my understanding is latinx and latine are pronounced exactly the same, just different spelling. you’re using latine while saying latinx is dumb and made up by shitlibs?
So in Spanish you have a word like Oaxaca or México, where the x is in the middle of the word and is pronounced like the h in ha.
When x is at the end of a word its pronounced like k+s.
Or when it is the first letter of a word, its basically an s sound.
So, we get three possible pronunciations rooted in Spanish:
la-tin h (i don’t think this really works at all unless you just trail ‘tin’ with some kind of soft … consonant only sound?)
la-tinks (arguably this is the most correct pronunciation strictly following the rules of Spanish)
la-tins (works but only if you do not follow Spanish rules for how x is pronounced)
é or e is a vowel pronounced like eh, tbus:
la-tin-EH or la-tin-eh
which is different from latino (OH) and latina (AH).
If latinx and latine are pronounced the same, then that would indicate that a word has been made up which breaks the otherwise quite strict pronunciation rules governing Spanish, introducing an English style ‘exception’ where this particular word is pronounced this particular way for no apparent reason.
This is a big reason why many (but not all) do not like this term. It either only works when written or to a person familiar with English, who usually pronounce it la - tin - ecks.
I’m Latino, latine seems more plausible based on how I grew up. I just hate how it’s a single letter off from latrine.
Do we jump the rules for something really new to our society? Maybe. I personally think a lot of this is rooted in people’s limited understanding of how postfixes work in Spanish, American education for example explains that anything ending with a = feminine, o = masculine, but that ignores context and etymology which I won’t go into here.
I’d equate it to our initial minor discomfort with referring to humanity as ‘mankind’, anyone with more than trivial education understands the word to be non-gendered.
Actually English native feminists and leftists tend to avoid using the word “mankind”. The more time passes, the more that word is considered a relic of a misogynist past that’s no longer relevant. You still see that sort of language in old books like The Lord Of The Rings, where humans are referred to a “men”, regardless of gender. And it’s jarring to modern readers who are native speakers. People aren’t used to it anymore.
English speakers are improving our language to remove sexism and Spanish speakers are too. Language is a tool, it’s supposed to help people. If it’s not helping people, it needs to be repaired or upgraded.
Historically, “man” is absolutely neutral, meaning “human, person”. You then have wif for woman and wer for man and also wifman and werman. I think it would’ve been better to go back to those terms, already tried and true just fallen out of use after the Norman conquest, than to try to haphazardly and awkwardly declare the use of the term “mankind” sexist. Cudgels and shibboleths invented by the performative faction to have a way to deem themselves morally superior.
