there was no gender-neutral pronoun. It was only possible to create such stories in the first person or in other ways avoid using pronouns at all. We thought, "if anyone is going to release a first children's book with him, it's us". And there was born the idea of ​​a children's book with hen as a pronoun. We thought about which authors we knew who could write to order and found that Jesper Lundqvist wrote a lot for radio. He agreed and came back with the fantastic book about Kivi. We then contacted the illustrator Bettina Johansson from Östgötaslätten who made the fantastic pictures.

Why did OLIKA launch the book with a debate article with linguist Karin Milles?

We knew it could spark a great debate and at the same time we wanted hen to become a word that more people would use, precisely because it was so flexible. The debate article was launched with the title A new word is needed in the Swedish language . Being able to tell about a character without having to gender would make it easier for everyone. We have also always had a foot in research and therefore it was obvious that we would include a researcher in the debate article, a person who could put it in a historical perspective and who had the knowledge that we lacked. Karin had worked as a journalist and knew debate articles, quite simply a good combination.

What happens after the debate article and Kivi came out?

A lot happened and there were pretty much two camps, those who liked it and those who didn't. There were few who were unmoved. Among those who liked her were people who did not want to define themselves as either she or him, it gave them a sanctuary. In an article in KP there was an interview with a twelve-year-old who said that it was the best thing that had happened, that she didn't want to be either he or she and that she fit in perfectly. Another group of people who liked hen were those who saw the value of not having to write she/he, her/him and so on. Now everything from legal texts to instructions and examples could be written in a gender-neutral way. Among those who did not like her, there were many who believed that she and he would disappear and that everyone would be forced to become her. That was not the idea, but the idea was to add, to give three possibilities instead of two. There were many interviews with both us and the author Jesper Lundqvist, and the interest from abroad grew all the time. What happened in Sweden?

How would do you use hen?

We didn't know that, so we had to turn to the Language Council. They weren't quite sure how it should be inflected either, but their first suggestion was to inflect hen with hen/henom/henoms:

Hen walks in the forest. (She/he walks in the forest.)
I passed it to henom. (I gave it to her/him).
It's henom's, not mine. (It's her/his, not mine.)

But after a while the conjugation changed and since a number of years back it is this conjugation that is rekmendedas, hen/hens/hen:

Hen walks in the forest. (She/he walks in the forest.)
I gave it to hen. (I gave it to her/him).
It's hen's, not mine. (It's her/his, not mine.)

When did he enter the Swedish Academy's dictionary?

After the debate that followed, there were measurements at regular intervals of how the use of hen increased, and it increased very quickly. And probably because it was a useful word, because there was a desire for a pronoun that was not gender coded. In 2014, the Swedish Academy announces that they will include the word in the dictionary. And thus he takes a big step forward as a more established pronoun, after two years of debate. So much exciting happened during this time and for those who want to know more , Dagens news even has its own page about him. There you can see part of the debate and how it went. Some refused to use it, preschools banned the word, DN decided that they wouldn't use it at all, something they later changed their minds about, of course. Yes, very exciting reading if you ask us!

What is " The three letter word that rocked a nation? "

A fantastic summary of everything that happened after Kivi and Monsterhund came out and their entry into the Swedish language. That's the title of a podcast episode of the BBC series "The world in words", created by Nina Porzucki. Of course, both Karin Milles and we at OLIKA were in that podcast.