Debating Gender in Languages

Posts0Likes0Joined19/9/2019LocationSão Paulo / BR
Native
Portuguese
Learning English, French, Italian, Spanish

Lately there has been a heated argument about gender in Portuguese. In my language we choose the masculine voice to address groups or to mean neutral voice, for example, if we need to say "everybody in this room", we'd pick "todos" instead of "todas" ("everybody" has a masculine and a feminine options). Now there are people using an invented word: "todes" or "todx"... The main argument is that language is alive and constantly changing. Although I agree on this statement, I'd say it doesn't change by decree. Is there anything similar hapenning in your own languages?

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#1
Posts0Likes0Joined4/2/2020LocationCN
Native
English
Learning Chinese - Mandarin, Chinese - Cantonese

Cantonese neatly avoids the pronoun issue by using 佢 (keoi5) for he, she and it. 

Mandarin uses different characters but all are pronounced ta1. 

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#2
Posts0Likes0Joined19/9/2019LocationSão Paulo / BR
Native
Portuguese
Learning English, French, Italian, Spanish

Tyler.Huff wrote:
Cantonese neatly avoids the pronoun issue by using 佢 (keoi5) for he, she and it.
Mandarin uses different characters but all are pronounced ta1.
Hey Tyler! But is it something new in the language?

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#3
Posts0Likes0Joined4/2/2020LocationCN
Native
English
Learning Chinese - Mandarin, Chinese - Cantonese

Nope, always been that way. 

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#4
Posts0Likes0Joined1/6/2020LocationLondon / GB
Native
Chechen
Learning Arabic - Standard, English, French, German, Russian

Hey Valeria,


This is a really interesting topic I think. 


As I was starting to learn English in a serious way, ten years ago now, I noticed how people online gradually started saying "she" about a hypothetical person instead of "he", and then, more recently, how it started shifting to "they". Similarly, in French, the écriture inclusive is something that became quite prevalent recently: instead of writing les amis/les amies, you can write les ami-e-s. In Spanish, you can write lxs amigxs instead of los amigos/las amigas


These are all examples of gender-neutral language [0], which is itself a subset of inclusive language [1]. The wiki pages in English and Portuguese about this are very poor compared to the ones in French or in German, for example, but they're informative nonetheless. And yes, it seems to be a new development, insofar as it's becoming socially accepted, and even expected in some circles, and is becoming the norm in official communication. 


[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender-neutral_language

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inclusive_language

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#5
Posts1630Likes1092Joined18/3/2018LocationBellingham / US
Native
English
Learning German
Other Chinese - Mandarin, French, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Swahili, Tagalog, Thai

Yes, it's happening in the US too.

In Thailand now. Next up Tanzania and Philippines.

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#6
Posts0Likes0Joined19/9/2019LocationSão Paulo / BR
Native
Portuguese
Learning English, French, Italian, Spanish

Soup wrote:
Hey Valeria,
This is a really interesting topic I think.
As I was starting to learn English in a serious way, ten years ago now, I noticed how people online gradually started saying "she" about a hypothetical person instead of "he", and then, more recently, how it started shifting to "they". Similarly, in French, the écriture inclusive is something that became quite prevalent recently: instead of writing les amis/les amies, you can write les ami-e-s. In Spanish, you can write lxs amigxs instead of los amigos/las amigas.
These are all examples of gender-neutral language [0], which is itself a subset of inclusive language [1]. The wiki pages in English and Portuguese about this are very poor compared to the ones in French or in German, for example, but they're informative nonetheless. And yes, it seems to be a new development, insofar as it's becoming socially accepted, and even expected in some circles, and is becoming the norm in official communication.
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender-neutral_language
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inclusive_language
Thanks for you comment! I had no information at all about this topic around the world. It was very surprising when you said that it's becoming the norm in official communication, because in Brasil it's connected to young university people and LGBTQ+ and feminist circles. With the political polarization of recent years, there's a dispute among left parties too, the most traditional ones arguing it's foolishness as long as we have "more serious and urgent issues" to turn to. 

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#7
Posts0Likes0Joined24/3/2021LocationLT
Native
Lithuanian
Learning English

My language is Lithuanian and in it, we have gendered words and there is no word, pronoun for non-binary people or things. The things with feminism and gender movements are complicated here and probably a lot of people would be against having a new word for this situation at this point in time, but I have hopes for the future, maybe we will evolve. 

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#8
Posts0Likes0Joined23/3/2021LocationRanchi / IN
Native
Hindi
Learning Finnish, French, German, Hebrew

My nana (maternal granpa) used to address my mother and her sisters as boys (in boyish terms) that was because being a female was shameful for fathers in those days 

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#9
Posts0Likes0Joined24/3/2021LocationManila / PH
Native
English
Learning Spanish

Nirupam.Deo wrote:
My nana (maternal granpa) used to address my mother and her sisters as boys (in boyish terms) that was because being a female was shameful for fathers in those days
Ohhhh, this is interesting. Has things changed now? 

Faye

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#10
Posts0Likes0Joined24/3/2021LocationManila / PH
Native
English
Learning Spanish

Soup wrote:
Hey Valeria,
This is a really interesting topic I think.
As I was starting to learn English in a serious way, ten years ago now, I noticed how people online gradually started saying "she" about a hypothetical person instead of "he", and then, more recently, how it started shifting to "they". Similarly, in French, the écriture inclusive is something that became quite prevalent recently: instead of writing les amis/les amies, you can write les ami-e-s. In Spanish, you can write lxs amigxs instead of los amigos/las amigas.
These are all examples of gender-neutral language [0], which is itself a subset of inclusive language [1]. The wiki pages in English and Portuguese about this are very poor compared to the ones in French or in German, for example, but they're informative nonetheless. And yes, it seems to be a new development, insofar as it's becoming socially accepted, and even expected in some circles, and is becoming the norm in official communication.
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender-neutral_language
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inclusive_language


Using "they" is easier than having to use slashes all the time like he/she when one is not sure what the gender is. 

Faye

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#11
Posts0Likes0Joined25/3/2021LocationSouth Cotabato / PH
Native
Tagalog
Learning Cebuano, English, German, Japanese, Korean

I'm just reading all your comments here .I don't have any tell about this. But reading your comments here is my way to understand and learning pronunciation.

While I'm reading the comments today make me feel I ma in the front of classes. :) 


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#12
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