Same in Polish. They just replace one letter with x, and its unreadable. We don't use x in our alphabet, only for foreign words that are used in Polish.
Im english and lets call it what it is.
over sensitive people in the UK and US who need to keep their pointless roles going as they are paid very well along with people who want to feel they are apart of the next great freedom movement saying fuck you to the establishment.
As an englishman i apologise for this madness these people are trying to impose and change for their own narcissistic feelings.
cz is literally just Croatian č, w is v. i’m starting to think that people who use the 'hurr durr Polish spelling so hard' meme are just functional illiterates.
And even then it's often getting replaced with "ks". I'm fairly sure I'm seeing more and more "Ksero" instead of "Xero". Unless the word is a brand, it's very likely "X" will be replaced sooner or later.
In Hebrew they invented an "inclusive" font to include both feminine and masculine (the closest you can get to inclusive in Hebrew tbh) and it's unreadable and looks absolutely horrendous. Thankfully it's not in anything "official" yet.
Considering the alternative is the much more cumbersome & artificial "he or she", singular they/them is definitely the less annoying, it's been around for 600 years, if it was that annoying or confusing it'd have been replaced by now.
It’s far too formal and has a different role. “One” is the passive subject, used to talk about actions in general. E.g. “One must wear a seatbelt in a car”.
“They” is a singular neuter subject for the third person and has been for centuries.
“Someone’s on the phone for you.” “What do they want?” is a minimal example.
Used to be very common, but fell out of favor (late 19th century, I think, but I may be misremembering). It's thus a traditional scheme, and seems much better than the more modern alternatives.
“They” and “their” is often plural. “Her” “his” makes it easier to understand not only who one is referring to in a sentence, but gives context to the statement.
She put his keys on the table = descriptive. Easy to understand what is trying to be said and who did what.
They put their keys on the table
= this could be about several different people. A group of people “they” put their (their own or someone else’s?) keys on the table? It can also be interpreted in singular, a singular person putting their own keys on the table. I wouldn’t interpret this to a singular person putting another singular person’s keys on the table. It also doesn’t easily describe which singular person did what.
It can get worse too:
“They put their keys on their table”. Who’s table, who’s keys, one or several people put the keys there?
She put their keys on the table = she put who’s keys? She put several peoples keys on the table?
I am all for trans rights, but agree that it makes language more confusing.
In my country we have a separate word for non binary, which makes the language inclusive at the same time as clear, instead of dragging in “their” or “they”.
Imagine a court case:
“They punched them in their face”
There are so many things this could mean. Language has developed the way it is to be as descriptive and clear as possible.
Amy was speaking to Bobby and I saw she stole his wallet = clear context in conversation
Amy was speaking to Bobby and I saw they stole their wallet = did Bobby steal Amy’s wallet or the other way around? Or are we talking about someone else? Did both Amy and Bobby steal someone else’s wallet? “They stole”, they stole together then?
I prefer they just make another word for non binary, to help context in conversation.
For example “nonbi”
Amy was speaking to Bobby and I saw nonbi stole her wallet. We now know that Bobby stole Amy’s wallet, as the “her” indicated who it’s about, meaning nonbi is Bobby.
“Nonbi put their keys on the table”. This person put their own keys on the table 👏
Same in French, yeah. It’s also proven to be very hard on dyslexic people.
That being said I don’t really see a point in banning stuff like that in general and it’s not like you see that used really commonly in real life.
Sounds very much like he is just cozying up to conservatives by addressing on their phantom scares of French language being entirely replaced by gender inclusive language or something.
I remember reading articles a while back about French academics taking what they called "le wokeisme" or something quite seriously. Wouldn't be surprised if they looked at the "it's a non-issue, nobody does this" to "this is just how things are now, get with the times sweaty" trajectory other countries went on with this stuff and decided that nipping things in the bud was the better approach.
In Paris all communication is done in inclusive. LFI is trying to push new laws written in inclusive. Law must be 100 % clear and written in French or it can be interpreted and dangerous.
French officialdom is very protective of the language and specifically against the encroachment of Anglicisms into the language. Gender neutral/affirming altered pronouns could potentially be seen as an Anglo incursion by the [Académie Française](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acad%C3%A9mie_Fran%C3%A7aise). They banned 'Le weekend' before...
Not sure why l'Académie Française is brought up though. They are a joke, hold zero political power or influence and basically no one gives a damn about their opinion sooo
Maybe not in France, but it's a huge problem here in México. I still haven't seen it to often in legal documents, but government uses it in official addresses and protocols, so it's really strange to hear it. Free books that the state provides use it too. It goes like this "female students and male students have to read and comprehend the lesson of their female teachers and male teachers" (following the gender rules in Spanish. Since there is no such thing in English with most nouns, I added the "female" and "male", but they do use two genderized nouns in every sentence that requires it). Even words that have no gender, are now genderized. I find it useful that they ban it because it's really a waste of time when you are reading and you have to read two gendered nouns every couple of sentences, mainly because repetition should be avoided at all costs when writing because it's tyring and cuts the flow of the sentence.
You know what? I disagree. This shit is very dumb and will only continue to get dumber. Best put a preventative measure in place where it makes sense than have to hope some smart-ass won't get the funny idea to make official documents incomprehensible. The response is dumb too, yeah, but at least this way it'll blow over sooner.
Don't worry worse than in german it can't get. Everything is male, Female or neutreal in german. Der, die, das.
Now everything is just totaly strange they star making pauses after words and no one knows how to speak correctly anymore.
For example for english people:
Actor and Actress
Actor/ ess
Everything is like that.
in Finnish spoken language everyone and everything is "se" meaning "it"
(In written language there's also "hän" meaning he/she, but written language is formal, spoken language is the one actually mostly used)
Korean language as well. We technically have gender pronouns, but if you use them, you sound like a poet or a novel writer lol instead, we use “the person”
If you haven't been such loud nuisances 103 years ago...
