How would you refer/call/address an hermaphrodite in a setting where they aren’t necessarily tied to a male or female role/norm, in a society where they are frequent enough to warrant their own appellation. Or to help with hermaphrodite/intersex people irl.
- Male = Female = ?*
- Man/Men = Woman/Women = ?*
- Boy = Girl = ?*
- He = She = ?
- His = Her = ?
- Him = Her = ?
- Dad/Daddy = Mom/Mommy = ?
- Son = Daughter = ?
- Brother = Sister = ?
- Grandpa = Grandma = ?
- Masculine = Feminine = ?
- Nephew = Niece = ?
- Uncle = Aunt = ?
- Master = Mistress = ?
And various titles (King/Queen, Prince/Princess, Emperor/Empress, Etc.).
* Seriously Hermaphrodite is a mouthful.
Note: this isn't meant to be derogatory or negative, just a genuine question.
You use the term they prefer to be called. The same for transgendered.
If the situation were common enough it is likely that terms would be created to deal with the specifics.
You should only be using the term hermaphrodite if you're talking about a species which actually has individuals capable of both impregnating others and being impregnated. Snails for instance.
If you're talking about humans (or, human-like races in a fantasy setting) intersexed is the proper (and more accurate) term.
But either way, you still generally just say he or she, whichever the person in question prefers. Social pressure is always going to push someone to regularly use one or the other, if only to avoid people asking this very question.
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In LeGuin's Left Hand of Darkness, she exclusively uses male pronouns to refer to the hermaphroditic Gethenians--though in another work, she uses female pronouns.
It is still standard usage in American English to use male pronouns for gender-neutral singular, though it is becoming less acceptable to do so (people will argue about this). You see "he or she" more often, but sometimes that results in awkward or repetitive constructions. Notably, Canada has standardized the use of "they" as the gender-neutral third person singular pronoun in official usage. The fact of the matter is that nobody's figured out (for English) the perfect third person singular gender-neutral pronoun that gets the idea across precisely without excluding anyone or sounding awkward.
When dealing with real people rather than fictional characters, it's polite to use whichever gender pronouns and titles (Grandma, Ms., etc.) that the individual prefers. I'm no expert, but it also seems impolite to ask directly; instead, you should pick up on what gender the person presents, or if that's not clear, maybe ask someone who knows the person well what he or she prefers.
Googleshng - isn't it possible that a fantasy setting could have actual Hermaphrodite "humans"?
Also, do I understand that the questions is more akin to asking if a fantasy world might have gender non-specific pronouns unlike anything we have in our conventional languages and if so what might those pronouns be like?
some of the terms you're asking about do have commonly used gender neutral options, like parent(s), child(ren), grandparent(s), sibling(s). For pronouns, you could look up one of the systems of gender neutral pronouns or use they/them. From the reading I've done on the subject, I think the they/them scheme is the most common, especially for casual conversation, though it's not catching on as fast for written stuff.
For real life, if you're unsure what pronouns to use for someone, the best thing is to try to ask them (ideally as discretely as possible). Most people who are transgender would rather be asked then be misgendered, and some people don't really identify with either male or female and prefer one of the gender neutral options.
If you're looking for something to use for a setting/campaign or something, maybe consider making up your own terms for some of them? Particularly for the titles, you could add some neat flavor with custom titles that are designed to be gender neutral.
To represent a society in a setting with radically different gender structure than anything on Earth, I personally would probably use a made up pronoun but keep it in italics to represent that it remains "untranslated" so to speak. If I found that solution too distracting as it might be I would go with "they" as the least stilted option available in English.
Of course this only works if you subscribe to the view that Common is not literally English and the words you say in character at the table represent just a translation of what would literally be coming out of your character's mouth in-universe.
Googleshng - isn't it possible that a fantasy setting could have actual Hermaphrodite "humans"?
Yeah, part of the idea of my post is for beings who can both sire and bear children.
But also to help people who get surgery to avoid this "problem".