Sweden to introduce gender-neutral pronoun to dictionary

In Swedish, 'Han' is used for 'He' and 'Hon' is used for 'She'. The official Swedish dictionary will now introduce a new word 'Hen' to refer to a person without revealing their gender.

In total, 13,000 new words will be introduced in the latest edition of the Swedish Academy's SAOL. The gender-neutral pronoun will be introduced in April.

The reason for uses of 'Hen' could be in case the gender of the person is not known, or if the speaker or writer do not wish to specify it deeming it to be superfluous information, or in case the person being referred to is a Transgender.

'Hen' was coined in the 1960's and was aimed at simplifying the language, but it never really took hold in the Swedish language. But in the 2000's it started to get momentum as the Transgender community in Sweden started using it. Now the word is popularly used in books, media and official texts.

The Swedish Academy updates the dictionary every 10 years and the new edition will go on sale on April 15.