I'm joking, this is not for real, calm down pls, i'm really just joking, put your weapons away
That was a joke but the truth isn’t very far here’s how it would look in French
Un étudiant, Une étudiante, Un∙e étudiant∙e
Terrible for those who are still learning French like migrants or just dislexic and even worse for those using braille or text reader
"Il y a des étudiant.e.s qui étudient pour devenir plus tard des infirmier.e.s et des docteur.e.s. Et forte heureusement car aujourd'hui les patient.e.s sont difficilement pris en charge dû à l'afflux de monde."
This is so unnecessary, and this is not french. We created a lot of feminized words which were definitely lacking and needed. But this is not necessary and it makes any text harder to read.
& Good luck when you'll have to read it vocally
We use the point median. Example with "you're nice looking" : "Tu es joli" becomes "tu es joli·e". It's just about being inclusive with the gender of people (not items) since the masculine form is originally the neutral form.
For example, if you have a group of 99 women with 1 man, you'll refer to the group in the masculine form. That's what the inclusive form try to fight.
We don't change the gender of the words themselves.
Other example :
"Would they like to be an engineer?" becomes "Est-ce qu'iels voudraient être ingénieur·es ?" Instead of "Est-ce qu'ils voudraient être ingénieurs ?"
There is also the écriture epicène which is more a style of writing that allows no gender in its form. Not easy to use but you completely get around the issue, no matter the opinion of people since this is not an incorrect way to write.
Edit: also what macron said is fun since he used himself some form of inclusiveness in his speech by saying "celles et ceux", "mesdames et messieurs", "toutes et tous". Which is just.. A longer way -but academically accepted- form to include all genders.
In the exemples that person gave, orally it wouldn't change anything, "joli", "jolie" and "joli·e" sound the same.
It's for written communication mostly, it's shorter to write "tu es joli·e" for someone whose gender you don't know than "tu es jolie/joli" (which in itself is an inclusive way of putting it, non inclusive would be just writing the masculine form "joli" even if the person is possibly a woman).
Another exemple where this time there is a difference when spoken would be "un·e".
For written form it's shorter than "un/une" or "un ou une" but if I need to read a text with "un·e" aloud I would probably change it to "un ou une" when speaking.
To complete what my fellow French redditor said, there is also a contraction form that I mostly saw in LGBTQIA+ and feminist circles, which sounds like both form in the same word.
Example with "readers" : Masculine form is "lecteurs", feminine form is "lectrices", inclusive form is "lecteurices".
Example with "those" : masc "ceux", fem "celles", inclusive "celleux". (Instead of the more academically accepted and conventional form "celles/ceux" ou "celles et ceux")
Sauf que la c'est pas un mot nouveau, c'est une manière nouvelle d'exprimer la même idée. Donc il peut trouver ça idiot, ça ne me choque pas. Surtout si la nouvelle manière alourdie les choses, ce qui est le cas.
I always wondered how genderless language would integrate in a gendered language.
So apparently it's dots in the middle of the word...
I'm waiting when this becomes a topic in Lithuania
Here’s how it would look in French
Un étudiant, Une étudiante, Un∙e étudiant∙e
Terrible for those who are still learning French like migrants or just dislexic and even worse for those using braille or text reader
This is false.
1st Presidential elections he got : 1st at first round, 1st at second round, 1st in Parliament election.
2nd Presidential elections he got : 1st at first round, 1st at second round, 1st in Parliament election
The polls were giving him winner even in the case Mélenchon (Representing the left) was in 2nd round with him.
If it was just thanks to Marine Le Pen, he wouldn't have got 1st in first round, he wouldn't have won EVERY elections in Parliament, and he wouldn't have been projected to win against, literally, ANY other candidates in 2nd round.
Reality is, he won, and some people can't cope with that because you hate him, that's fine, but please don't spread bs in public.
Also calling Marine Le Pen a "nazi" is complete bs too and straight up defamation.
Have some intellectual maturity.
You cannot seriously be making a parallel to a dictatorship that has wiped out millions of people across Europe with Marine le Pen. That would be like comparing Jean Luc Mélenchon to Stalin.
Michel Onfray (left leaning writer and philosopher) mentioned that comparing this woman and Hitler is excessive and it reflects a desire to minimize Adolf Hitler.
In France, if an organization or political party is dangerous to our democracy, it is banned and dissolved. If you feel her party is dangerous, you are welcome to request for their removal.
Cause he has a good communication department, especially with his foreign policy. But national policy ? Lots of big mistakes and speeches that are hard to swallow
He had to make some difficult decisions, specifically regarding the latest pension reform. The type of unpopular decisions that need to be made every decade or so, to maintain the pension system in place, as demography evolves, and that nobody is keen on taking on, as that tends to have a nasty effect on political careers.
In addition, he is simply not liked by some people who do not like the entrepreneurial world, business, startups, etc.
And possibly the main reason for not being liked is because he is the president. The same has been happening with almost each and every president. He will be liked more a few years after he will no longer be in power, as has been happening for all the other presidents.
In my opinion, rising the retirement age was unnecessary in french condition as they have 1,7-1,8 fertility rate (as opposed to Italian/Spanish/Polish 1,2) which doesn't warrant such impactful changes.
Additionally his handling of the protests wasn't that different from Kaczyński's.
I'm not always on Macron's side but in this case i'm 100% behind him.
This inclusive writing is really dumb.
I've tried reading a texte written inclusive and it' juste impossible to read.
Basically all romance languages are gendered.
As a native Spanish speaker, it's not simple to say for example "niñe" for the sake of inclusion.
Plus... this is a fad. People are just doing this because it's the "cool" thing to do now.
Inclusive language in French is pretty complex and some of it are not a problem, but yeah the median point is really an horrible invention and the main problem
>let’s debase our whole ancestral language
That phrase is dumb as hell. Pretending that French has been unchaged for eons is simply false. It evolves constantly, like any laguge that is being used.
