Is this for real? I can’t draw no other conclusion than US defaultism in trans activism gives a free pass to TERF politics in Europe. This kind of news from Germany cannot mean anything good.
According to Wikipedia:
In 2019, the German Language Association VDS (Verein Deutsche Sprache; not to be confused with the Association for the German Language Gesellschaft für deutsche Sprache, GfdS) launched a petition against the use of the gender star, saying it was a “destructive intrusion” into the German language and created “ridiculous linguistic structures”. It was signed by over 100 writers and scholars.[11] Luise F. Pusch, a German feminist linguist, criticises the gender star as it still makes women the ‘second choice’ by the use of the feminine suffix.[12] In 2020, the Gesellschaft für deutsche Sprache declared Gendersternchen to be one of the 10 German Words of the Year.[13]
In 2023, the state of Saxony banned the use of gender stars and gender gaps in schools and education, which marks students’ use of the gender stars as incorrect.[14][15] In March 2024, Bavaria banned gender-neutral language in schools, universities and several other public authorities.[16][17] In April 2024, Hesse banned the use of gender neutral language, including gender stars, in administrative language.[18]
Here are the original Wikipedia references
- “Der Aufruf und seine Erstunterzeichner”. Verein Deutsche Sprache (in German). 6 March 2019. Retrieved 5 April 2020.
- Schlüter, Nadja (22 April 2019). ““Das Gendersternchen ist nicht die richtige Lösung””. Jetzt.de (in German). Retrieved 5 April 2020. “GfdS Wort des Jahres” (in German). Retrieved 13 December 2020.
- Jones, Sam; Willsher, Kim; Oltermann, Philip; Giuffrida, Angela (2023-11-04). “What’s in a word? How less-gendered language is faring across Europe”. The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2024-04-05.
- “Schools in Saxony are forbidden to use gender language”. cne.news. Retrieved 2024-04-05.
I got into this rabbit hole from this news article
You must log in or # to comment.
The very same happens in French. The use of recently popular gender-neutral structures like “étudiant.e.s” is strongly discouraged in formal writing. The older “étudiant(e)s” less so but still not recommended.
What’s recommended is to either say “étudiants et étudiantes” or just use the masculine form as a group for both masculine and feminine forms, as has been the standard forever, and almost no one bats an eye at.
It’s not TERF, it’s not misogynistic, it’s just to make texts easier to read. It takes more time and effort to read a text full of those extra period/parenthesis characters, for very very little gain.
People wanting to write a text where they consider the sacrifice in readability worth it for the extra emphasis on gender inclusion still can; the police won’t show up. It’s just not standard grammar.
Agreed. I think using the masculine as the default should be fine if everyone agrees that it applies to all genders in this context. I wouldn’t even mind if the feminine was used for this instead. It’s just for the sake of legibility.
This always makes me wonder why isn’t the feminine that is all inclusive. It occurred to me it is because males would take offense to be called women, where (at least traditionally) this is not the case the other way round.
In german or french It is mostly because the female version is just the male one with an extra ending. I.e. händler / händlerin English would have something similar but the male as default is just the now. You dont say actress but actor
I think that would be a history/etymology lesson going all the way back to Latin. I haven’t studied Latin, but I think there used to be a lot more grammatical genders, but they were gradually merged into one another in languages with a Latin heritage.
Why the neutral gender got merged into masculine and not feminine is a good question. Maybe it was just because they were the most similar.
In French the masculine and neutral gender collapsed. That’s why masculine is a default. All neutral pronouns merged with the masculine due to sound shifts.
Because of how languages evolved. But my male neighbour still is a midwife.
Same in Dutch but ‘‘student(e)’’ is generally accepted.
There is no good way to use gender neutral language in German. The language works differently than English.
So people came up with workarounds like putting stars in nouns to include both forms of the word for male and female but German grammar does not work well with this. There is also no good equivalent to using “they” as a neutral pronoun.
People still are trying to figure out how to make German more inclusive but this isn’t easy.
Don’t be ignorant.
I 100% agree that it’s not perfect. Still, banning an attempt at being inclusive is clearly not about how impractical it can be. And even if it were, policing language is stupid 9 times out of 10.
This is a cultural thing. My wife has studdied German culture, particularly relating to their relationship with their language, pretty extensively and from what she says they are exceedingly resistant to changes to their general language at all. Hence all of the compound nouns for new devices instead of coming up with a new word. Apparently the cultural adoption of “Das handy” for cellphone was a cultural milestone since they actually used something new instead of trying to cram together “Mobile Wireless Vocal Communication Device” into one word.
