Inclusive Catalan is not a single suffix or a ban on grammatical gender. It is the practice of making people visible without turning every sentence into a list. The best strategy depends on whom a text addresses, whether individuals or a category are relevant, whether the text will be read aloud, and which institutional or community conventions apply.
Standard Catalan permits the masculine plural as a generic form, while many public bodies and writers also use collectives, epicene labels, paired forms, and impersonal structures. Some communities use innovative neutral forms. A careful guide must describe these options without pretending that they have identical status or that one solution fits every genre.
Start with meaning, not endings
Ask what the sentence actually needs to denote. A notice may concern a role, an entire community, the people currently present, or one identified person. That distinction often supplies a natural inclusive wording.
El personal de la biblioteca pot recollir les acreditacions a recepció.
Library staff can collect their badges at reception. (Collective noun; neutral, concise, and suitable for institutional writing.)
Qui vulgui intervenir ha de demanar la paraula.
Anyone who wishes to speak must ask for the floor. (The relative pronoun qui avoids a gendered head noun.)
Donem la benvinguda a tothom.
We welcome everyone. (The verbal construction avoids an agreeing adjective after tothom.)
English can repeat they without grammatical gender on adjectives. Catalan agreement makes that route harder: choosing a noun or pronoun can affect articles, adjectives, and participles throughout the sentence. Good inclusive editing therefore works at clause level, not by mechanically replacing one ending.
Collective nouns and institutional labels
Collectives are highly productive in formal and plain-language Catalan. They reduce repetition and usually read well aloud.
| People named individually | Collective or role-based alternative | Scope |
|---|---|---|
| els professors i les professores | el professorat / l'equip docent | teachers as a body |
| els alumnes i les alumnes | l'alumnat | students enrolled in a setting |
| els treballadors i les treballadores | el personal / la plantilla | employees of an organization |
| els ciutadans i les ciutadanes | la ciutadania | citizens collectively |
| els candidats i les candidates | les persones candidates | individual applicants or candidates |
These alternatives are not interchangeable in every context. El professorat va aprovar la proposta treats the teachers as a body; tres professores van presentar esmenes identifies three individuals. La ciutadania is abstract and collective, so it cannot always replace countable ciutadans: dos ciutadans van declarar requires people, not an abstraction.
Les persones seleccionades rebran un missatge abans de divendres.
The selected applicants will receive a message before Friday. (Person-based label; formal and explicit.)
L'equip de recerca publicarà els resultats al juny.
The research team will publish the results in June. (A concrete collective is better than repeating researchers by gender.)
Epicene and common-gender labels
Some role nouns keep one form while the article shows gender: el/la professional, el/la responsable, el/la portaveu. Other nouns are grammatically fixed even though their referent can be of any gender: la persona, la víctima. Grammatical feminine in la persona interessada says nothing about that person's identity.
La persona responsable signarà l'informe i el farà arribar a gerència.
The responsible person will sign the report and send it to management. (Grammatical feminine agreement follows persona, regardless of the referent's gender.)
Do not force gender alternation into a fixed epicene label. The important point is agreement with the grammatical noun: la víctima va ser atesa, including when the victim is a man.
Paired forms: visibility with a cost
Paired forms explicitly name masculine and feminine groups: els candidats i les candidates. They are useful in greetings, ceremonial openings, and passages where visibility is itself meaningful. Systematic doubling through a long document, however, can obscure the actual instruction.
Benvolgudes investigadores i benvolguts investigadors, gràcies per participar en la jornada.
Dear researchers, thank you for taking part in the conference. (formal opening with explicit pairing)
Les investigadores i els investigadors que hagin obtingut l'ajut han de confirmar l'acceptació.
Researchers who have received the grant must confirm acceptance. (Correct but heavy if repeated on every line.)
After an explicit first mention, a defined collective such as les persones beneficiàries can maintain reference. Alternating the order of the pair is an editorial option, not a grammatical requirement. What matters is a consistent policy and readable reference chains.
Slashes—candidat/a, admesos/es—belong mainly to written forms, tables, and space-limited labels. They are poor continuous prose and have no natural spoken realization. Symbols such as @ and x are also inaccessible to many screen readers and cannot reliably be read aloud.
Nonbinary reference and pronoun choice
Standard Catalan has ell and ella as third-person singular personal pronouns and has not codified one universally accepted neutral personal paradigm. Some Catalan-speaking nonbinary communities use innovations such as elli and agreement in -i (informal/activist; community-dependent). Other people prefer their name, a role noun, plural reformulation, la persona, or one of the standard pronouns.
When referring to a known person, follow that person's stated name and pronoun. In a general institutional document, rewrite so that a disputed paradigm is unnecessary unless the institution and intended community have explicitly adopted one. This is not evasiveness: it distinguishes respect for an individual from a house-style decision about public prose.
Quan arribi l'Àlex, demana-li si vol presentar el projecte.
When Alex arrives, ask them whether they want to present the project. (Catalan omits a subject pronoun; the clitic li does not mark gender.)
La persona que coordina el projecte explicarà les seves necessitats.
