Hän

Hän is the Finnish gender-neutral third-person singular pronoun used to refer to a person without specifying gender. It functions as the standard pronoun for people and is preferred in contemporary Finnish when gender is unknown, irrelevant, or non-binary. For objects and animals, the neuter pronoun se is typically used instead.

Declension and forms of hän follow standard Finnish pronoun inflection. The nominative form is hän; possessive is hänen; partitive is häntä; the accusative is hänet. In other cases, forms like hänellä (on/at him or her), hänestä (from him or her), and similar patterns appear, depending on the case required by the sentence.

Usage and context. In everyday language, hän is used for all genders and is widely accepted in formal and informal settings. Finnish style guides and language authorities encourage using hän when gender is unknown or when referring to a person in a gender-neutral way, contributing to inclusive writing and speech. The pronoun underscores that Finnish has no distinct gendered he or she, unlike English.

Relationship to other pronouns. For things that are not persons, se remains common. While some languages have experimented with additional gender-neutral pronouns, Finnish relies on hän for people and se for non-persons, with context guiding preference. The pronoun is typically written in lowercase unless it starts a sentence.

Etymology and history. Hän has long been the standard third-person pronoun in Finnish for referring to people, regardless of gender. Its use reflects Finnish linguistic norms that do not differentiate gender in personal pronouns, aligning with contemporary emphasis on gender equality in language.