https://www.politico.com/news/2021/12/06/hispanic-voters-latinx-term-523776
As left wing governments and corporations seek to reach out to Latin Americans in a more gender-neutral way, they’ve increasingly begun using the word Latinx, a term that first began to get serious use among United States academics and activists following the 2016 election of Donald Trump, but according to a new multinational poll of Latin American people, Latinx has unintentionally became one of the most homophobic slurs in Spanish and Portuguese. The incessant use of Latinx in advertising and government documents has only made the word more popular as a slur in only a few years. No Latin Americans polled referred to themselves as Latinx, the vast majority called themselves Hispanic or Latino even among the LGBT. What's most shocking is Latinx ranked first on the list of most offensive words according to Latin American people, most respondents said they wouldn't support a politician or organization that uses the term however there's monetary incentives for businesses and politicians to use Latinx, many Latin American governments are trying to phase out the use of gendered language and are offering tax deductions for the use of Latinx.
Couple people in here both taking the bait and agreeing with them.
Yeah, because it's dumb as shit and unpronounceable in Spanish.
Just use Latine if you can't accept Latino being gender neutral.
Yeah I think Latine is cooler anyway, Latinx apparently has some interesting possible origins including possibly feminist protests in Puerto Rico that I've seen somewhere on here before but at the end of the day it's still confusing for most speakers to use.
Journalist Yara Simón, in her History Channel piece, quoted David Bowles, a Mexican-American linguist and professor, who suggested that it was inspired by Latin American feminist protests in the 1970s, where protesters Xed-out words ending in "os" to signify a rejection of the masculine as default. Both agree that it became more popular in the 2010s when it was adopted by the LGBTQ community and that it's more used by people of Latin American descent currently living in the United States than it is by people living in Latin America itself.
I don't know where the original piece is tho
Oh found some tweets by him https://twitter.com/DavidOBowles/status/1076942516983865345?s=20
Trying out different variations on gender neutral language is good and how we eventually find one that sticks
Latino being gender neutral
The gender is literally built into the word. This is like saying "man" should be gender neutral lol
Latino and man are both gender neutral in the right contexts. Mankind for example.
And in plurals specifically (say, when you are talking about a large group of people, like maybe a cultural identity) "-os" is the gender neutral Spanish form. Everything has a gender in Spanish anyway, it's just a linguistic rule.
If you want that to change, you do it within the overall structure of a language. Like in English we've started avoiding ending professions with "-man", so fireman for example becomes fire fighter. Throwing an x at the end of the word just doesn't work for Spanish and is hard to pronounce. Again if you must, latine is clearly the better term, there's nothing to "try out".
I'm curious, are you a native spanish speaker or from a latine background?
I agree that Latine is preferable and also I support any attempt to develop further gender neutral language.
Latinx originally showing up, particularly when written makes complete sense when aiming for shorthand and works well in North America where a lot of folx in the Latin community are bilingual. It's also inclusive of people with nonbinary gender identies.
I’m curious, are you a native spanish speaker or from a latine background?
Not really, I'm half Portuguese (as in, my mother is from Portugal). But I mainly just look at it from an autistic standpoint of - that's just not how the language works. It would be the same in Portuguese.
Latinx originally showing up, particularly when written makes complete sense when aiming for shorthand and works well in North America where a lot of folx in the Latin community are bilingual. It’s also inclusive of people with nonbinary gender identies.
Again, latine covers all than better and is actually pronounceable.
folx
Why? "Folks" is literally never a gendered word. It's basically the same as latine vs latinx, a perfectly sensible genderless word vs "just throw an x in it". There's no good reason for it.
I agree with you about folx, but I'd say Latinx/Latine is far more sensible relatively since there is a legitimate gender association there
Yeah, like I said "folx" is really just icing when you feel like using it or if someone requests you do.
that’s just not how the language works
Language works however humans agree to use it. All of grammar is essentially guidelines and it develops over time. Language is literally never perfect and that's why it's cool.
Again, latine covers all than better and is actually pronounceable.
Agreed, but I'm not going to let perfect get in the way of good. Both can coexist.
Why? “Folks” is literally never a gendered word.
It's an innocuous way to signal purposeful inclusion of trans and non-binary genders. It's a flourish on top of the word. I'm never going to be pissed if someone uses "folks" instead, but I like to use it when I think to.
The queer community has a long history of language hacking. When society attempts to systemically erase you, then every aspect of it becomes fair game for remixing.
Language works however humans agree to use it. All of grammar is essentially guidelines and it develops over time. Language is literally never perfect and that’s why it’s cool.
