The University of Tennessee has told its staff and students to stop calling each other 'he', 'she', 'him' and 'her' - and to start referring to one another with terms like 'xe', 'zir' and 'xyr' instead.

The Knoxville branch of the public university, which has 27,400 students, sent a memo round to its members filled with unusual new parts of speech to avoid referring to anybody's gender.

According to a gay rights official at the university, the new language regime will make the university 'welcoming and inclusive' and stop people feeling 'marginalized'.

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New regime: Pictured above is a conversion table given to staff and students at the University of Tennessee's Knoville campus to instruct them in the use of non-gendered pronouncs

The university published the instructions on its website on Wednesday after they were emailed to every member of the university by the institution's Vice Chancellor for Diversity.

Officials have since insisted the the guidelines are not compulsory and that they do not want to 'dictate speech'.

Donna Braquet, who runs the university's Pride Center, wrote the guidelines, which are accompanied with a long table demonstrating how to replace the regular parts of speech.

She also advises staff members not to call roll in class, and to instead greet every student by asking them to announce their name and pronoun of preference.

Instead of 'he' and 'she', Braquet suggests four alternatives.

One is the commonplace strategy of using 'they', 'them' and 'their' for individuals rather than groups.

She also suggests 'ze' and 'xe' - both pronounced 'zhee' - and a variety of secondary conjugations to be used for anybody who rejects the traditional gender binary.

Barquet argues that if everybody follows her instructions, campus will become 'more inclusive'.

Courtesy WATE

Instructions: Donna Braquet, a gay rights official at the university, wrote the guidelines, which were sent to the entire university

She wrote: 'When our organizational culture shifts to where asking for chosen names and pronouns is the standard practice, it alleviates a heavy burden for persons already marginalized by their gender expression or identity.'

There is no information on the numbers of students on campus who do not identify as the traditional genders, as the university's official data only recognizes male and female.

In an interview with DailyMail.com, Rickey Hall, the university's vice chancellor for diversity, said he was 'ancedotally' aware of students on campus who reject traditional gender divisions.

After a backlash from critics who called the proposals 'ridiculous' and 'absurd', the university clarified that nobody would be forced into using the terms.

In an interview with Fox News commentator Todd Starnes, Tennessee state senator Mae Beavers, a Republican, said: 'It’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard.

'If you must interview a student before you greet the student, that’s not acceptance – that’s just absurd.'

A statement from a university spokesman said: 'We would like to offer clarification of the statements that have been made referring to gender-neutral language.

'There is no mandate or official policy to use the language. The information provided in our Office of Diversity and Inclusion newsletter was offered as a resource to our campus community on inclusive practices.

'We recognize that most people prefer to use the pronouns he and she; we do not dictate speech.