Say it with me: La - teen - ekkhhhs.
Just like how they totally pronounce words in Spanish.
I'm totally sympathetic to wanting to challenge the grammatical gender of Spanish--it's fucking dumb that tables are feminine and sinks are masculine, and that a group of 100 people with a single man is also masculine. As far as I'm concerned, all languages should be like Chinese or Japanese where there's no damn gender at all unless you explicitly state it.
But the thing is, if you want people to adopt your changes, why not work within the phonotactic constraints of the language? There are already a bunch of adjectives in Spanish that don't end in o/a and don't inflect on gender (grande, fuerte, excelente, etc.), so why not just model those? Perhaps even more relevant, the adjective and demonym for "German" is alemán, and the masculine plural already has a neuter feel (alemanes). So why not just extend latín (Latin, as in the language) to cover the sense "Latino" and have latines be the plural? I'm not the first one to think of this, of course--people are already using latine(s)--but it's mystifying to me that Latinx has gotten so much traction in comparison. Maybe it's just a US-centric media furor thing and latines is more common but doesn't get press--I'd love to see some info about this.
If someone wants me to call them Latinx, I'm happy to do it. As an English speaker, it's really not an issue. But I just don't see how you're going to get Spanish speakers to adopt it when it doesn't fit into the constraints of their language. It'd be like a Russian saying that we should use vsplesk as a gender neutral pronoun in English...might work for them, but good luck getting people to say it. And personally, while I don't have an issue with calling myself Latino (easy for me to say as a cis guy, already being the grammatical default), I don't see me ever calling myself Latinx in English or Spanish, but I wouldn't mind switching to Latine (or just "Latin" in English, which is already in common use).
Exactly this ^
The letter X and its consequences have been a disaster for changing deeply-ingrained gendered language.
it’s fucking dumb that tables are feminine and sinks are masculine
Women be using tables and men be using sinks. Obviously
Latino people on their way to give their opinion on saying latinx
https://www.pewresearch.org/hispanic/2020/08/11/about-one-in-four-u-s-hispanics-have-heard-of-latinx-but-just-3-use-it/
I've seen this stat before used to say saying Latinx is bad because latinos don't want it, but like, with the point being to be gender neutral, isn't majoritarianism kind of the wrong way to go? Half of those people who know about it but don't say it are men, and the majority of the rest are cis women. How do trans people who are latinx/latino feel about latinx, and ESPECIALLY how do nonbinary latinx/latino people feel about it? Tbh, if enough nonbinary latinx/latino people want the word to be used, the rest can go fuck themselves right? Like, the whole point of the term would be including minorities. It's not just about being inclusive of cis women.
I'm still open to the idea that it's bad, and I do remember hearing that there's a better option for a gender neutral word that is easier to pronounce in spanish, latine i think?
If you don't speak Spanish, why make other people use words that are impossible to pronounce? End Anglo-imperialism
That's why I'm interested in what spanish speaking enbies think my friend.
You'll find that actual working class (and lumpenproles, like myself kind of sort of) people don't give a fuck about shit like this. They don't give a fuck if the x is supposed to be more inclusive. That's like being handed an empty extra plate at the church homeless dinner thing and being told it gives the meal more calories or something. It's like religion. You insist that 9 angels can dance on the head of a pin, and tell everyone how 9 is the right number because of [insert dumb shit], [insert dumb shit], and [insert dumb shit], and then when someone says the number is 12 you call them a bitch and declare a jihad. It's dumb. We could all be handing out narcan and blankets and instead we're arguing with people who've never been so cold they thought they'd fucking die in their sleep over whether a single letter and a single [ɛks] will burn the prisons. And they claim to speak for my unhoused friends and claim the mantle of leading and organizing the left (which they fucking suck at).
That's the thing I never really managed to understand. Why (and how) can't some people realize there are some matters which are fucking pressing, instead of some sterile debates such as this one. I think honestly, that idpol is just a symptom of something far worse, aka the inability of our current societies to delve deeper into matters that should be studied and understood by the public, or even worse, trying actively to overwhelm the public with absolutely worthless information, while barely mentionning shit that actually matters. You never hear about the children in Yemen, nor about the fact the ice levels are getting lower and lower. Here's something in the same vein. In France, we use gendered pronouns, and there had been something like 2-3 days straight of news reports on saying "le" or "la" covid a few months back. People were (and still are) fucking dying because of neoliberalism and incompetence, and the only thing they could speak about was whether we used the correct pronoun for the disease. And after the election results, those were somehow the exact same fucking ghouls praising Biden's victory as a victory for progressive ideas because her fucking running mate is a woman of colour, while not talking about policy at all.
TLDR : Get news from scientific sites or specialized reviews for shit that matters to you, mainstream media isn't telling lies most of the times, but they're purposefully hiding parts of the story, or not mentionning said stories to begin with. And when someone actually takes the aforementioned stuff seriously, you know you either have to educate them, or ignore them as much as possible.
Nah the trot patrol dude from earlier today was a much better representation
When I initially saw that online I am such a boomer I thought it was pronounced "latinks"
Don't let anyone tell you it's not. Under socialism every word will be pronounced using the funniest and/or coolest mispronunciation.
A lot of things regarding identity I don't even bother forming an opinion.
Good luck getting a whole generation of women who see latina as a minor slur to get on board with latinx
When capitalism is going to cause the death of civilization but your most pressing issue is people saying latina/o.
:agony:
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