...because folx, that's a power differential

  • Fakename_Bill [he/him]
    ·
    4 years ago

    I am a white guy, so my thoughts on the matter are irrelevant, but "latinx" has always seemed a bit weird to me. (For some context I am fluent in Spanish). It sounds like it's a term that was invented by an English-speaker. The way it's typically pronounced in English is "la-teen-eks," which sounds awkward already, but in Spanish the letter X is equis, pronounced "eh-kees," which is two syllables and sounds even more awkward than it does in English. I definitely recognize the need for a gender-neutral term, but it seems a bit colonial to use such an English-influenced term.

    If any latinx comrades have anything to add though, listen to them not me

      • hopefulmulberry [none/use name]
        ·
        4 years ago

        I’ve heard that in Spanish latinx is pronounced as if the x were an e

        That's mistaken, there's latinx and latine and only the second has an obvious pronunciation.

        They also mentioned that the -x is preferable to -@ because it includes non-binary.

        I don't even know under what logic this could be true. What I have seen is people saying that these neologistical endings in general are preferable to the more traditional -a/o or -o/a, because these imply that you can be in a category who ends with an -o or an -a, whereas the other ones don't.

        I think the reason -x is used instead of -e is because adverbs often end in -e.

        I don't think people think in these terms. There's lots of nouns that end with -e.

      • Fakename_Bill [he/him]
        ·
        edit-2
        4 years ago

        I just asked the #en-español channel on the discord about it. I'm interested to hear the perspectives of native speaker comrades.

          • Fakename_Bill [he/him]
            ·
            4 years ago

            One person responded, and says that it sounds a bit weird to him too, and it's been a topic of debate for a while because Spanish doesn't naturally have gender-neutral endings. He says he prefers to just omit the gender-defining vowel, like "amigs" instead of "amigos" or "amigas." The use of @ is also common, like "amig@s," which I've seen from my Spanish professors before. Use of the vowel 'e' is also becoming more common.

              • Fakename_Bill [he/him]
                ·
                edit-2
                4 years ago

                I don't know how the @ is pronounced, I've only seen it in writing. So it seems purely typographical. But so is substituting the X in for the gendered vowel in most cases. I've only ever heard the X pronounced in "latinx" (in my relatively limited experience as a non-native speaker)