I suppose. It does really feel to me like anglophone culture influencing nonanglophone culture. if that makes sense.
Sure, but I honestly think that it isn’t that serious for most people, just something fun. “Hey, I’ve got a pronouns field here, might as well use it, even if it makes no difference”
Good point. Like “jan” was made for everyone, but maybe treating it as the default does take away from what community members are trying to do when use other headnouns.
I agree actually. It’s like there’s something in it that’s about people’s personal identity or how they feel comfortable presenting themselves but it’s discussed via references to a construct that doesn’t exist in every language. Like if our shared language didn’t have gendered pronouns, would we still be having these conversations - would it find another outlet, or would it just be nothing?
Maybe it’s actually good that our language has started this conversation for us. Just so long as it doesn’t get in the way of anything else we’ve come to talk about.
agreed! i feel like jan was made as a default with the assumption that all of toki pona’s users would be humans, which has proven itself wrong. (i present myself, a nonhuman, as an example) so with that in mind it no longer really works as a default headnoun.
besides, we have a word that works for this—ijo! although i wouldn’t call non-ijo headnouns “custom headnouns” (especially because of the ubiquity of jan), i think ijo is a good default—there is pretty much nothing that isn’t encompassed in ijo
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