New gender-neutral pronoun likely to enter Norwegian dictionaries

Carl-Oscar Vik, who is non-binary, has been experimenting with pronouns over the past year, but prefers ‘de’ to ‘hen’. Photograph: Carl-Oscar Vik

A new gender-neutral pronoun is likely to enter the official Norwegian language within a year, the Language Council of Norway has confirmed.

“Hen” would become an alternative to the existing singular third-person pronouns, the feminine “hun” and the masculine “han”.