• Lvxferre@mander.xyzM
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    32
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    13 hours ago

    Stuff that I’ve seen from people addressing this:

    • using -@, -e or -x instead of either.
    • picking either randomly, and acknowledging “language limits”. (laypeople way to say “grammatical gender does not necessarily coincide with social gender”)
    • picking both and using them randomly
    • triggering gender agreement with some additional word, e.g. “la persona no binaria” will always use -a since it agrees with “persona” (person)
    • “the dance” aka rephrasing

    The -@ and -x things don’t work well when spoken.

    • Canadian_Cabinet @lemmy.ca
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      26
      ·
      edit-2
      13 hours ago

      Spaniard here, you pretty much nailed it. -x makes no sense as it breaks like every rule about the Spanish language so I’ve never heard it outside of Americans trying to be correct. -@ works, but we pronounce @ as [aˈro.βa] so most would just pronounce it like a normal -a instead. -e seems the best to me but I don’t think I’ve ever seen that one before.

      Another thing is that most Hispanics don’t think of gender in the same way that Anglos would, as its more ingrained in our language. Of course he have non-binary people here, but its just not as prevalent of an issue. At least that’s my experience in Spain

      • Orbituary@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        3
        ·
        3 hours ago

        -e is common in LatAm. I’ve never seen the -@ used. X just pisses me off because it only “works” in English, but sounds idiotic as well.

      • Swedneck@discuss.tchncs.de
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        12
        ·
        11 hours ago

        i’m not a spanish speaker but christ -e just seems so obviously the best choice, it looks normal and seems to fit as well into the language as you can expect a new not 100% organic thing to do.

        • Lvxferre@mander.xyzM
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          4
          ·
          10 hours ago

          It sounds well in Portuguese too. Perhaps even more - because unlike in Spanish people tend to shorten and reduce vowels in non-stressed positions, so depending on the dialect and speed you don’t even notice that -e instead of -a or -o.

        • Canadian_Cabinet @lemmy.ca
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          3
          ·
          edit-2
          11 hours ago

          Yeah it just makes sense. Saying something like amigxs instead of amigos completely butchers the pronunciation. It would be pronounced something like ameeg-ek-eese but also the accentuated syllable would move from the i to the a. At least I think so, having that many consonants together is literally impossible in Spanish lol

      • yetAnotherUser@discuss.tchncs.de
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        2
        arrow-down
        8
        ·
        12 hours ago

        -x makes no sense as it breaks like every rule about the Spanish language

        But every single change does that?

        Over here in Germany conservatives keep yelling about similar efforts. As it stands, the most popular gender inclusive variant for referring to a group of people has become “[masuline form]*innen”

        Take the word “student” for instance

        • Student - singular, male
        • Studentin - singular, female
        • Studenten - multiple male students OR multiple male and female students
        • Studentinnen - multiple female students

        Since the generic masculine doesn’t acknowledge non-binary or female people, the following variant has started to spread:

        • Student*innen - multiple students of ambiguous gender

        When talking, you can differentiate it from the term “Studentinnen” by replacing the * with a short break. You’d basically say “Student…innen”.

        Neither the *, nor this break is adhering to any established rules. But the main - or only - reason reactionaries oppose it is because they don’t want to acknowledge non-binary people.

        • Canadian_Cabinet @lemmy.ca
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          7
          ·
          edit-2
          11 hours ago

          Well that’s pretty much how Spanish works. We have estudiante but that normally ends with -e so we’ll use alumno as an example:

          El alumno - single masculine

          La alumna - single feminine

          Los alumnos - multiple masculine or mixed group. As long as there’s at least one guy its masculine

          Las alumnas - multiple feminine

          So saying something like Les alumnes (seems like French lol) can sound more neutral than Los alumnos despite not being officially correct because los has an implied masculine connotation

          • yetAnotherUser@discuss.tchncs.de
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            3
            ·
            6 hours ago

            Still, it would break grammar rules similar to the -x ending, right? Although from my limited Spanish knowledge the -x ending would require some explanation on how to pronounce it, just like the German *-variant. The -e might be more intuitive though.

            But from what I’ve seen on the internet, by far the vast majority of criticism of the -x variant are immediately followed by some right-wing talking point, which is why I’m somewhat cautious about more appropriate criticism.

            In German, another variant, though considerably less popular, for referring to people in a gender neutral fashion is by “Englishifying” it and referring to everyone the same by appending a -y to the word stem.

            Singular male/female/non-binary student? That’s a Studenty now. A group of students? Studentys.

            I hate to say it but this is my favorite variant because it gets rid of gender altogether in a concise way and sounds silly. Still, it too violates a shitton of rules - but what are rules, if not meant to be broken?

    • jbrains@sh.itjust.works
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      11
      ·
      edit-2
      13 hours ago

      I wonder whether linguists and others will gradually adopt calling them noun classes instead of genders.

      I have a harder time believing we’d adopt a new term to supplant “gender” for human social roles, but stranger things have happened.

      • Lvxferre@mander.xyzM
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        7
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        12 hours ago

        I wonder whether linguists and others will gradually adopt calling them noun classes instead of genders.

        I hope so. It would also help when explaining the grammar of a few languages to laypeople. Such as the Bantu ones - people treat their noun classes as if they were something completely alien, even when they speak a language with M/F noun classes.

        • Lvxferre@mander.xyzM
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          2
          ·
          10 hours ago

          Don’t they call it “conjugations” in Spanish too?

          Note however that they work in a really different way, more like noun declensions than like noun classes=gender. For example, you don’t trigger agreement; even if you were to replace an -ar verb with an -er or -ir verb, the rest of the sentence stays the same.

    • hellstarclothing@sh.itjust.works
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      5
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      10 hours ago

      Even though I don’t understand Spanish, the christ-e just seems like the greatest hellstar option; it sounds natural and blends in with the language as well as you could hope from a new, non-natural entity.