Yes, but it also falls into patterns that help keep things consistent and understandable. And again, pronounceable. "Latinx" is not really possible in Spanish pronunciation. At best it would be "latin-equis" which is awkward. And the pronunciation "latin-eks" is just not Spanish at all, it's English through and through.
Both can coexist.
They don't need to. There's no good reason for "latinx" to exist.
It’s an innocuous way to signal purposeful inclusion of trans and non-binary genders. It’s a flourish on top of the word.
That implies "folks" excludes them, which it doesn't. It seems weird to say their inclusion necessitates a new word as if they're too different to be included in the existing word, which they aren't. At least it's pronounced the same, but still.
And again, pronounceable. “Latinx” is not really possible in Spanish pronunciation
Sure it is. X can sometimes make the same sound as it does in english although it's uncommon. Regardless, it's most common in North America and I can understand why latine might be easier in other regions.
the pronunciation “latin-eks” is just not Spanish at all, it’s English through and through.
That is not something anyone who is not a spanish speaker really gets to decide. It's used primarily in north america and that's fine. Puerto Rico also has hermanx and niñx in use, particularly within the queer community.
They don’t need to. There’s no good reason for “latinx” to exist.
LGBTQ+ people utilize it and also it literally hurts no one to use it.
That implies “folks” excludes them, which it doesn’t
No it does not imply that. I literally said in my comment that it doesn't.
"Man" is gender neutral in many respects. The word can be used to mean "human." As a suffix it almost exclusively means "human who does x." Like fireman.
Try calling a trans woman or a nonbinary person a man and see how gender neutral they think it is.
The word can sometimes refer to humans in general, but it's almost always a holdover from when men were viewed as default.
but it’s almost always a holdover from when men were viewed as default
"Man" was originally gender neutral in English, with the word "wer" used for males instead (which survives today in the word "werewolf").
That's a fun fact, isn't that left over from middle or old English? I'm talking about relatively modern English, say 1700's onward.
Example "all men are created equal" was absolutely not inclusive of women.
It's closer to Old English, but it's why the genderless usage still exists.
Latin actually had the same. "Vir" for male which came from the same root as English "wer" (see also: "virile" which came from Latin through French rather than Germanic through Old English). The same thing happened where the genderless word ("homō") became the male word, "hombre" in Spanish or "homem" in Portuguese.
it’s why the genderless usage still exists.
The thing is that those most affected by the usage of gendered language, do not view man as genderless. It's a completely valid viewpoint to have and language is meant to change.
I love how our good old Germanic tongue makes it so you can NEVER make a definitive statement about grammar. Even without the bs rules, so much of what we assume are root words are unrelated. Reading that made me wonder if it was the root of Norman, and yep comes from Northman or Northern Peoples. From what I can tell in Old English it was most commonly used like we use "you"
Also apparently Wif, the counterpart to Wer, was also gender neutral.
Since wīf is a grammatically neuter noun, all accompanying articles, determiners, and adjectives take neuter forms: þæt ealde wīf ("the old woman"). However, pronouns referring back to wīf are almost always feminine: Ġesiehst þū þæt wīf sēo þǣr stent? Canst þū hīe? ("Do you see the woman who [feminine] is standing there? Do you know her?"). This is similar to the situation of the neuter word mæġden (“girl”) and the masculine word wīfmann (“woman”), whose grammatical genders also disagree with their natural genders. Declension
So if I am correct, wif and man both are neutral, and form a feminine word for a female person when put together Wifmann
I could be off base, and this is aside from the point, but I look up a language thing and my brain didn't melt for once so I am kinda proud
That's super interesting! Does "wife" trace its etymology back to that by any chance?
I seriously love how fluid and flexible language is. Prescriptivism shows a lack of curiosity and is also inherently classist. Communicating should be fun and language should adapt to the working class.
So if I am correct, wif and man both are neutral, and form a feminine word for a female person when put together Wifmann
No, grammatical genders are not the same as gender. The word "wif" was grammatically neuter, but its definition was still female. Meanwhile "man" was definitionally neutral with "wer" being the counterpart to "wif".
That's another part of the problem with trying to add gender neutral language to a gendered language, they aren't really the same concept.
Native speaker here (also studied it in college), while I'm not against using gender-neutral terms, "Latino" is gender neutral in the sense that the gender of the word is only grammatical. Another example would be "la(s) persona(s)": grammatically, the word is always feminine, but if i referred to someone as a person in Spanish there wouldn't ever be any assumption that that person was female. The same is true of the term Latino, it is masculine but only in the grammatical sense.
