Neutralumo

Neutralumo is a concept used in contemporary discussions of language and gender to describe an approach that seeks linguistic neutrality with respect to social identities. In practice, neutralumo refers to strategies designed to reduce gender bias and other identity markers in everyday language, while remaining clear and intelligible.

The term combines the idea of neutrality with a suffix that appears in several sociolinguistic coinages. It is not a single codified doctrine; the precise prescriptions of neutralumo vary by language community and context.

Core features commonly associated with neutralumo include the use of gender-neutral pronouns or pronoun sets, avoidance of gender-marked nouns when possible, the use of generic or inclusive terms, and syntactic constructions that do not assume a speaker or subject's gender or social category.

In practice, neutralumo prompts language users to prefer singular they, avoid occupational terms with gender connotations, and adopt neutral alternatives in languages with grammatical gender. Proponents argue this fosters inclusivity, while supporters of traditional norms caution about potential ambiguity or resistance to change.

Neutralumo has influenced editorial style guides, educational materials, and corporate communications in some multilingual contexts, though it remains debated and unevenly adopted across regions and languages.