• yetAnotherUser@discuss.tchncs.de
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    12 hours ago

    -x makes no sense as it breaks like every rule about the Spanish language

    But every single change does that?

    Over here in Germany conservatives keep yelling about similar efforts. As it stands, the most popular gender inclusive variant for referring to a group of people has become “[masuline form]*innen”

    Take the word “student” for instance

    • Student - singular, male
    • Studentin - singular, female
    • Studenten - multiple male students OR multiple male and female students
    • Studentinnen - multiple female students

    Since the generic masculine doesn’t acknowledge non-binary or female people, the following variant has started to spread:

    • Student*innen - multiple students of ambiguous gender

    When talking, you can differentiate it from the term “Studentinnen” by replacing the * with a short break. You’d basically say “Student…innen”.

    Neither the *, nor this break is adhering to any established rules. But the main - or only - reason reactionaries oppose it is because they don’t want to acknowledge non-binary people.

    • Canadian_Cabinet @lemmy.ca
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      11 hours ago

      Well that’s pretty much how Spanish works. We have estudiante but that normally ends with -e so we’ll use alumno as an example:

      El alumno - single masculine

      La alumna - single feminine

      Los alumnos - multiple masculine or mixed group. As long as there’s at least one guy its masculine

      Las alumnas - multiple feminine

      So saying something like Les alumnes (seems like French lol) can sound more neutral than Los alumnos despite not being officially correct because los has an implied masculine connotation

      • yetAnotherUser@discuss.tchncs.de
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        6 hours ago

        Still, it would break grammar rules similar to the -x ending, right? Although from my limited Spanish knowledge the -x ending would require some explanation on how to pronounce it, just like the German *-variant. The -e might be more intuitive though.

        But from what I’ve seen on the internet, by far the vast majority of criticism of the -x variant are immediately followed by some right-wing talking point, which is why I’m somewhat cautious about more appropriate criticism.

        In German, another variant, though considerably less popular, for referring to people in a gender neutral fashion is by “Englishifying” it and referring to everyone the same by appending a -y to the word stem.

        Singular male/female/non-binary student? That’s a Studenty now. A group of students? Studentys.

        I hate to say it but this is my favorite variant because it gets rid of gender altogether in a concise way and sounds silly. Still, it too violates a shitton of rules - but what are rules, if not meant to be broken?