yup, struggle session time
edit: no one is right, everyone is wrong :^)
edit 2: this post is actually dedicated to Amy Goodman, please stop trying to sound cool grandma
yup, struggle session time
edit: no one is right, everyone is wrong :^)
edit 2: this post is actually dedicated to Amy Goodman, please stop trying to sound cool grandma
No, I won't. As a non binary language and linguistics student who is also Latine.
I prefer to use Latine, because it makes the most sense within the language and phonetically. I can get why the "x" is odd. I'll use it when writing sometimes if I'm being lazy but never in speech. The whole discourse about how it's supposedly some US imposition on us is revisionist nonsense. There have always, always been nonbinary people in Latin America.
Of course people haven't heard of it. Of course if you poll people they will lean conservative. A LOT of Latine culture is plagued by machismo and catholicism. We are incredibly conservative. That there is division in the community doesn't mean you should default to siding with the overwhelmingly conservative sidebecause they're louder and larger in numbers. Let us figure out our own shit, we're on that, but stop acting like the addition of a gender neutral alternative is some perversion of the language because it supposedly came from the US. What you are doing is repeating Latin American conservative talking points (replace "the US" with "the devil") and are silencing people that should be your allies. You should give a shit about us.
Spanish is an imposed, colonialist language anyway. Our history is colonialism. We adapt and we change our language to serve us better because that's the entire point of language. Language is meant to be flexible and exists so we can express ourselves. I can't express myself in a language that denies my existence, so I change it. It's 100% fine and the RAE can kiss my ass.
All I gotta say is thank god the two languages I speak, German and Russian, are not widely spoken in the US so our attempts at doing gender inclusivity aren't met with American struggle sessions about imposing American values on the world. For the record, in Austria the usage of the Binnen I is exceedingly common in both leftist circles and is becoming pretty common in wider society too. With the Binnen I, instead of writing "students (m) and students (f)" as "Studenten und Studentinnen", you write StudentInnen. People also often include non-binary people by using a "gap", writing Student_innen or Student*innen. It's been a thing since the 1980s, gradually increasing in popularity.
I don't speak Spanish and am not part of the community so obviously I'll defer to others about latinx vs latine. No dog in that fight. I just wanted to express solidarity because all the Anglos in the thread talking about the imposition of English language norms, like the rest of us can't come to the idea that using gender neutral language is beneficial to women and queer people ourselves, is infuriating.
EDIT: Oh no oh no, fucking Anglos making the city write RadfahrerInnen (cyclist (m/f)) on a sign , poor us!!!
Ahhh, German checking in to get you the struggle session you deserve, I have problems talking about non-binary people in German when they're not there or don't speak German. Obviously when they're available one could always just ask them, but what pronouns would one use for people who use they/them pronouns? "Es" - "It" seems pretty dehumanising. Or how would one refer to a non-binary doctor? Arzt and Ärztin are both heavily gendered, and there is not really a neutral term.
I've been following the discussions and tbh I don't think there's a consensus yet. Same with non-binary people in Russian - a non-binary person I follow on Twitter uses он/а [s/he], I've seen someone else use оно [it], which yes comes across as dehumanising to me as well but if that's what they prefer I can't yell NO YOU CAN'T!! at them. I think some people just continue using he/she, or prefer people to switch within a conversation. I don't really wanna do a struggle session about it because I'm not non-binary lmao, again I'll just defer to them. I'm sure as acceptance spreads, one form will win out eventually, as it always is with language.
My point is simply that these conversations are taking place in non-Anglo communities - it's not like every non-binary person has given up on German/Russian and decided that being non-binary is an Anglo imposition.
I've seen struggle sessions that we shouldn't use it to refer to plants/animals as they have rights or whatever, and so there should be another separate new pronoun for non-human flora and fauna
Animate/inanimate noun class distinctions aren't unheard of in language, but I don't think they'll manage that one haha. Afaik flora typically fall on the inanimate side too. Maybe if they advocate for it as part of a push for veganism, anti climate change, animal rights.
It still wouldn't be the weirdest thing in the history of English pronouns. I'll never be over English borrowing they/them from the Norse. It's extremely uncommon for languages to borrow function words (pronouns, prepositions, etc), it's very interesting that they/them stuck.
The natural solution along these lines would be Ärztx, right?
The natural solution is Ärzt_in :) Can't diss the usage of x when some of us are putting in underscores
But you can't even pronounce that. You already have that in Spanish since before I was even born
Sometimes pronounced with a glottal stop for the underscore
Well you still have the problem which is that it implies you can only be an Ärzt or an Ärztin. So it's inappropriate for enbys. Example
No? You don't pronounce Ärztin (f) with a glottal stop. So Ärzt_in (nb) with a glottal stop differentiates it and makes it non-binary. I'm not saying this is the most perfect solution that everyone should stick to, but it is a possible solution.
Sure it is, it's made from bits from the two gender terminations, so if you can make that case in Spanish you can make that case in German.