If you police it it’s not a cultural thing. If it was just a cultural thing than we could just let the * slowly die out. But banning language hinders progress. And I’m sorry, but the German language is constantly shifting and changing. There have even been multiple planned changes that went pretty well in recent history. Using English words might have been a big change back then, but now it’s really common. The first terms for mobile were things like “Taschentelefon” (pocket telephone), “drahtloses Telephone” (wireles telephone) or the one that is still in use “Mobiltelefon” (mobile phone). None of these seem outlandish to me.
I know nothing about german but some languages don’t even have neutral pronouns, even things have gender. In this case you either invent a new word or let it be.
I am pretty sure gender norms, even strict ones, occur to grammatically genderless languages, like Hungarian IIRC. So if a Hungarian student used a ‘*’ to be non-binary inclusive, this could not have meaning in this society, because their language is genderless? I doubt it.
Sorry i don’t get it. As I said you can use but you would have to invent a new word or just try to use some other word with non related meaning. For exemple dome languages without neutral words will use the male pronoun as the norm when talking about man and women together. I’m trying to say just accept this as women have done for centuries
You ok?
I have no opinion mostly bc I didn’t read the whole thing) but I think its funny how “over 100 writers and scholars” isnt the impact it used to be. U can get 100 ppl to sign just about anything, especially in today’s day and age when it’s so easy for ppl to find other ppl with the same exact prejudices
Good point
I don’t know what a gender star is, but it sounds cool
Let’s take the word “Kassierer”, which is German for cashier. Kassierer is the male form, Kassiererin is the female form.
The idea of the Gendersternchen is that you write Kassierer*in to indicate that it means either male or female. I believe “Sternchen” (“little star”) translates to asterisk.
And why would you care? You are obviously not German (otherwise you would know that the shit you post is BS) and obviously scared about inclusivity (because you worry about how other people call themselves).
Get a life.
Since this vile comment goes against Lemmy etiquette I need not provide a response. But I will.
how other people call themselves
You must be another level of stupid to write this out. Perhaps you mean, I shouldn’t care what other “governments” or “majorities” want their citizens to call or not-call themselves. Only a nationalist would say such a thing, that your government has the right to self-define (or …impose?) how its people call themselves. This is some true Orban-level shit you managed to fit in your, well, fit.
And, yes, this is a politics issue I want to see in the same maps we monitor US gender politics with.
obviously not German
Very proudly not so. I cherish the fact that German nationalists tend to end up shot or hang, as one of the few things that provide meaning to my post-WWII life. The historical equivalent of a narcissist man-child demanding attention to himself, a real small-dick energy nation, that enthusiastically voted for a mustached idiot for the job. So, not German, and so happy about it.
obviously scared about inclusivity
The fact that you fail to understand this is a pro-inclusivity post means that you are so dump that you would have been euthanized in your own country, less than 100 years ago, unless you enrolled to a specific party of anti-intellectual idiots. Ah I forgot, you already are. Sound survival of the fittest strategy.
Now, let’s sit around waiting you to ridicule yourself with another one of these comments ROFL
The “star construct” you mention and hang an entire theory on is just a German language construct. It has to do with gender but not the way you imagine it to be. Just gender as a language construct (German is full of gender constructs).
Maybe I made the error of explaining your post with the typical US “there is only one gender” stance which is so irritatingly omni present on youtube nowadays.
But if that was not your intention, it might also be an error to call me nationalist. I am not. I am all for gender inclusivity. If you are as well we have no beef.
And PS: yes, you are still an asshole.
you are still an asshole
Thank you
the error of explaining your post with the typical US
Sure enough going after your colloquotors’ nationality was an ill-chosen angle, since you wanted to criticize the idea of one-gender, reducing it to Americans. Same goes for another asshole who was quick to attribute it to me supposedly being the speaker of a “genderless” language.
This is a bullshit attitude because you are going for the extra step.
“You don’t get the nuances of our language to understand what this is about. It is because you are not German / you are the native of a genderless language / you are a US defaultist who wants to impose his own view”
For one thing I hardly think English is a genderless language, and second has it crossed your mind someone can speak several languages fluently, some of which “gendered”.
I am not responsible for the lamentable state of internet discussions these days, but next time try to formulate and debunk the opponent idea before spewing several extra thought steps, bringing ad hominem and national origins into the mix, if you don’t want to be spoken to like that.
an error to call me nationalist. I am not
Great, Good for you
Jeez you really are full of it.
Nevermind. Have fun playing by yourself.