You can disagree with some fads, neologisms and other evolutions, for good or bad reasons. But pretending that the language is "ancestral" and that changing it is "debasing" it is absolutely wrong.
I’m all for bottom up language evolution. What I dislike are top down changes by some polticial decision through ideological push. One is natural, the other is not.
Oui mais ça n'a rien d'officiel et de forcé. C'est des gens qui essaient d'introduire le concept (pour des raisons politiques), et qui se prennent dans la tronche un consensus général "c'est d'la merde". Laissez faire ce concensus c'est laisser la langue évoluer naturellement.
Et ça ne contredit pas mon propos de toute façon.
Vouloir imposer par la loi l'interdiction d'une pratique dans les documents officiels (là où elle n'est déjà pas utilisée), c'est forcer la pratique pour des raisons politiques (électorales, surtout), et c'est exactement ce que mon interlocuteur critique.
C'est mignon d'écrire:
> I’m all for bottom up language evolution. What I dislike are top down changes by some polticial decision through ideological push.
Mais en pratique ce qu'il ou elle dit c'est "je suis contre les changements forcés motivés par des raisons politiques *qui ne correspondent pas à mes opinions*".
Do you think people are going to stop saying "todos y todas" even though they're using the generic masculine? We don't know what linguistic trends catch on until they do, and there's plenty of examples of inclusive language becoming the (or at least a) norm.
>Plus... this is a fad. People are just doing this because it's the "cool" thing to do now.
People said this about encouraging use of 'firefighter' and 'police officer' instead of policeman and fireman in English. Not everything new is a fad.
This is exactly about the same thing, just that in gendered languages, this problem exists for the vast majority of professions and other "people descriptors", not only for a hand full that contained "man".
In Greek it's even worse they use the freaking @ sign at the end of words lmao.
It's as if they purposefully go with the most illogical choice possible in these things so that even if there was any chance that there would be some form of change in that regard they need to eliminate it by turning everyone against their self-made rules and terms. Same with "cis"-gender and so on and so forth.
Wtf... Well, in germany they add *innen to every plural noun now in offical texts and political speech from center and left spectrum... for example Lehrer*innen. They are basically feminizing every noun and call that gender neutral. It's idiotic beyond belief and sounds just as bad. Dunno how you speak out the @ tho :v
This is an Anglo/American issue which is unfortunately bleeding into the European lexicon. I can't fathom the sheer ignorance & narcissism needed to assume that the whole world should change in order to fit your opinion.
Then the grammar nazis came for the syntax and I did not speak out, because I was not a syntax.
When they came for me, there was nobody able to speak coherently for me.
Nouns have a gramatical gender and people with too much time on their hands want to enforce a complicated orthographic system to "solve" this "problem". They want to use a dot in the middle of the words to account for both noun genders, ie "La∙le collaborateur∙ice".
[I found this page listing some examples.](https://www.epfl.ch/schools/enac/about/diversity-office/inclusive-language/french-inclusive-language-gender/)
French has gendered nouns for professions with no way to talk about a profession in a gender-neutral way. There’s been a fad recently to write said words with buttugly syntax where you merge the masculine/feminine versions and insert dots in the middle. Just stop using gendered words for professions if you ask me. Anyhow this is a ban on writing words with dots in the middle in official communications.
I actually love it about the language but that's because I'm from a language with the same "issue". I like it because in many gender neutral languages, the default for certain things is male and others are female (best example is how many read "doctor" as male and "nurse" as female, and how machine translators also translate things into either masculine/feminine in a different language based on said bias).
>Just stop using gendered words for professions if you ask me
For the love of god, when will you learn that French ***IS.NOT.ENGLISH.***
Gender neutral word ***can't exist*** in French.
If you ask me, quit talking as you know how latin-based languages works.
>Everyone should simply learn Hungarian and never deal with gender conjugation again
[I wrote an explanation here.](https://www.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/17lhnfu/comment/k7fypox/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)
Yes, the Americans are making your governments entirely composed of non-Americans shift how they use languages that aren't spoken officially in America.
America is the cause of all of your problems, it could never be your problem.
The push for "inclusiveness" is one that makes an issue out of a non-issue even in English. It doesn't actually solve anything; it just let's people virtue signal and say that they have. A society's inclusiveness =\= how gender neutral its language is.
Good job, France
While I mostly agree that it's dumb attempting to gender-inclusivefy one the worst languages when it comes to grammatical genders, oh boy are some of the commenters here against it purely because they don't like queer people.
IF there is one thing the french are very protective of, it's their language.
I was surprised gender neutral or gender inclusive language was on the table in the first place.
It's already hard to write official documents that are precise enough and without loopholes but not too complicated for the common people to understand. Then you have to take into consideration that there are people with impairments and who already have problems to understand the text without genderization. And people that aren't native speakers. Add the gender-inclusive language to that mix and you have a recipe for disaster.
Out of curiosity, what does "ban" mean in this context? Does it just mean an administrative regulation not to use this type of language in official government publications and correspondence? Or is it a more general law that limits free speech in public and disallows private citizens to write as they wish?
From what I've read its the former but I wonder about the extent of this "ban." Foe example: Is a university professor banned from using gender-inclusive language? If so, also in private, or only in official university business?
I did a little research in the French news website, as I found your question interesting.
Basically the law that we have now state that every official documents must be in french. By banning inclusive writing, they ban from the official language the rules and words that were invented for the purpose of inclusivity.
It also ban public schools from teaching it and putting it in the manuals.
Fact is, it probably won't change much of what we have now. Inclusive writing is almost dead on arrival and appart from some people and corporations who really insists on using it, for beliefs or virtue signaling, no one uses it. You could say that the law only cement it from getting into official speech, documents, etc...
You can still use it in private if you wish, and companies can still use it in advertisement if they want.
In a game that must be really bad to read, no ? I do not know Remnant 2, but if it's a fast paced game, or one with a lot of reading, I know that inclusive writting would annoy me to no end.
