Inahuf. The Iraqi Arabic neopronoun (انهف)

May 2, 2026 7 min read

Arabic is a heavily gendered language. Every verb, every adjective, almost every word that refers to a person is marked masculine or feminine. There are pronouns for “he” (هو), “she” (هي), and “they-plural” (هم), but until recently there was no widely-used singular gender-neutral pronoun. انهف (inahuf) is the most developed answer to that gap, created by the Iraqi queer community as a free-to-use linguistic gift.

This guide is a complete walkthrough of the system. The original source is psi-neopronouns.vercel.app, an Iraqi community project. Credit and gratitude to the unnamed creators.

Why it exists

Standard Arabic pronouns force a binary choice. هو and هي are explicitly masculine and feminine. هم is plural; using it for a single person reads as a grammatical mistake or a respectful “we” rather than a pronoun for one non-binary individual. Borrowing English they doesn’t work. It doesn’t conjugate with Arabic verbs.

The Iraqi community needed a pronoun that:

Is single-person, not plural
Carries no gendered meaning. The choice of base letter has to be neutral
Conjugates with Arabic verbs the same way native pronouns do
Sounds like Arabic, not a borrowing
Can be adopted by anyone without pre-existing meaning

The chosen carrier letter is ف (f). The letter has no inherent gendered associations in Arabic morphology. It is, in the words of the source, a blank slate. The word انهف parallels the existing dialectal pronouns انها (she), انهو (he), and انهم (they-plural).

The four pronouns

The system frames inahuf as a fourth column alongside the three existing dialectal pronouns:

Arabic	Meaning	Note
انها	she	feminine singular (Iraqi dialect of هي)
انهو	he	masculine singular (Iraqi dialect of هو)
انهم	they (plural) / neutral plural	(Iraqi dialect of هم)
انهف	single, gender-neutral	the new pronoun

Romanization: Inahuf. Three syllables, i-na-huf.

The grammatical forms

Arabic pronouns appear in several grammatical positions: as standalone subjects, as suffixes attached to verbs (object marking), as prepositional objects, as possessives, as verb prefixes, and as a gender marker on nouns. Inahuf works in all of these.

The closest English approximations of انهف are them (singular they) or the neopronoun set xi / xem / xyr. None map perfectly; the safest in writing is to leave انهف untransliterated.

1. Independent subject pronoun. انهف

Used like هو / هي as the subject of a sentence.

انهف راح المدرسة. They went to school.

انهف ما يحب البيتزا. They don’t like pizza.

2. Object suffix on verbs. ـهف

Parallels the existing ـه (him) / ـها (her). The full third-person object suffix is ـهف, not bare ـف.

ساعدتهف. I helped them. (cf. ساعدته “I helped him,” ساعدتها “I helped her”)

كلّمتهف. I talked to them.

شفتهف البارح. I saw them yesterday.

3. With prepositions. معهف, لهف, بهف

Same suffix pattern as object marking. The preposition takes ـهف.

ذهبت معهف. I went with them. (cf. معه “with him,” معها “with her”)

قلت لهف. I told them.

عطيت لهف. I gave them (something).

بهف. In/with them.

4. 2nd-person object. ـكف

When the speaker is addressing an inahuf person directly (rather than referring to them in the third person), the second-person object suffix is ـكف, parallel to ـكَ (you-masculine) and ـكِ (you-feminine).

اني احبكف. I love you. (cf. أحبكَ to a man, أحبكِ to a woman)

شفتكف البارح. I saw you yesterday.

5. Noun gender marker. ـف

When a noun normally takes feminine ـة or stays in masculine bare form, the inahuf form takes ـف. This shows up most often in terms of address and affection.

حبيبف. My love / dear one (inahuf form). (cf. حبيبي to a man, حبيبتي to a woman)

عزيزف. My dear (inahuf form).

This usage is especially important in vocative speech and intimate address. A partner, a beloved, a close friend.

6. Verb-prefix conjugation. فـ

Present-tense verbs in Arabic carry a gendered prefix: ي- (ya-/yi-) for masculine, ت- (ta-/ti-) for feminine. Inahuf substitutes فـ (fa-/fi-).

فحب. They love. (cf. يحب “he loves,” تحب “she loves”)

فروح. They go. (cf. يروح “he goes”)

فيجي. They come. (cf. يجي “he comes”)

Worked examples

Putting the forms together in real sentences:

اني احبكف. I love you. (2nd-person inahuf address)

ذهبت معهف الى السوق. I went with them to the market. (مع + هف)

حبيبف، شلونكف اليوم؟. My love, how are you today? (vocative + 2nd-person ـكف)

انهف فقول إن الأمور بخير. They say things are fine. (verb prefix فـ)

ساعدتهف بالواجب. I helped them with the homework.

شفتهف بالحديقة وكلمتهف. I saw them in the park and talked to them.

Practical etiquette

Use it consistently when someone tells you it is theirs. The same way you would use a person’s chosen name.
Mistakes happen. When you slip into يحب instead of فحب, correct yourself and continue. Don’t make a scene. The source phrasing: “correct yourself and move on. No fuss needed.”
It feels strange at first. That is universal for any new pronoun in any language. Arabic is more grammatically demanding than English, so you have more to remember. Practice in low-stakes ways: write a sentence in your head about a public figure. Use it in inner monologue. Repetition rewires.
You can advocate for it without being preachy. If a friend asks why their non-binary cousin uses انهف, the answer is: “Because Arabic doesn’t have a singular gender-neutral pronoun and the Iraqi queer community made one. It’s just like learning how to say a new name.”

A note on community usage vs. Published examples

The reference site at psi-neopronouns.vercel.app introduced inahuf, but actual usage in the Iraqi queer community has refined some forms. In particular: the object and prepositional suffix is ـهف, not bare ـف. It parallels the existing ـه / ـها rather than replacing the entire suffix. The examples on this page reflect community usage, which is what you will actually hear from people who use inahuf.

Some areas still not fully settled:

Dual (مثنى). Arabic has a special grammatical number for “two of something.” How inahuf interacts with the dual is not yet documented.
Adjective agreement. When you say “she is tall” in Arabic, the adjective conjugates feminine. The community has not yet fully standardized whether adjectives modifying an inahuf subject take feminine, masculine, or a new inahuf form. In practice, many speakers default to the masculine form (the historically-unmarked form) or use the noun-marker ـف on the adjective itself.
MSA vs. Dialect. The system is rooted in Iraqi colloquial. How to use inahuf in formal Modern Standard Arabic (journalism, official writing) is not yet settled.

These gaps will be filled by the community over time. Languages grow through use.

Why this matters

A trans Iraqi who is non-binary lives between two languages: an English-speaking online life where they have they/them and increasingly recognized vocabulary, and an Arabic-speaking offline life where the language itself does not contain them. Inahuf changes that. It says: your language sees you. Your grandmother’s language has room for you. You don’t have to switch to English to be yourself.

That matters more than grammar. That is the point.

Credit

Inahuf is a project of the Iraqi queer community. The reference site is psi-neopronouns.vercel.app. An unnamed initiative, free to use. We did not create this system; we are documenting and amplifying it.