So? Every community reaches their own decisions regarding what they consider acceptable in their own language. German has three grammatical genders (male/female/neuter), in contrast to Spanish, so the starting point is different anyway. Kinyarwandans have 16 different grammatical genders/noun classes, I'm sure they could also make lots of different arguments about our struggles but that's neither here nor there.
I don't even know what this is supposed to mean.
How?
How?
Every community decides on their own how they'd like to be gender neutral. What works for German may not work for Spanish, what works for Spanish may not work for German. My point is that "you can make that case for Spanish" is irrelevant for German, and vice versa. "Ärzt_in" is what the German speaking community is tending towards finding acceptable.
Re neuter making a difference (imo): it's because then not only are you trying to include enbies, you're very consciously trying to avoid making enbies neuter, as that's typically associated with inanimate objects. It's "der Arzt", "die Ärztin", but you probably don't want it to be "das Arzt[nb-suffix]". So you start playing around with gaps, male-female combos, etc. What's the determiner situation in Spanish? Maybe I'm wrong and you have the same problem.
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Stahp, that is not a synonym for Latine. Won't anybody think of the Brazilians.
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I'm hispanicker than you, shut up.
Portapottygeese bad
Found the American Hispanic
It is, though? Like do you think the Tainos and the Caribs were speaking Spanish?
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Do you think the Cherokees were speaking English? No, but if you suggested this idea to an American it would not resonate with them.
We make shit up in English all the time, though. English is more gender neutral than English. You just took the already gender neutral pronoun they and made it apply more broadly. Spanish is literally just male and female with a default male that even a lot of cis women have been rightfully critiquing for years.
The comment was more directed at the bit I quoted. Can you even imagine people in America trying to convince regular folks of anything by saying English is a colonial language imposed on them by the dastardly Brits
we're not trying to create a framing for a propaganda campaign here, just speaking facts between comrades who should understand that pointing out Spanish is a colonial language is a simple historical fact
Sure, like English is, but this doesn't mean anything to Americans. It says something to American Hispanics because they're a minority from the US that often isn't that connected to the original culture and sees the issue through the lens of being a racial minority.
I don't even know what to make of this comment, what are you even arguing here? My point is that there is nothing about saying Spanish is a colonial language that is exclusive to Latinos in the diaspora
Removed from context maybe, but in the context of that comment this is exactly what I'm arguing and I expect anyone from Latam to have my back on this.
This simply isn't true, people study and discuss settler-colonial dynamics in Latin America as well.
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What do you think these settler-colonial dynamics are?
Spanish settlers came and conquered the natives and created an entire political and ideological apparatus to justify their exploitation of them. Part of this was making other languages other than Spanish taboo and subject to punishment, legal or otherwise. This culture and ideology has not dissapeared in these countries and the erasure of a colonial past is part of that.
All of this is true, but try to tell a French person this. See if this makes them not identify with the French language
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I don't get what your problem with what I was saying was then. It's definitely true that this argument that you shouldn't identify with Spanish because it was "imposed to you" and it's not your real culture or whatever only has any currency with the American Hispanics.
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Any language is not sacred. The underlying assumption that makes the argument work is that colonization means it's not our "real" culture. The argument makes no sense without it
The argument is that it is just one language among many and not a particularly privileged or special language that needs "preserving."
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Gender neutral language is not an "English norm"
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Gender neutral language in Spanish works completely different from gender neutral language in English. It's proposed to be used for words with gramatical gender (pronouns, nouns, adjectives and articles) when and only when we're talking about humans. English doesn't have gramatical gender, it doesn't change the adjective if it's feminine or masculine, English has a gender neutral third person pronoun, the articles don't have gramatical gender.
If we wanted to adhere to English gender neutral language we would get rid of gramatical gender entirely. "La mesa alta, el pelo suelto" aren't meant to be changed for "le mese alte, le pelo suelte".
"Los (male plural, human) chicos(male plural, human) quieren jugar a la(feminine singular, non human) pelota(feminine singular, non human)" would be changed to "Les(neutral plural) chiques(neutral plural) quieren jugar a la(feminine singular, non human) pelota(feminine singular, non human)".
Want English gender neutrality? Here: "Les chiques quieren jugar a le pelote".
Edit: Cursed English conjugation added
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Yes there is vosotras. Ustedes, on the other hand, only has that gender neutral form.
And to be spicy, Spanish people say vosotres as well .
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That makes no sense. "Os" is used for the direct object in the second plural person. Give me an example of a phrase using that. Here, use this: "Los trabajadores no tienen nada que perder, salvo sus cadenas." And in singular form.
Lenguaje inclusivo ;)
"Vosotres sois mis mejores amigues, por eso os quiero recordar que contáis conmigo para todo."
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What are you saying. Are you engaging with me honestly?
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I'm gonna have to ask you to rephrase what you just said because I don't understand it.
Yeah I see where you're coming from. I've had this argument many times and I suppose that the idea I meant to express was that Spanish colonists brought both their language and their ideas of masculinity and femininity and imposed them on people. But there isn't as much arguing over the sanctity of the English language.
I kind of want to try this now.
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Do you guys really think the Brits oppressed you by making you speak English?
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