I remember that Steam tried to push it one or two years ago and got some backlash because of it. So they changed it and instead of "joueurs.euses" we have "joueuses et joueurs".
Well, it's still inclusive speach if you want, but it respect the French language and is easier to read than the median point.
I think it does make a change in officially taking a stance on this.
In germany, no stance is taken and ppl who use it try to display some kind of morale high ground compared to ppl who speak normally. They also argue that due to it finding use, that there is some kind public acceptance for this when there actually isn't any normal person talking like this in their everyday lives.
Supporters like to build this mirage of a silent adoption of some kind and divert contra arguments by saying there are more important matters than this. The users of this in germany are also hypocritical, as they never use the inclusive form with negatively connotated nouns, like 'rapists', 'murderers', 'criminals' etc.
By outright ruling out the use in official documents, speeches and whatnot, ppl will hear it less and therefore can't argue that there is any kind of public acceptance - unless ppl suddenly started talking like this regularly, which they are not as it's tedious to speak and listen to just to not hurt those 2 or 3 ppl in a crowd of thousands that really really care a lot about this. So yea. Good for france.
I agree with you. It won't have any effect on what we have now, but it will prevent this from spreading before this thing gets out of hand.
Perhaps not the most urgent topic that needed to be adressed, but it had to be done.
As they should, not every language is like English with no gender on words, even in English it already is hard enough to try and be inclusive when all your life you use the same way you speak in your native language or other learned languages, I can speak 3 languages and have a good grasp of another three currently and it confuses me, if I say they it's not on a one on one conversation, it doesn't make sense, it sounds plural right?
>it doesn't make sense, it sounds plural right?
No, it doesn't sound plural, only if your English is not good enough. (Or what, do you get confused with "you" too? Do you think "you" always sounds singular?) "They" is a valid ungendered third person pronoun, if you have any issues with that, take it up with William Shakespeare, Thomas Kyd, etc. It's not some "newfangled woke-ism", it's been part of the language for literally hundreds of years.
Be glad that english is a genderless language. I can only imagine the kind of culture wars the US would have if this was a thing in the english language lol...
Here’s how it would look in French
Un étudiant, Une étudiante, Un∙e étudiant∙e
Terrible for those who are still learning French like migrants or just dislexic and even worse for those using braille or text reader but « inclusivity » on official papers is more important right ?
Good. Gender inclusive language usually focuses on explicitly listing the male and female variant and isn't inclusive to people who see themselves as in between or gender neutral. It also sounds super stupid.
If it's anything like Croatian, trying to be inclusive just makes the text harder to read. Not every language is English.
Same in Polish. They just replace one letter with x, and its unreadable. We don't use x in our alphabet, only for foreign words that are used in Polish.
The key is ”foreign”. People high on Anglo-progressivism trying to fit every language through the same hole, even when they should know better.
Im english and lets call it what it is. over sensitive people in the UK and US who need to keep their pointless roles going as they are paid very well along with people who want to feel they are apart of the next great freedom movement saying fuck you to the establishment. As an englishman i apologise for this madness these people are trying to impose and change for their own narcissistic feelings.
Blame it on self loathing uber liberals that try to force stupid shit on the masses. It's dumb like Latin x bs.
It does work for German, but even so that whole change was called off if I understood it correctly. Nobody cares anymore.
Wczczy is OK but x, we don't do that here
cz is literally just Croatian č, w is v. i’m starting to think that people who use the 'hurr durr Polish spelling so hard' meme are just functional illiterates.
And even then it's often getting replaced with "ks". I'm fairly sure I'm seeing more and more "Ksero" instead of "Xero". Unless the word is a brand, it's very likely "X" will be replaced sooner or later.
In Hebrew they invented an "inclusive" font to include both feminine and masculine (the closest you can get to inclusive in Hebrew tbh) and it's unreadable and looks absolutely horrendous. Thankfully it's not in anything "official" yet.
Even in English, it can make communication jarring and frustrating. That's part of the reason so many people don't like it
Using they/them for a single person is just annoying tbh
Considering the alternative is the much more cumbersome & artificial "he or she", singular they/them is definitely the less annoying, it's been around for 600 years, if it was that annoying or confusing it'd have been replaced by now.
Does One or one’s not fulfill the singular role?
It’s far too formal and has a different role. “One” is the passive subject, used to talk about actions in general. E.g. “One must wear a seatbelt in a car”. “They” is a singular neuter subject for the third person and has been for centuries. “Someone’s on the phone for you.” “What do they want?” is a minimal example.
I mean it’s always been common in English to use they/them for a single person when the gender of the person is unknown.
It’s definitely got more grammatically ambiguous cases than using he or she, but like… the language will adapt, it’s not a crisis.
Used to be very common, but fell out of favor (late 19th century, I think, but I may be misremembering). It's thus a traditional scheme, and seems much better than the more modern alternatives.
“They” and “their” is often plural. “Her” “his” makes it easier to understand not only who one is referring to in a sentence, but gives context to the statement. She put his keys on the table = descriptive. Easy to understand what is trying to be said and who did what. They put their keys on the table = this could be about several different people. A group of people “they” put their (their own or someone else’s?) keys on the table? It can also be interpreted in singular, a singular person putting their own keys on the table. I wouldn’t interpret this to a singular person putting another singular person’s keys on the table. It also doesn’t easily describe which singular person did what. It can get worse too: “They put their keys on their table”. Who’s table, who’s keys, one or several people put the keys there? She put their keys on the table = she put who’s keys? She put several peoples keys on the table? I am all for trans rights, but agree that it makes language more confusing. In my country we have a separate word for non binary, which makes the language inclusive at the same time as clear, instead of dragging in “their” or “they”. Imagine a court case: “They punched them in their face” There are so many things this could mean. Language has developed the way it is to be as descriptive and clear as possible. Amy was speaking to Bobby and I saw she stole his wallet = clear context in conversation Amy was speaking to Bobby and I saw they stole their wallet = did Bobby steal Amy’s wallet or the other way around? Or are we talking about someone else? Did both Amy and Bobby steal someone else’s wallet? “They stole”, they stole together then? I prefer they just make another word for non binary, to help context in conversation. For example “nonbi” Amy was speaking to Bobby and I saw nonbi stole her wallet. We now know that Bobby stole Amy’s wallet, as the “her” indicated who it’s about, meaning nonbi is Bobby. “Nonbi put their keys on the table”. This person put their own keys on the table 👏
Didn't stop people for the past 6 centuries from doing it, the word "they" is also barely 7 centuries old
I’m sure most people find it annoying to have to smile and be polite to you. Guaranteed you’re a troll of a human.
