Ki?

Chances are pretty good you are reading this because you clicked through a link, perhaps my pronouns in my email signature, and were curious about this word ki, pronounced kee. I'm assuming you want to know what is ki and why is it in my pronoun list.

To start, ki is a pronoun that refers to something animate and natural, an addition to he, she, and it. I came across this idea of ki while listening to Dr. Robin Wall Kimmerer's interview with Krista Tippet on On Being. Rather than me summarizing, I'll let Dr Kimmerer—botanist, State University of New York at Syracuse professor, and member of the Citizen Pottawatomie tribe—speak for herself.

(T)he language of “it,” which distances, disrespects, and objectifies, I can’t help but think is at the root of a worldview that allows us to exploit nature. And by exploit, I mean in a way that really seriously degrades the land and the waters, because, in fact, we have to consume. We have to take. We are animals, right? But that, to me, is different than really rampant exploitation. But this is why I’ve been thinking a lot about: Are there ways to bring this notion of animacy into the English language? Because so many of us that I’ve talked to about this feel really deeply uncomfortable calling the living world “it,” and yet, we don’t have an alternative, other than “he” or “she.” And I’ve been thinking about the inspiration that the Anishinaabe language offers in this way and contemplating new pronouns. 

I’ve been thinking about the word “aki” in our language, which refers to land. And there’s a beautiful word — “bimaadiziaki,” which one of my elders kindly shared with me. It means “a living being of the earth.” But could we be inspired by that little sound at the end of that word, the “ki”? And use “ki” as a pronoun, a respectful pronoun inspired by this language as an alternative to “he,” “she,” or “it,” so that when I’m tapping my maples in the springtime, I can say, “We’re going to go hang the bucket on ki. Ki is giving us maple syrup this springtime.” This, then, of course, acknowledges the being-ness of that tree, and we don’t reduce it to an object. It feels so wrong to say that.

I strongly suggest you make time to listen to the full, unedited interview to get the full depth and context of why we need a word like ki in our language but suffice it to say we do. Currently, the only pronouns we have in English are he, she, and it.

He, she, and it have to do a lot of lifting in our language, telling us if something is animate or inanimate and the gender of the beings in the animated world. This means that often animated beings get put into the it category because their gender is not easily observed (e.g. fish) or non-existent (e.g. dandelions).

Well, aren't fish and dandelions its?

Not always, no. In English they are. In some languages they aren't. Language is a construct, an imperfect tool to help us make sense of and communicate the world.  When you see the tool needs an adjustment, you adjust it. We need a word that indicates something is alive but the gender is unknown or unknowable since, frankly, gender is usually irrelevant to whatever we are talking about.

Why am I putting myself in the same category as fish and dandelions?

Because we—the fish, the dandelions, and me—are made of the same star dust and sunshine that are locked in a secret relationship where we exchange atoms and energy. I can eat fish and dandelions and one day my biomass could feed them depending on how my remains are dispersed. My big brain and opposable thumb and understanding of puns may mean I have a self awareness and ability to communicate that they don't (or we haven't detected) but in the sorting of things humans, fish, and dandelions belong in the same box, the ki box.

 

Point of clarification. Ki is not anthromoporphizing. I am not bringing the fish and the dandelions into the world of humans. Rather, the ki pronoun is to bring humans into the world of nature, saying we are part of it. I am still human. But I am also ki.