the Lipan language doesn’t use gendered pronouns. There is no he hunted or she hunted. There’s only, like, they—singular—hunted. We do have pronouns that indicate whether the plural version of they means two people or more than two people,
This is very interesting, but it took me a while to understand. I'm not the targeted audience for a young adult novel and its showing. I'm dated by my understanding of "they".
In time, perhaps I will easily read they as a specific* non-neutral singular. For now I'm confused by introduction to a character later described as they later in the narrative, then again identified by name. My imaginations creates the visual image of the character then, wait "they?" character starts multiplying, then when referred to by name again, the multiple images merge back into one.
*specific as in for an identified person rather than in the vague way of "ask someone if they could help"
