Oh yeah, it has nothing to do with this article. I just think it's really interesting that it's a relatively recent development. I think the issue with the article is probably just the author not understanding the correct way to refer to people in this context.
Due to increasing linguistic and cultural interactions with the West, a shift took place at the turn of the 20th century. Gradually, Chinese speakers started using 他 to refer to only to men, since the character contains the radical 人 (meaning ‘human’ or ‘man’). In Chinese, a radical is a basic graphical component of a Chinese character that imparts linguistic meaning – not unlike a category or classification in English.
:bruh-moment:
why the fuck would you actively introduce gender into your language? westoids ruin the day yet again
-oids has been going around the last couple of months as a suffix reactionaries are appending to things to dehumanize them. it goes back way further but it's picked up steam recently. like dehumanizing the west is fine but we should really find our own ways of doing these things instead of endlessly copying the latest fash vocal tick.
Worth noting in mardarin everyone's pronouns are they/them.
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Worth noting also that they didn't used to be - the gendered variations were an early 20th century creation.
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Oh yeah, it has nothing to do with this article. I just think it's really interesting that it's a relatively recent development. I think the issue with the article is probably just the author not understanding the correct way to refer to people in this context.
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:bruh-moment:
why the fuck would you actively introduce gender into your language? westoids ruin the day yet again
why are we copying fash shit?
i don't see what is fash about that? is it too similar to n***oid? by westoids i meant the europeans who colonized china
-oids has been going around the last couple of months as a suffix reactionaries are appending to things to dehumanize them. it goes back way further but it's picked up steam recently. like dehumanizing the west is fine but we should really find our own ways of doing these things instead of endlessly copying the latest fash vocal tick.
it's unfortunate that they have such power over discourse, it's hard to keep track of what originates where. i'll stick to "mayos" from now on then
Yeah, but they started doing that under colonialism. Not really their fault.
Yeah, but it's not really imposed by colonizers. It was (as far as I can tell) indigenous and inspired by/following the model of English.
Regardless, it is the way it is now, which, as comrat points out, is what's relevant for this article.
Good to know, now I can scare conservatives by telling them everyone in China is nonbinary