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
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.