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
@whydudothatdrcrane No, gender neutral pronouns are not banned. What is banned is the Binnen-I (Mitarbeiter*innen). It is recommended to use much easier to read Mitarbeiter und Mitarbeiterinnen or Mitarbeitende. Also the belittled version Mitarbeiterchen is gender neutral and allowed.
As a person regularly writing regular expressions, the usage of * in a written language rubs me the wrong way. I wouldn’t mind Mitarbeiter/innen, similar to how Czech does it (prodavač/ka, although some are impossible to shorten like skladník/skladnice, as skladník/ce sounds too weird, much like Krankenschwesterinnen would).
Krankenschwesterinnen
Der Begriff ist eh obsolte, ist nun Krankenpfleger.
I don’t know but I wouldn’t be surprised if those words are the reason for the * being included on the keyboard in the first place 😅
Multiplication. It’s why it’s on the numpad.
Also, normal non-technical text also never uses these keyboard characters @^\|_ ` but they are there. If the computer keyboard was designed for proper typography, there would be keys for nbsp, curly quotes or the em dash.
I understand this is a fine point. What is the status report on gender legislation in Germany then? Is this isolated from broader anti-trans politics as a matter of language puritanism and aesthetics?
@whydudothatdrcrane There are only two relevant parties who are against gender neutrality: The Nazis from AfD and CxU. I also don*t like the Binnen-I and use an browser extension to fix that for me.
Krankenschwester is already female the offical Job name is Krankenpflegefachkraft (which is already neutral).
I see. Probably most North-Americans would confuse “gender-neutral” with “non-binary inclusive”.
The gender star is anything but gender neutral. It highlight the different genders artificially and still makes the female variant of the word the second choice by separating it like this /* This differentiates it from the default general masculine word which is supposed to include everybody and further strengthens the image of the man as the default in a certain job. I’m sorry but I strongly disagree with you on this one.
And for non-Native german speakers, if this sounds confusing that is because it is!
These laws are only applicable in two of Germany’s 16 states and only for state officials and authorities as well as schools. The other states mostly critize those states for infringing on equality rights. It just bans the use of gender related punctuations in written documents and school exams. It’s not well thought out.
You can still use gender neutral terms (Lehrende instead of Lehrer*innen). It’s a big deal as those states do it to cater to right-wing voters and fish them from the nazi-party AFD.
Btw Binnen-I is LehrerInnen. Other gender neutral notations are a “*”, “_” or “:”
I think it just makes the german language ugly and still keeps the female version of a word as a second choice. Grammatically speaking I believe just common masculine version of a word which is supposed to speak for everyone involved just makes more sense. If we want gender equality we shouldn’t highlight the different genders more and make the female version the second choice, but thats just my opinion
Yeah Saxony and Bavaria are pretty much in the hand of populistic politicians and or outright right extremists.
Ah Bavaria has right wing extremists? I miss the times when one could flee to the US under similar circumstances.
Yeah, pretty much that. Just because those Staates have banned it in administrative formal writing, this is in no Case a generalization for Germany. Just “Freistaat” doing their Thing as opposed to the other.
Also as a Note, that “Verein” has in no Case any inflouence over the course of education, as that is governed* by the “Gesellschaft” as mentioned.
*As in giving recommendations
Let’s be honest: it looks like shit and interrupts the flow of a sentence. The alternative of writing both words completely also makes sentences way longer than they should be.
Every gendered language would have to make massive changes to become ungendered and change their grammar too. There’s quite a large list of ungendered languages.
German, to my knowledge, is like Russian and has cases which change the ending of a noun depending on the purpose in the sentence (subject, direct object, indirect object, possessor, location, time, …). Languages with only male and female would have to add a neutral ending, and languages with 3 grammatical genders would have to either use the neutral ending - if there is one, or make a new one specific to living beings.
Then of course pronouns would have to be changed too. In English they/them is already confusing enough when talking about a singular person to somebody and the person doesn’t know it’s a single person e.g “I talked to them today” - a group or a person? Until hints are dropped it isn’t clear. The most logical would’ve been “it”, but that’s used for inanimate objects. I’m sure there’s a neutral third person singular pronoun languages could borrow instead of using the second person plural.
FYI: Unlike Russian and other Slavic languages German doesn’t (usually) decline the noun, just the article (der/den/dem/des, etc).
Thanks, you’re correct. I was mixing that up with Latin and Greek. Dunno if Spanish and other romance languages have it too.
But aren’t all these technicalities to undermine the inclusion of one or more genders on the basis of some linguistic purism?
This makes me smirk, because a single course in college linguistics will persuade you there is not bigger amalgamated bastard in town than a human language, which is any non-formal language.
For example, you say they ambiguity of they/them, isn’t this comparable to the ambiguity between you/you in plural/singular.
Ambiguity is like, an inherent feature of any language and there are hundreds of languages that resolve ambiguities based on context. Plus, the scholars said that singular them is in usage since the Middle Ages or sth.
So to me all this is a tension between A and B, where A is either linguistic purism or typographical convenience, and B is always including women/trans/non-binary folks. At the same time most people won’t accept the feminine gender as all-inclusive because of their fears of emasculation.
It is a deeply laughable situation.
The German thing is a bit different. It’s kind of like if English didn’t have “they” as a neutral alternative, so people use “**e” as way to mean neither “he” nor “she”.
That’s fine in writing, but it looks pretty weird, doesn’t work well in other forms, and you get things like “e gives the ball to h”. It also really doesn’t work outside the written word, because how do you pronounce that?
And I do understand that you don’t want the female form to be the neutral form. If youre genderneutral, it probably feels weird to be constantly adressed as a woman.
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
Saxony and Hesse are currently deep in the far right clutches of the Alternative für Deutaschland, so this does not really come as a surprise.