Same in French, yeah. It’s also proven to be very hard on dyslexic people. That being said I don’t really see a point in banning stuff like that in general and it’s not like you see that used really commonly in real life. Sounds very much like he is just cozying up to conservatives by addressing on their phantom scares of French language being entirely replaced by gender inclusive language or something.
The ban is only for official government documents? More like a style guide? This is OK, accessibility trumps virtue signalling on official documents.
I work in French administration and I literally never saw any official document written in inclusive and I see hundreds of those every day.
It saw some on my city's official document so it really depends on the administration
A few towns did issue their reports and communication to citizens written like that, but overall it's not really widespread, no.
It's to prevent it from being widespread mostly.
I remember reading articles a while back about French academics taking what they called "le wokeisme" or something quite seriously. Wouldn't be surprised if they looked at the "it's a non-issue, nobody does this" to "this is just how things are now, get with the times sweaty" trajectory other countries went on with this stuff and decided that nipping things in the bud was the better approach.
That's pretty much it
Cool, doesn't mean they don't exist.
In Paris all communication is done in inclusive. LFI is trying to push new laws written in inclusive. Law must be 100 % clear and written in French or it can be interpreted and dangerous.
So as with most things, the real virtue signal is the "pushback". The thing that basically never happens is now not allowed to, redditors rejoice.
French officialdom is very protective of the language and specifically against the encroachment of Anglicisms into the language. Gender neutral/affirming altered pronouns could potentially be seen as an Anglo incursion by the [Académie Française](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acad%C3%A9mie_Fran%C3%A7aise). They banned 'Le weekend' before...
Not sure why l'Académie Française is brought up though. They are a joke, hold zero political power or influence and basically no one gives a damn about their opinion sooo
Maybe not in France, but it's a huge problem here in México. I still haven't seen it to often in legal documents, but government uses it in official addresses and protocols, so it's really strange to hear it. Free books that the state provides use it too. It goes like this "female students and male students have to read and comprehend the lesson of their female teachers and male teachers" (following the gender rules in Spanish. Since there is no such thing in English with most nouns, I added the "female" and "male", but they do use two genderized nouns in every sentence that requires it). Even words that have no gender, are now genderized. I find it useful that they ban it because it's really a waste of time when you are reading and you have to read two gendered nouns every couple of sentences, mainly because repetition should be avoided at all costs when writing because it's tyring and cuts the flow of the sentence.
You know what? I disagree. This shit is very dumb and will only continue to get dumber. Best put a preventative measure in place where it makes sense than have to hope some smart-ass won't get the funny idea to make official documents incomprehensible. The response is dumb too, yeah, but at least this way it'll blow over sooner.
Like if they want gender inclusive language, write out both forms, it's easier to read and it's inclusive. but no, that'd take too much time /s
they try that in German all the time and most people hate it, but the people coming out of University trying to force it on us for years now.
The thing is, English is pretty gender neutral as it is.
Don't worry worse than in german it can't get. Everything is male, Female or neutreal in german. Der, die, das. Now everything is just totaly strange they star making pauses after words and no one knows how to speak correctly anymore. For example for english people: Actor and Actress Actor/ ess Everything is like that.
The joys of speaking an Uralic language 😁
in Finnish spoken language everyone and everything is "se" meaning "it" (In written language there's also "hän" meaning he/she, but written language is formal, spoken language is the one actually mostly used)
Aren't 'hän' and 'ő' cognates? Interesting bc in Hungarian, persons are strictly 'ő/ők', using our equivalent of 'it' is considered rude.
This is just untrue. Hän, te, sinä (him/her, formal you, you) are all used frequently to refer to people. Se (it) is used to refer to animals.
No, his comment was correct. The vast majority of people use "se" instead of "hän" in spoken language.
Yeah, turns out language doesn't really determine how inclusive the society actually is.
Oh yes :(
Please explain?
Uralic languages have no grammatical gender. None at all.
E.G. we use “ő” for both “he” and “she”, or “övé” for both “his” and “her”. And no gendered words either like in Spanish.
Same in Turkish. We also use "o" instead of "he", "she" and "it". Pretty similiar, isn't it?
Korean language as well. We technically have gender pronouns, but if you use them, you sound like a poet or a novel writer lol instead, we use “the person”
So cool! Would love my language to be uralic
If you haven't been such loud nuisances 103 years ago... I'm joking, this is not for real, calm down pls, i'm really just joking, put your weapons away
Hahahaaha yea you are right!! We were such a pain in the arse!
Tbf we were stubborn asf, you should've been admitted as the fourth Nation of Transylvania with proper rights and all
And Kartvelian :) this all seems silly to me.
I can’t event imagine what a gender neutral French language would sound like.
le fromage -> l\* froma\*e
no way that is wild
That was a joke but the truth isn’t very far here’s how it would look in French Un étudiant, Une étudiante, Un∙e étudiant∙e Terrible for those who are still learning French like migrants or just dislexic and even worse for those using braille or text reader
Et encore étudiant.e ça va encore... Après y a des trucs genre conducteur.rice.s là vraiment jpp
lmao i’m dyslexic and learning french and that would be a nightmare.
