English most commonly offers the options of “he” or “she” for humans but generally forces us to refer to other living beings as “it.” Contrastingly, many Native American languages distinguish the living; animate nouns, such as “dog,” take different grammatical forms than do inanimate nouns, like “shoe.” But English conventions strongly favor phrasing such as “The dog that is barking,” not “The dog who is barking.” Language reflects its culture’s values. Our language makes our tongues turn life-forms into mere objects, more easily abused. In English we don’t call a human “it.”
