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Ungendering Languages
basic human
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In Spanish if you have 1000 Latinas, you have 1000 Latinas. But the second even one man joins these latinas, you now have 1001 Latinos. And if you have all sisters, you have hermanas, but if you add a new baby brother you now have hermanos. This example is not unique to Spanish, it happens in most gendered languages (which English is not).
Critics have cried for a long time that gendered languages inherently exclude LGBT or non-binary gender individuals and distort the way we see the world. Male forms of words like Latino dominate the female version, even if you are referring to mostly a group of women like the example above.
In response people have come up with new words like Latinx, Latin@s, or new pronouns like xir and xe with varying degrees of success.
Personally I don’t know how to feel about this. What does it say about me if I think these languages should just remain unchanged and work how they naturally evolved?
If we had to start over, gendered languages are probably a bad idea and can easily become sexist in subtle ways if not properly designed, but is it too late to change?
Do you use any of these new terms regularly?
Critics have cried for a long time that gendered languages inherently exclude LGBT or non-binary gender individuals and distort the way we see the world. Male forms of words like Latino dominate the female version, even if you are referring to mostly a group of women like the example above.
In response people have come up with new words like Latinx, Latin@s, or new pronouns like xir and xe with varying degrees of success.
Personally I don’t know how to feel about this. What does it say about me if I think these languages should just remain unchanged and work how they naturally evolved?
If we had to start over, gendered languages are probably a bad idea and can easily become sexist in subtle ways if not properly designed, but is it too late to change?
Do you use any of these new terms regularly?
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'xir and xe' are something I'm not sure I'll ever embrace (and expect to be among the first against the wall when the great uprising begins), but I do find myself striving to use more inclusive or neutral language when it isn't necessary to be specific.
Of course, even though we might not have the same explicit rules as French or Spanish, the 'neutral' term for a mixed group often defaulting (personally) to "guys" doesn't help. "Folks" sounds/feels like I'm trying to hard, and "HEY Y'ALL" usually gets me stared down...
As I get older, I still try to hear people out and understand things, but I like to hope that it's more important to try than to get it perfect every time.
But, as a Cis/Het/White/Male, I also strive to actively avoid antagonizing topics that my Iron Man Suit Of Privilege has protected me from having to deal with.
PSN: Bizazedo
CFN: Bizazedo (I don't think I suck, add me).
Shakespeare disagreed.
Also I don't think I grant that a single person can't alter the language as spoken in their peer group. Changes in small groups is what leads to the overall body of the language changing.
And the reality is that male as default does do harm. It defines women as "other", and teaches them that they are "different". And no, it's not too late to change, because people are being hurt by this.
I'm histories greatest monster as I use they for both singular and plural when referring to people, though I still by in large use "guys" or if they are my good friends "assholes"
I think the only newness to it is it being accepted in formal prescribed grammar and style guides.
fuck up once and you break your thumb / if you're happy at all then you're god damn dumb
that's right we're on a fucked up cruise / God is dead but at least we have booze
bad things happen, no one knows why / the sun burns out and everyone dies
I use it all the time without a thought and wasn’t aware people had issue with it until a few years ago when this topic came up. Never had an issue getting meaning across.
"They" has a long history of being used to refer to a singular person, and the only reason it hasn't been "official" is because controlling the definitions of words is one way that those in positions of power are able to exercise that power over marginalized groups.
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
I wish English had no gendered words to be honest; drop queen, just call them a king. But luckily as English has about ten words for every thing I can just call an ungendered, or not importantly gendered throne-sitter, a monarch instead if I want.
Perhaps the answer is to keep the old and just add more words. Kids will handle it if you teach them young. Then you can have he/she/they/yin/xe...
Also as a glimmer of rare national pride I still love love love that English isn’t a gendered language because fuck calling a cat by a male the and a chair by a female the or whatever utter madness the likes of Spanish has me doing (I’m trying to learn it as of last month).
The singular they has its linguistic roots in the 14th century, it battled happily with neutral 'he' for about 500 years with periods in which each rose and fell. Only in the late 18th and early 19th century did 'neutral he' rise to prominence as the main way of describing a generic person, but it was never completely dominant.
The common use of singular they predates the exclamation mark.
It's really not, people have been doing it for a long time offhandedly when the gender wasn't known (but also frequently defaulted to he).
I've pretty successfully integrated Latinx, y'all, and folks into my language and imho you're kind of an asshole if you don't even try, but most people are about something.
problem solved!
you might even use it yourself without realizing it
pretty much any time you're talking about a generic or unknown person most people won't say "her or she" in conversation and the stigma against just using "he" is pretty strong these days
fuck up once and you break your thumb / if you're happy at all then you're god damn dumb
that's right we're on a fucked up cruise / God is dead but at least we have booze
bad things happen, no one knows why / the sun burns out and everyone dies
Unspecified Gender Unspecified Number = They
Unspecified Gender Known 2+ = They
Unspecified Gender Known Singular = They
Known Male Unspecified Number = They
Known Male Known 2+ = They
Known Male Known Singular = He
Known Female Unspecified Number = They
Known Female Known 2+ = They
Known Male Known Singular = She
Known Mixed Known 2+ = They
Effectively saying 'they' is a problem is saying that 'they' can't be used when EITHER the number is possibly non singular OR the gender is unknown OR both. I just don't see the issue with They working its historical duty as a singular genderless term. Its already well accepted, why fight for a new term? They doesn't have any connotations or biases in the mind. It's a good word.
“Hello... Warrior.”
So that’s now my official third option in regards to mister or miss.
