Chinese pronouns

For instance, there is no differentiation in the spoken language between "he", "she" and "it" (though a written difference was introduced after contact with the West), and pronouns are not inflected to indicate whether they are the subject or object of a sentence.

Following the iconoclastic May Fourth Movement in 1919, and to accommodate the translation of Western literature, written vernacular Chinese developed separate pronouns for gender-differentiated speech, and to address animals, deities, and inanimate objects.

The pronoun 伊 enjoyed widespread support in the 1920s and 1930s but lost out to 她 after the Chinese Civil War.

[3] In the early 21st century, some members of genderfluid and queer Chinese online communities started using X也 and TA to refer to a generic, anonymous, or non-binary third person.

[6] There are many other pronouns in modern Sinitic languages, such as Taiwanese Hokkien 恁 (Pe̍h-ōe-jī: lín) "you" and Written Cantonese 佢哋 (keúih deih) "they."

For older generations, 令 (lìng) is the equivalent to the modern form 您的 (nínde), as in 令尊 (lìngzūn) "your father".

Traditional forms of these pronouns are: 這個 (zhège), 這些 (zhèxiē), 那個 (nàge), 那些 (nàxiē), and 它們 tāmen.

Examples include guǎrén (寡人) during early Chinese history and zhèn (朕) after the Qin dynasty when the Emperor is speaking to his subjects.