Does it make sense to use the English language ungrammatically because the worldbuilding of your world tells you to do so?

Question

Does it make sense to use the English language ungrammatically because the worldbuilding tells you to do so? I was thinking about writing a story in a world where gender pronouns don't exist and everyone is "male" since women and men are the same. Not biologically speaking, but the distinction is not made at all.

Does it make sense to refer any woman as a "he" in such a book, or is it nonsense to do so? I am thinking since the language the story is written in isn't part of the world, it doesn't make sense to do that, but I feel the dialogues however need to reflect that somehow. Is there any consensus on this, or is there a historical precedent for something like this?

Answer 1

Using "he" (or "she") as pronoun for all characters regardless of gender is not ungrammatical. Sentences will still be valid English if you do this.

It would be more of a problem if you did something like switching word order from subject-verb-object ("Sam ate oranges") to object-subject-verb ("Oranges Sam ate", like Star Wars' Yoda). In that case sentences are no longer grammatical, and it will make readers stumble to get through. It is tolerable if it's just one character that does this, but if it's used through the book I don't think most readers would stand for it.

It sounds like an interesting idea to use just one kind of pronoun. The comments raise a good question by asking why "he" and not "she", and you could also opt for "they" or newly invented alternatives. But I think "he" might be a good choice because it will take most people longer to figure out what's happening, and you can drive home the point more how ridiculous it is that "he" is the "default" pronoun.