this post was submitted on 10 Jul 2024
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[–] Randomgal@lemmy.ca 141 points 2 months ago (54 children)

A bit ignorant take. Grammatical gender does not always imply the actual gender of the subject, and Spanish can easily form gender neutral-nouns or sentences. For example: "persona no binaria" is entirely made with "feminine" words, but it's meaning (non-binary person) is entirely gender-neutral.

This is also why most Spanish speakers make fun of anglophones who use "latix". It's embarrassing, condescending and completely unnecessary, it shows a lack of understanding of how Spanish is actually used by it's speakers

Here's another common way to make gender-neutral Spanish, while making it explicit:

Take the sentence "The workers are radicalizing." Workers is "Trabajadores" a masculine-plural word. The Royal Academy of Spanish Language, clarifies that the maculine form of any noun includes participants of any gender, so to say "Los Trabajadores se están radicalizando" would be grammatically correct, and no Spanish speaker would really asume you only have male workers. However, to make inclusion more explicit, it isn't uncommon for companies to use double articles: "Las y los trabajadores se están radicalizando." Notice that the noun has remained in masculine form, instead the articles have been used to make it explicit that the writer does see gender as a binary. You would see this in office-settings, but as you can hopefully see. Doing it like this actually reinforces the binary perspective, rather than the other way around.

TL&DR: Use "Latino/a" or "Hispanic", instead of "Latix" if you don't want your maid and gardener to laugh their asses off at your expense. Also, all words in Spanish have gender, that doesn't mean all people have to as well.

[–] MindTraveller@lemmy.ca -2 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (6 children)

"Las y los trabajadores se están radicalizando."

What about the nonbinary workers? Les trabajadores?

[–] calcopiritus@lemmy.world 7 points 2 months ago (5 children)

"Les" doesn't exist. Just use "Los trabajadores". It means everyone, doesn't matter their gender.

[–] DokPsy@infosec.pub 1 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Good news: language is made up. Les exists now. It can be used.

[–] GissaMittJobb@lemmy.ml 3 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Les is already a word in Spanish used for other things, though.

[–] DokPsy@infosec.pub 0 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Not really that much of a difference honestly. My point still stands. Language is made up. We can use whatever words we want to use to convey the meaning we want as long as the people talking agree with the meaning

[–] Randomgal@lemmy.ca 1 points 2 months ago (1 children)

You are correct but missing a key point: Language is indeed made up, but it works because we agree on how those made up bits are meant to be used. That's why there have dictionaries and we are taught languages in school. So yeah, you can use any sound and word you like to communicate, but that doesn't change the fact that the noises you are making are not "real" (as in with a communally agreed meaning).

[–] DokPsy@infosec.pub 1 points 2 months ago

Read the last part of my comment again. I didn't miss it. If two speakers agree on a new word and its meaning to the point it becomes adopted by a wider population of speakers, guess what, it becomes a standard word. By how you're describing it, dictionaries are the progenitors of language. You have that backwards. Dictionaries are records of the language and what words are being used.

The only languages that do not behave this way are dead languages.

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