Merriam-Webster includes usage examples of the singular they dating
Today I write as a journalist and a concerned user of the English language
Me, grading a paper in 1996: A 12th-grader writes, “If someone wants their job, they should write clear memos
For this reason, "they" pronouns are one of the three most popular pronouns used for
Two years ago, AP changed its style guide to occasionally allow the singular “they
Austen's plots often explore the dependence of women on marriage for the pursuit of favourable social
Jane Austen and William Shakespeare, among towering literary figures, used this form of the singular “they
In the 1500s, William Lily published a Latin textbook It developed as a singular following the use of the singular ‘you’, which was originally just a plural form
The singular “they” is extremely common in everyday usage
”
Shakespeare did it
) It took a few centuries for they to pop up in reference to women: Jane Austen uses they in the singular 75 times in Pride and Prejudice (1813) and as Rosalind muses in 1848’s Vanity Fair: “A person can’t help their birth
For third person singular pronouns, we have 'he' , 'she', and 'it'
”
Create Your Own Jane Austen Adventure by Emma Campbell Webster or Pride and Prejudice and Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, W
One of the most cited earliest examples of the singular “they” in literature is Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales, specifically some versions of The Pardoner’s Tale, which was written around 1395, indicating that the singular “they” was likely used in speech even before that