With that said, I understand that that isn't intuitive, especially for bilingual speakers like myself who grew up mixing the assumptions of both languages into how we see the world, and support finding an option that is.
Thanks for this perspective. I agree that latinx is very much an imperfect term, but is a good start. Considering it originated with LGBTQ+ people of Latinx heritage in Puerto Rico and North America, I could understand it being a bit clunky in other cultures.
A lot of the hand wringing I see about the word comes from non-speakers obsessing over grammatical rules or bigots attempt to concern troll.
It's super interesting the x found its way into use from some Chicano activists starting off with shifting the spelling to Xicano to emphasize that it comes from the Nahuatl / Aztec language. It then adapted to the end of the word instead (Chicanx) and later shifted over to Latinx.Mostly just mentioning this for anyone reading our convo.
That is interesting, I knew a guy growing up with an "x" name, but never really made that connection. Yeah I think one tricky thing about trying to get a word to stick throughout Latin America is that they already have so many regional differences between how they use words. Every Spanish speaker that's traveled in LatAm as at least one story about how they accidentally prepositioned someone in like Chile or whatever because they didn't study the regional differences in vocabulary and just assumed Spanish is Spanish.
That's also a reason why arguments about Spanish purity are silly, like ask someone from the mountains of Bolivia and someone else from the Caribbean to say something like "desarrollar" and then try and invent a way for there to be one correct "Spanish" way of saying anything.
That is interesting, I knew a guy growing up with an “x” name, but never really made that connection
Right? I love the effort a lot of indigenous activists are putting into further integrating Nahuatl / Aztec into Spanish. There's already tons of it present, especially in Mexico.
Examples off the top of my head: molcajete, aguacate, nopales, etc
one tricky thing about trying to get a word to stick throughout Latin America is that they already have so many regional differences between how they use words
100%. It's honestly a great reason for different regions to try out and adapt whatever gender neutral terms work for them.
That’s also a reason why arguments about Spanish purity are silly
Totally agree. The concept of one "correct" way to speak Spanish is also pretty based in colonialism.
Yes? What? People say words.
What word would a person use if they wanted to talk about it in a speech? Use that word in text too.
must every word also have a definition? Throw off your shackles, society.
57% of the 800 people polled said that the term didn't bother them.
Across all age groups listed in the PDF of the poll, the lowest percentage of support was 57% with the youngest demographic, 18~29 years old. Highest % support was 67% with the 40~54 age range.
Of the 800 people polled, 62% of the foreign born respondents chose "no, doesn't bother me." Couldn't find a satisfying breakdown of demographic in detail on the PDF.
Also, finding it slightly weird that the row headings that are negative answers are in bold face but they look to be the lowest % for every question.
You are right, that latinx is an incredibly dumb term we shouldn't be using, however the article you linked doesn't say what you say it does
"As left wing governments and corporations"
Posts politico article
:wojak-nooo: :lenin-laugh:
I've never heard a Spanish speaker pronounce the names Alex, Alexa, Alexia, Lex with an "equis" instead of an "eks," so I'm not sure what to think about this.
Because it's the name of the letter X. In English you say Latin-X i.e. Latin-ecks. In Spanish saying Latin-X would be Latin-equis.
So there should be a hyphen in the term then?
I usually only see Latinx typed, rarely with a hyphen. Just assumed it would be pronounced "ecks" instead of "equis".
:vivian-shrug:
At a time when Republicans appear to be making inroads among Latino voters, the survey results raise questions about how effectively the party is communicating with them, according to pollster Fernand Amandi and other Democrats and Latino vote experts.
The media has been claiming this was going to happen for years. Republicans literally have building concentration camps for Latinx people as a part of their political platform. Aside from Cuban gusanos, who have always voted republican, this is a fantasy.
I used to know a borderline neo nazi who was Brazillian. There's a lot of right wing people in latine countries and honestly, the GOP is stupid for not just letting them into the white club and acquiring die hard voters based on that like they already did with the Irish and Italians before them
(They will do it someday though, mark my words)
The word is fucking Latín, are these people afraid of accents in text, too?
Latinx ranked first on the list of most offensive words according to Latin American people,
Lol, no
If you're not latinx / latine / etc, chill the fuck out and examine your goddamn brainworms. Hating the word is leftover stupidpol shit you need to work through.
left wing governments
Venezuela, Peru, and Bolivia?
and corporations
Get the fuck out of here.