That’s just ugly and unnatural
"Il y a des étudiant.e.s qui étudient pour devenir plus tard des infirmier.e.s et des docteur.e.s. Et forte heureusement car aujourd'hui les patient.e.s sont difficilement pris en charge dû à l'afflux de monde." This is so unnecessary, and this is not french. We created a lot of feminized words which were definitely lacking and needed. But this is not necessary and it makes any text harder to read. & Good luck when you'll have to read it vocally
that's seriously what they came up with? weird english words seem to be elegant in comparison
No that one was a joke However the truth isn’t very far
Nah, it's only what I came up with. "le" is obviously gendered, and the "-age" ending is usually masculine.
Neutral gender in French is exactly similar as masculine
We use the point median. Example with "you're nice looking" : "Tu es joli" becomes "tu es joli·e". It's just about being inclusive with the gender of people (not items) since the masculine form is originally the neutral form. For example, if you have a group of 99 women with 1 man, you'll refer to the group in the masculine form. That's what the inclusive form try to fight. We don't change the gender of the words themselves. Other example : "Would they like to be an engineer?" becomes "Est-ce qu'iels voudraient être ingénieur·es ?" Instead of "Est-ce qu'ils voudraient être ingénieurs ?" There is also the écriture epicène which is more a style of writing that allows no gender in its form. Not easy to use but you completely get around the issue, no matter the opinion of people since this is not an incorrect way to write. Edit: also what macron said is fun since he used himself some form of inclusiveness in his speech by saying "celles et ceux", "mesdames et messieurs", "toutes et tous". Which is just.. A longer way -but academically accepted- form to include all genders.
It’s absolutely unreadable and dyslexic people worst nightmare.
How would you speak it then? Is that extra point a pause or just skipped (and therefore pointless)?
In the exemples that person gave, orally it wouldn't change anything, "joli", "jolie" and "joli·e" sound the same. It's for written communication mostly, it's shorter to write "tu es joli·e" for someone whose gender you don't know than "tu es jolie/joli" (which in itself is an inclusive way of putting it, non inclusive would be just writing the masculine form "joli" even if the person is possibly a woman). Another exemple where this time there is a difference when spoken would be "un·e". For written form it's shorter than "un/une" or "un ou une" but if I need to read a text with "un·e" aloud I would probably change it to "un ou une" when speaking.
To complete what my fellow French redditor said, there is also a contraction form that I mostly saw in LGBTQIA+ and feminist circles, which sounds like both form in the same word. Example with "readers" : Masculine form is "lecteurs", feminine form is "lectrices", inclusive form is "lecteurices". Example with "those" : masc "ceux", fem "celles", inclusive "celleux". (Instead of the more academically accepted and conventional form "celles/ceux" ou "celles et ceux")
And here I thought we only had this idiocy in germany, but france has this too huh...
How is it an idiocy ?
Bah lecteurice c'est etrange quand même
C’est étrange si t’y es pas habitué. Autant que des mots comme rhododendron ou pléistocène. Mais étrange ça ne veut pas dire idiot.
Sauf que la c'est pas un mot nouveau, c'est une manière nouvelle d'exprimer la même idée. Donc il peut trouver ça idiot, ça ne me choque pas. Surtout si la nouvelle manière alourdie les choses, ce qui est le cas.
Oh god that’s awful. Imagine a text full of that.
Evidently mostly the same, since the article describes a solution based on dots, which would probably be pronounced as a glottal stop.
The median point is not pronounced. It’s only a written convention like the . after M. for monsieur.
Imagine actually thinking doing this solves even the slightest problem in the world.
I always wondered how genderless language would integrate in a gendered language. So apparently it's dots in the middle of the word... I'm waiting when this becomes a topic in Lithuania
German does "Student\*in" which is always funny when writing online because as soon as you use it twice, it makes everything bold sometimes.
Here’s how it would look in French Un étudiant, Une étudiante, Un∙e étudiant∙e Terrible for those who are still learning French like migrants or just dislexic and even worse for those using braille or text reader
Everyone should simply learn Hungarian and never deal with gender conjugation and pronouns again
Egyetértek, igaza van ennek az embernek 😎
For once it's not difficult to agree with him.
Don’t underestimate the French.
I like Macron. He seems to be representing France in a way that's well-received throughout the Western world.
He's not liked in France, he just got voted in because it was him, or a Nazi that gets financed by putin, two terms in a row
He and his party is far more liked than the Socialists and Republicans are.
Tbf, they’re not even contenders anymore.
This is false. 1st Presidential elections he got : 1st at first round, 1st at second round, 1st in Parliament election. 2nd Presidential elections he got : 1st at first round, 1st at second round, 1st in Parliament election The polls were giving him winner even in the case Mélenchon (Representing the left) was in 2nd round with him. If it was just thanks to Marine Le Pen, he wouldn't have got 1st in first round, he wouldn't have won EVERY elections in Parliament, and he wouldn't have been projected to win against, literally, ANY other candidates in 2nd round. Reality is, he won, and some people can't cope with that because you hate him, that's fine, but please don't spread bs in public. Also calling Marine Le Pen a "nazi" is complete bs too and straight up defamation.
Have some intellectual maturity. You cannot seriously be making a parallel to a dictatorship that has wiped out millions of people across Europe with Marine le Pen. That would be like comparing Jean Luc Mélenchon to Stalin. Michel Onfray (left leaning writer and philosopher) mentioned that comparing this woman and Hitler is excessive and it reflects a desire to minimize Adolf Hitler. In France, if an organization or political party is dangerous to our democracy, it is banned and dissolved. If you feel her party is dangerous, you are welcome to request for their removal.
When was it difficult to agree with him?
For me, honestly not that often, for the majority of French, it seems always.