The person coordinating the project will explain their needs. (Standard neutral reformulation.)
Do not “correct” a community's chosen form in a quotation or personal profile. Conversely, do not present an innovative form as universally standard. Register labels protect both accuracy and respect.
Spoken, written, formal, and plain alternatives
The same welcome can be shaped for its channel:
Bon dia a tothom! Comencem d'aquí a cinc minuts.
Good morning, everyone! We're starting in five minutes. (natural spoken version)
Es convoca el personal docent a la reunió del 14 de maig.
Teaching staff are hereby called to the meeting on 14 May. (formal written version)
El personal docent es reunirà el 14 de maig.
Teaching staff will meet on 14 May. (plain-language alternative with a visible actor)
The formal passive-like es convoca is established and useful when the document itself performs the act. It should not become a reflex. The plain alternative is better when readers mainly need the event. Formality does not require procedir a la convocatòria de.
Address systems also matter. A form written to vós may say presenteu la sol·licitud; one written to vostè says presenti la sol·licitud. Switching between them is not inclusive: it simply makes the institutional voice unstable. See vostè and vós.
Before and after: revise the whole sentence
Before — visible but overloaded:
Els candidats i les candidates admesos i admeses hauran de procedir a la realització de la confirmació de la seva assistència.
The admitted male and female candidates will have to proceed to carry out confirmation of their attendance.
After — inclusive and direct:
Les persones admeses han de confirmar l'assistència.
Successful applicants must confirm attendance.
The revision changes the head noun, so one agreement chain suffices. It also replaces a copied nominal structure with confirmar. Inclusivity and plain language reinforce each other here.
An annotated paragraph
El personal del centre ha de comunicar qualsevol incidència a la persona responsable de torn. Qui no pugui fer-ho immediatament pot enviar un missatge abans de les sis. En començar la reunió, donarem la benvinguda a tothom i explicarem el procediment.
Centre staff must report any incident to the person in charge on duty. Anyone unable to do so immediately may send a message before six. At the start of the meeting, we will welcome everyone and explain the procedure.
- el personal treats the staff as a relevant group and takes singular agreement: ha de.
- la persona responsable is an epicene description with grammatical feminine agreement.
- qui opens a new reference chain without els qui / les qui.
- pot expresses permission, while ha de expresses obligation; inclusive revision must preserve modality.
- donarem la benvinguda a tothom avoids the gendered predicate benvinguts and sounds natural aloud.
Common Mistakes
⚠️ Els candidats admesos i les candidates admeses han de signar.
Grammatical but cumbersome: repeating both coordinated noun phrases on every mention is difficult to sustain in continuous prose.
✅ Les persones candidates admeses han de signar.
Admitted candidates must sign. (One clear agreement chain.)
⚠️ Benvingut/uda a la reunió!
A written slash label has been copied into speech; it cannot be pronounced naturally as written.
✅ Us donem la benvinguda a la reunió!
Welcome to the meeting! (Natural spoken alternative.)
❌ El personal han de presentar les acreditacions.
Incorrect agreement: the collective noun personal is grammatically singular.
✅ El personal ha de presentar les acreditacions.
Staff must show their badges. (Singular agreement with personal.)
❌ Qui vulguin participar han d'inscriure's avui.
Incorrect: free relative qui takes singular agreement in this general construction.
✅ Qui vulgui participar s'ha d'inscriure avui.
Anyone wishing to take part must register today.
❌ Totes les víctimes han estat atesos.
Agreement incorrectly follows the possible real-world gender rather than the noun víctima.
✅ Totes les víctimes han estat ateses.
All the victims have received care. (Grammatical feminine agreement with víctimes.)
❌ Presenteu la sol·licitud abans de dilluns i conservi'n una còpia.
The first imperative addresses vós, but the second switches to vostè.
✅ Presenteu la sol·licitud abans de dilluns i conserveu-ne una còpia.
Submit the application before Monday and keep a copy. (Consistent vós address.)
⚠️ Substituir qualsevol forma valenciana o balear per una forma central per fer el text inclusiu.
Misguided editing: regional leveling is unrelated to gender inclusion and can erase the intended audience's voice.
✅ Aplicar la mateixa estratègia inclusiva dins la varietat coherent del text.
Apply the same inclusive strategy within the text's consistent regional variety.
Practice
Revise a job notice containing els candidats, els treballadors and l'interessat. Produce three versions: a short poster to be read aloud, a formal set of application rules, and a plain email. Decide where a collective, qui, a paired greeting, or a person-based label is best. Then read every version aloud and check that no slash or symbol blocks pronunciation.
Key Takeaways
- Inclusive Catalan is sentence design: preserve meaning, modality, and reference while choosing forms appropriate to the audience.
- Collectives and role-based labels are natural standard resources, but their singular or collective meaning must fit the context.
- Paired forms provide explicit visibility; use them selectively so that agreement chains remain readable.
- Pronoun and agreement innovations exist in specific communities but are not one universally codified standard. Respect individual choices and label register honestly.
- Accessibility, channel, regional consistency, and address system are part of inclusive writing—not afterthoughts.
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