Gender Neutral Spanich, etc.

[rong]

I scrolled through, not really reading, to see if Johnnyx had commented, since I believe he's the only native Spanish speaker on the board.  I didn't see it.

I have a nonbinary native Spanish speaking friend on facebook and they said that gender neutral language in Spanish is being developed.  x is sometimes used as a suffix (latinx) or e.  Personally I prefer e because it is easier to pronounce.  I believe there are other approaches, but those two are the most common.

I think that's a pretty solid approach - If I understand it right, masculine/feminine is determined by ending in -o or -a (latino, latina) so latine works and is easier to pronounce.  the only other problem I know of is "el" and "la"  as in el latino or la latina.  perhaps replace that with ella (pronounced a-ya) and is that all you'd have to do?

[altered]

I scrolled through, not really reading, to see if Johnnyx had commented, since I believe he's the only native Spanish speaker on the board.  I didn't see it.

I have a nonbinary native Spanish speaking friend on facebook and they said that gender neutral language in Spanish is being developed.  x is sometimes used as a suffix (latinx) or e.  Personally I prefer e because it is easier to pronounce.  I believe there are other approaches, but those two are the most common.

I think that's a pretty solid approach - If I understand it right, masculine/feminine is determined by ending in -o or -a (latino, latina) so latine works and is easier to pronounce.  the only other problem I know of is "el" and "la"  as in el latino or la latina.  perhaps replace that with ella (pronounced a-ya) and is that all you'd have to do?

I recently had a friend explain this to me, and have been picking a lot of it up by osmosis in the past few days.

1: x-endings are mostly a Mexican Spanish thing. The x is silent, the words end on a consonant (really weird in Spanish, but usually makes the meaning clear, generally considered preferable because it can be easily used to indicate unknown gender, lack of gender or non-binary gender).

2: e-endings are mostly a Brazilian Portuguese thing, and they are in fact pronounced. Latino, Latina, Latine, said Lah-tee-nay. Not as popular overall because it positively emphasizes neutrality (consider they:Latinx::it:Latine) but still used.

3: people usually use the existing articles, because the noun-article gender mismatch doesn’t matter when you’re creating an artificial grammatical gender. Also, easier to use existing articles than make new ones: they’re basic necessary vocabulary that context cannot help determine in many cases.

In practice, this means the articles used for a given neutral word are usually random, chosen more on the whim of the speaker/writer than on any particular grammatical rules. I have heard “le” is being used in Mexican Spanish, too, but no examples were provided.

[rong]

I think I was approaching from a "remove all gender from the language" approach and it sounds like you are describing a "remove all presumptions about gender from the language" approach.  Do I have that right?

[altered]

I think I was approaching from a "remove all gender from the language" approach and it sounds like you are describing a "remove all presumptions about gender from the language" approach.  Do I have that right?

Not quite. It’s both, depending on who is using it and why, but the usual usage is just about assumptions, yeah.

Simply put, no trans person is enough of a moron to say “gender is fake let’s burn it all,” because they’re fucking trans, they feel the reality of gender far more strongly than ANY cis individual could. There is something there. It’s important. Statements to the contrary are made in bad faith by transphobic morons, full stop. (To the point that “abolish gender” is a trans meme.)

But then, stupid quirks of linguistics and etymology are used to delegitimize and abuse trans people, rile up cis people against them, and so forth. On top of that, given most gender in language is binary, many languages invalidate non-binary identities by default, including Spanish and Portuguese.

This means you literally cannot talk in a formal way about your non-binary friend in Spanish unless you just use their name over and over in every sentence. Different way to put it, the prior sentence cannot be translated into Spanish without changing its meaning.

So what is happening isn’t some “abolish gendered nouns, smash the binary, make Romance languages gender neutral all the time” like a lot of people are being misled into believing. It’s just making space for things to be referred to without saying they are or are not a certain gender. This is the entire reason the “Latine” take is less popular, and why no one actually cares about gendered articles like “el” and “la”.

Again, I’m repeating a lot of this second hand or third hand, but it is coming from people I trust myself to understand what the fuck they’re saying, and it’s consistent with how transgender people act and think WRT gender as a heavily generalized rule. So I feel like I’m more likely to be correct than not on it.


ETA: probably should have mentioned this. My friend who was telling me about this is Brazilian, so that is the perspective I’m drawing upon. Mexico may have a different dynamic, though I haven’t seen any examples that contradict what she was saying.

[rong]

that makes a lot of sense.

there's a lot of directions one could go from here.  so many implications about how language is part of culture and influences thought, but this is as close to that minefield as i'm going to get.

[The Johnny]

I mean, since this thread is still going and i have been summoned, i will gladly fulfill my general role of thread interest killer XD

Ill do this between today and tomorrow

[The Johnny]

rong:

"el latino/la latina"... as you might observe, the article is tied to the suffix "el -o" vs. "la -a"... so when you say "latinx" thats just a theoretical usage, because in practice you need to use an article before it.

************************************

Example: "Él es un latinx"...

1) The article "Él" is telling you that the given person is an individual male. (As opposed to "Ella" which is individual female)
2) The descriptor "un" is telling you again its an individual male. (As opposed to "una" which is individual female)
3) The end result is that due to the previous factors, saying "latino" is the only "correct" continuation of the phrase since its already overdetermined by two words... if you continue it with "latina" its not "logical" nor "correct"... if you continue it with "latinx" its also already been predetermined.

There is no gender neutral article, "Él" and "Ella" are gender charged... the best the suffix "-x" can achieve in this example (and i think in every single possible case?) is "This person is of biological male sex, but we do not know what gender he identifies with."

**************************************

the pencil... el lápiz
bowl... el tazón
pants... el pantalón
pocket... el bolsillo
hands... las manos

[The Johnny]

Now, the suffix "-e" is a bit different than "-x" since it can actually be pronounced, due to it not being a consonant.

Plurals are also gendered "ellos/ellas", "los/las", so its the same issue as singulars.

**************************************************************

But theres cases where you can say, for example, "Todes", which means everyone, in favour of the gendered terms "Todos/todas".

"Todes las personas reunidas aquí pensamos que..."
"All the persons congregating here think that..."

"...las personas..." is gendered as female, but thats just the article attached similarly to inanimate objects, and does not insinuate at all that the persons congregated are either male or female - "los personos" does not exist.

[The Johnny]

"ella" cannot replace "él/la", because ella is literally "she".

El - Him
Ella - Her

but also:

El - the (male)
La - the (female)

[rong]

It seems gender is more entrenched in the language than I realised. 

Do you think the constant reinforcement of gender differences in the language could explain the chauvenistic nature of latin culture?  I don't think there is a direct English translation of machismo, for example.

[LMNO]

It seems gender is more entrenched in the language than I realised. 

Do you think the constant reinforcement of gender differences in the language could explain the chauvenistic nature of latin culture?  I don't think there is a direct English translation of machismo, for example.

"Toxic Masculinity".

[altered]

It seems gender is more entrenched in the language than I realised. 

Do you think the constant reinforcement of gender differences in the language could explain the chauvenistic nature of latin culture?  I don't think there is a direct English translation of machismo, for example.

"Toxic Masculinity".

Excellently done.

[LMNO]

 

[Cain]

I'll have you know machismo and honour killings are totally different from when incels go off the deep end.

[rong]