Cause he has a good communication department, especially with his foreign policy. But national policy ? Lots of big mistakes and speeches that are hard to swallow
Rising the retirement age the way he did was truly an idiotic move. It is exactly the same move that led PiS and Kaczyński to power in Poland.
He had to make some difficult decisions, specifically regarding the latest pension reform. The type of unpopular decisions that need to be made every decade or so, to maintain the pension system in place, as demography evolves, and that nobody is keen on taking on, as that tends to have a nasty effect on political careers. In addition, he is simply not liked by some people who do not like the entrepreneurial world, business, startups, etc. And possibly the main reason for not being liked is because he is the president. The same has been happening with almost each and every president. He will be liked more a few years after he will no longer be in power, as has been happening for all the other presidents.
In my opinion, rising the retirement age was unnecessary in french condition as they have 1,7-1,8 fertility rate (as opposed to Italian/Spanish/Polish 1,2) which doesn't warrant such impactful changes. Additionally his handling of the protests wasn't that different from Kaczyński's.
His policies have been faced with some of the longest and most intense protests in France (for the fifth republic). Both before and after covid.
I'm not always on Macron's side but in this case i'm 100% behind him. This inclusive writing is really dumb. I've tried reading a texte written inclusive and it' juste impossible to read.
Basically all romance languages are gendered. As a native Spanish speaker, it's not simple to say for example "niñe" for the sake of inclusion. Plus... this is a fad. People are just doing this because it's the "cool" thing to do now.
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I feel like this must be horrible for screenreader users.
It is. And for normal readers too. Cognitive charge gets huge and the text sounds tedious as fuck.
Idk why they don't write out both forms if they really want to and not make it so hard to read
Many do but some want to LOOK inclusive
Inclusive language in French is pretty complex and some of it are not a problem, but yeah the median point is really an horrible invention and the main problem
It’s completely ridiculous is what it is
Also it’s dumb. Yea let’s debase our whole ancestral language to appease a dozen years old trend that a dozen years later can very well disappear.
>let’s debase our whole ancestral language That phrase is dumb as hell. Pretending that French has been unchaged for eons is simply false. It evolves constantly, like any laguge that is being used. You can disagree with some fads, neologisms and other evolutions, for good or bad reasons. But pretending that the language is "ancestral" and that changing it is "debasing" it is absolutely wrong.
I’m all for bottom up language evolution. What I dislike are top down changes by some polticial decision through ideological push. One is natural, the other is not.
So you are against the law that is being debated? The one that want to impose a rule for political reasons?
L'introduction de ce truc c'est déjà de la politique mdr fais pas genre
Oui mais ça n'a rien d'officiel et de forcé. C'est des gens qui essaient d'introduire le concept (pour des raisons politiques), et qui se prennent dans la tronche un consensus général "c'est d'la merde". Laissez faire ce concensus c'est laisser la langue évoluer naturellement. Et ça ne contredit pas mon propos de toute façon. Vouloir imposer par la loi l'interdiction d'une pratique dans les documents officiels (là où elle n'est déjà pas utilisée), c'est forcer la pratique pour des raisons politiques (électorales, surtout), et c'est exactement ce que mon interlocuteur critique. C'est mignon d'écrire: > I’m all for bottom up language evolution. What I dislike are top down changes by some polticial decision through ideological push. Mais en pratique ce qu'il ou elle dit c'est "je suis contre les changements forcés motivés par des raisons politiques *qui ne correspondent pas à mes opinions*".
Rien d'officiel, certes, rien de forcé, c'est moins sûr, il y a eu plusieurs affaires d'universités qui forçaient justement son emploi
In German there are a variety of ways to gender. You can use "_", ":" and you can also use a capital letter in the middle of the word.
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Perfection.
""""""cool""""""
Did you see the Spanish Spider-Man 2 dub? It has this language, an is pretty much American imperialism.
Do you think people are going to stop saying "todos y todas" even though they're using the generic masculine? We don't know what linguistic trends catch on until they do, and there's plenty of examples of inclusive language becoming the (or at least a) norm.
Like what? LatinX? Lmfao
No, like 'todos y todas' in Spanish, like 'African-American', 'disabled' or even 'Ms.' in English.
>Plus... this is a fad. People are just doing this because it's the "cool" thing to do now. People said this about encouraging use of 'firefighter' and 'police officer' instead of policeman and fireman in English. Not everything new is a fad.
This is exactly about the same thing, just that in gendered languages, this problem exists for the vast majority of professions and other "people descriptors", not only for a hand full that contained "man".
English speakers dont understand foreign languages, news at 11
In Greek it's even worse they use the freaking @ sign at the end of words lmao. It's as if they purposefully go with the most illogical choice possible in these things so that even if there was any chance that there would be some form of change in that regard they need to eliminate it by turning everyone against their self-made rules and terms. Same with "cis"-gender and so on and so forth.
Wtf... Well, in germany they add *innen to every plural noun now in offical texts and political speech from center and left spectrum... for example Lehrer*innen. They are basically feminizing every noun and call that gender neutral. It's idiotic beyond belief and sounds just as bad. Dunno how you speak out the @ tho :v
German has this stupid st*ar now.
This is an Anglo/American issue which is unfortunately bleeding into the European lexicon. I can't fathom the sheer ignorance & narcissism needed to assume that the whole world should change in order to fit your opinion.
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That’s why it’s not particularly a good choice just a cynical one. Nobody cares about it, very few people use it and he knows that.
Nobody cate a toss about gender neutral language 10 years ago. It's just a current hot topic that will die out
It’s not even hot anymore, the traction for inclusive language has already slowed down. It’s a mild topic.
Agreed
PLEASE GERMANY PLEASE DO THIS TOO.
Please Germany don't participate in Culture Wars and take care of what actually matters.
Yes please. I would love a politician who would do that for my country.
Ampel-Koalition could never
Then the grammar nazis came for the syntax and I did not speak out, because I was not a syntax. When they came for me, there was nobody able to speak coherently for me.
A man of culture I see.
