• RNAi [he/him]
    hexagon
    ·
    edit-2
    3 years ago

    In spanish we have this whole movement insisting it is micro-discriminatory to use (intrinsically) gendered nouns or articles/pronouns, not as a deliberate misgender, but because the language is gendered per se.

    For example, we have the plural pronouns "las" (for a group of all feminine-gendered nouns), and "los" (for either a group of all masculine-gendered or mixed nouns). The same happen with the plurals, if I say "las amigas" I mean the female friends, but if I say "los amigos" I can either be talking about all male friends or a group of male and female friends. So it follows that "feminine nouns are discriminated because unless there's a group of only feminine nouns, they would be misgendered".

    Which is a stretch in my opinion, but I don't care because the proposed solution for this "micro discrimination" also addresses the problem of referring to non-binary people with intrinsically gendered pronouns:

    Changing intrinsically gendered nouns and pronouns to the already existing in spanish non-gendered noun/pronoun termination: "e"

    The pronoun "les" designs a group of nouns with no specified gender, and it already existed in spanish but with limited use (the topic is way more deep cuz linguistic is a fuck).

    Then:

    • "Los amigos" = The (male) friends
    • "Las amigas" = The (female) friends
    • "Les amigues" (ignore the u before the e, that's not part of this topic) = The friends

    This leads to the rise of a lot of non-existent words, like "amigues", but it's easy for anyone to create, use and catch them; so talking in all gender-neutral is a bit of a game at first but then comes natural.

    Is this actually important? Well it makes some people feel better so OK I'm gonna do it. Plus, it makes the reactionaries froth. :frothingfash:


    In spanish, the letter G has two sounds depending on which vowel follows it, lets call them "soft G" and "hard G" (which sounds exactly like J).

    So:

    • ga
    • go
    • gu

    all sound as "soft G"

    but:

    • ge
    • gi

    sound like "hard G" (just like "je" "ji")

    But what if we want to pronounce soft-G "ge" or soft-G "gi"?

    They "solved it" by saying "oh yeah soft-G ge and soft-G gi will be written as "gue" and "gui" and the "U" will be silent.

    But that stupid cuz what if I want to say "gu-e" (soft G "gu" plus "e") how would I write that?

    -- "uuuh well then to write soft G gu followed by "E" or "I" you'll have to put a dieresis on the U like this : güe güi"

    -- "That's fucking stupid mate. Why the fuck does G must sound like J, just make it be monophonetic"

    -- "I'm already dead and I wrote the dictionary so I won this argument"

    • star_wraith [he/him]
      ·
      3 years ago

      So when Peggy Hill says "Los estudiantes son mis amigos", not only is "amigos" gendered, but even an ostensibly gender-neutral term (estudiantes) gets gendered by the "los", yeah?