.... effing language
See, "their" can be used for singular as well!
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
fuck up once and you break your thumb / if you're happy at all then you're god damn dumb
that's right we're on a fucked up cruise / God is dead but at least we have booze
bad things happen, no one knows why / the sun burns out and everyone dies
“I have a customer on the phone for you. What do you want me to do with them?” “Put them on hold, I will be done in 5 minutes”
What else would be natural in that situation? Without having to go out of your way to specify male or female, which may be unknown and is definitly irrelevant?
Eh, that's not really the best example.
The charge against singular they is best decribed here...
"You're going to have someone calling from the Newspaper in a few hours, do you want me to put him straight through?"
vs
"You're going to have someone calling from the Newspaper in a few hours, do you want me to put them straight through?"
He/Him has made a solid charge at being English's gender unknown word, its not English's gender unspecified word.
For example, if you said..
"I've got someone on the phone for you, shall I put them through?"
then I would be unsurprised by gender, but if you said...
"I've got someone on the phone for you, shall I put him/her through?"
and it was a woman/man, then I would be VERY confused.
Gender Unknown = He (boo) or They
Gender Known but unspecified = They
I would still be surprised in the first scenario for a woman to call.
Or if someone said “ your new intern is here, go meet him in the lobby”. I would very much be surprised to see a woman.
Well sure, because in that situation you don't know whether gender is unknown or not. Which is why using he for gender unknown is silly, because you don't know whether gender is known or unknown from the sentence. He as gender neutral only vaguely works when it is known by both parties that the gender is unknown.
"The new lawyer will arrive soon. I have heard nothing about the gender of this lawyer. When he arrives, please show him to my office"
Effectively this is what 'gender neutral he' is asking you to insert into every conversation, and to somehow guess that the person doesn't know the gender.
They doesn't share the problem
Your candidate is here, they are downstairs.
Singular person, gender unknown or unspecified
Your candidates are here, they are downstairs
Multiple people, gender unknown or unspecified
I find using hen fairly easy since it sounds like a swedish word and works with swedish grammar without any real issues. With english I just use they whenever possible to avoid gendering people unless I already know them. I try to use latinx and such when applicable, but I find my main issue with the english alternative words are that they are a pain to pronounce. This is of course not a reason to not use them, but a reason I find it harder to use them naturally.
The other issue in english is that all the replacement words tend to 'sound more' like he or she or like him or her. Here's a list of alternatives I found
they them theirs themself
e em es emself
ey em eirs eirself
ze hir hirs hirself
xe per pers perself
sie hum hus huself
xhe herm herms hermself
thee ther thers therself
All of them read as 'closer' to he/him or 'closer' to she/her to me. Only they actually seems gender neutral/imbiased to me.
Like, if we were actually going for a gender neutral replacement for singular they I would go with something utterly removed from either genders 'word'
He Him His Himself
She Her Hers Herself
ZA ZAN ZANS ZANSELF
But then, why not just use they? The only reason is if you are horribly concerned with numerical confusion
"You said they were here, why is there only one man!"
Though I thought gendered language was more akin to 'a' vs 'an' and tenses in general? Part of the weird interaction with humanity's innate and genetic sense of grammar and how we use words.
It's Der/Die/Das because that sounds right (and just so happens that the words for Man/Woman sound better with one or the other of the first two, that Train Stations being innately girly, or French Beachs for that matter)
Ich lege das Hühnchen auf die Pfanne und dann in den Ofen
I put the(nueter) chicken, onto the(female) pan, then into the(male) oven. Why are those things those genders? Fucked if anyone knows.
A fucking chart to choose the right a/the? Lutsch meinen schwanz Deutsch!
All the various X/Z-based alternatives to they/them are trash. To me they carry an air of being not just unspecified or neutral but distinctly indeterminate. Like the times where I'd use "zan", would be strictly the ones where I can't determine their gender, it's distinctly a hedge in place of "him"/"her" rather than an alternative for "them". IDK if that makes sense, and whether that's kind of the point, or is or isn't normalizing IDK.
Or maybe to try and explain it another way, If someone informed me their preferred pronoun was him, I feel like continuing to use "za" would then be insulting. Which would then means "za" is not really neutral? It's just a less awful "it"?, but maybe this is something that the reaper would just sort out over time. As the selection of a third choice wouldn't seem noteworthy to those raised with it.
I don't know the right answer to any of this, but, I do have to jump in to say that y'all should listen to Lexicon Valley. The host, John McWhorter, makes a very compelling case that this is just not true. "They" isn't plural. Some uppity writer decided that it should be, and put it in a style guide or some such, but there was never some official tribunal that decided the plurality of the word.
He'll also disabuse you of plenty of other ideas that we get taught in school that have no basis in fact. It's terrible for my nerd cred.
"George is handling the group's reservation; they will arrive at 12:30"
In this instance, if "they" means George, then you have time at 12:30 to set up, but if "they" means the group, you should probably be calling them (George) if they (George) don't get in contact with you by mid-morning.
My strategy is to forgo pronouns and situations calling for a pronoun whenever possible. Like:
"George is handling the group's reservation. Expect a call around 12:30. Arrival time is scheduled for 2pm subject to change."
Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
I’m a transgender woman with a masters in linguistics so I guess this is a thread for me
They is gendered in gendered languages too (i.e. Bosnian has Hes, Shes, and Its (effectively)).
OP, how do you pronounce the x in latinx?
"You" is plural. Its indirectness made it seem polite in singular. There are parallels in other languages, e.g. "Sie", "I", "vous".