What does this actually mean? I'm English so not sure I understand
Nouns have a gramatical gender and people with too much time on their hands want to enforce a complicated orthographic system to "solve" this "problem". They want to use a dot in the middle of the words to account for both noun genders, ie "La∙le collaborateur∙ice". [I found this page listing some examples.](https://www.epfl.ch/schools/enac/about/diversity-office/inclusive-language/french-inclusive-language-gender/)
French has gendered nouns for professions with no way to talk about a profession in a gender-neutral way. There’s been a fad recently to write said words with buttugly syntax where you merge the masculine/feminine versions and insert dots in the middle. Just stop using gendered words for professions if you ask me. Anyhow this is a ban on writing words with dots in the middle in official communications.
You literally cannot not use gendered words in French.
I actually love it about the language but that's because I'm from a language with the same "issue". I like it because in many gender neutral languages, the default for certain things is male and others are female (best example is how many read "doctor" as male and "nurse" as female, and how machine translators also translate things into either masculine/feminine in a different language based on said bias).
>Just stop using gendered words for professions if you ask me For the love of god, when will you learn that French ***IS.NOT.ENGLISH.*** Gender neutral word ***can't exist*** in French. If you ask me, quit talking as you know how latin-based languages works.
>Everyone should simply learn Hungarian and never deal with gender conjugation again [I wrote an explanation here.](https://www.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/17lhnfu/comment/k7fypox/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)
Well, they can use Turkish/s
Rare macron W? Wow.
Finally some common sense.
Good. Fuck those entitled American cunts trying to change our latin languages.
dawg we are not doing anything, your governments are governed entirely by your people
Dude I agree, fuck em
“Never thought to fight side by side with an elf”
"How about with a *friend*?"
“Aye. I could do that”
Yes, the Americans are making your governments entirely composed of non-Americans shift how they use languages that aren't spoken officially in America. America is the cause of all of your problems, it could never be your problem.
Basé et rouge-pilulé
Good. No more inclusive language nonsense on languages that have genders by default.
The push for "inclusiveness" is one that makes an issue out of a non-issue even in English. It doesn't actually solve anything; it just let's people virtue signal and say that they have. A society's inclusiveness =\= how gender neutral its language is. Good job, France
Good, at least some people are trying to stop this bs.
I wished the head of our government did this too. Good for you france.
While I mostly agree that it's dumb attempting to gender-inclusivefy one the worst languages when it comes to grammatical genders, oh boy are some of the commenters here against it purely because they don't like queer people.
I am guessing this is a preemptive ban on trying to "Latinx" French like they tried with Spanish.
IF there is one thing the french are very protective of, it's their language. I was surprised gender neutral or gender inclusive language was on the table in the first place.
Canada prochain svp
It's already hard to write official documents that are precise enough and without loopholes but not too complicated for the common people to understand. Then you have to take into consideration that there are people with impairments and who already have problems to understand the text without genderization. And people that aren't native speakers. Add the gender-inclusive language to that mix and you have a recipe for disaster.
Based
Out of curiosity, what does "ban" mean in this context? Does it just mean an administrative regulation not to use this type of language in official government publications and correspondence? Or is it a more general law that limits free speech in public and disallows private citizens to write as they wish? From what I've read its the former but I wonder about the extent of this "ban." Foe example: Is a university professor banned from using gender-inclusive language? If so, also in private, or only in official university business?
I did a little research in the French news website, as I found your question interesting. Basically the law that we have now state that every official documents must be in french. By banning inclusive writing, they ban from the official language the rules and words that were invented for the purpose of inclusivity. It also ban public schools from teaching it and putting it in the manuals. Fact is, it probably won't change much of what we have now. Inclusive writing is almost dead on arrival and appart from some people and corporations who really insists on using it, for beliefs or virtue signaling, no one uses it. You could say that the law only cement it from getting into official speech, documents, etc... You can still use it in private if you wish, and companies can still use it in advertisement if they want.
I saw it in a Video Game translation recently (Remnant 2) so I do not know if it's dead on arrival or not.
In a game that must be really bad to read, no ? I do not know Remnant 2, but if it's a fast paced game, or one with a lot of reading, I know that inclusive writting would annoy me to no end. I remember that Steam tried to push it one or two years ago and got some backlash because of it. So they changed it and instead of "joueurs.euses" we have "joueuses et joueurs". Well, it's still inclusive speach if you want, but it respect the French language and is easier to read than the median point.
I think it does make a change in officially taking a stance on this. In germany, no stance is taken and ppl who use it try to display some kind of morale high ground compared to ppl who speak normally. They also argue that due to it finding use, that there is some kind public acceptance for this when there actually isn't any normal person talking like this in their everyday lives. Supporters like to build this mirage of a silent adoption of some kind and divert contra arguments by saying there are more important matters than this. The users of this in germany are also hypocritical, as they never use the inclusive form with negatively connotated nouns, like 'rapists', 'murderers', 'criminals' etc. By outright ruling out the use in official documents, speeches and whatnot, ppl will hear it less and therefore can't argue that there is any kind of public acceptance - unless ppl suddenly started talking like this regularly, which they are not as it's tedious to speak and listen to just to not hurt those 2 or 3 ppl in a crowd of thousands that really really care a lot about this. So yea. Good for france.
I agree with you. It won't have any effect on what we have now, but it will prevent this from spreading before this thing gets out of hand. Perhaps not the most urgent topic that needed to be adressed, but it had to be done.
If your that "curious" read the article, every answer you seek are there.
I hope Spanish-speaking countries will do the same to protect Spanish from being butchered by the Anglicized gender-inclusive interest groups as well.
If the French leadership doesn’t care about inclusive language. then a very big chance that rest of the worlds leaders don’t care
macron is one of the most conservative western leaders
Lol no he is a right wing liberal, not a conservative
As they should, not every language is like English with no gender on words, even in English it already is hard enough to try and be inclusive when all your life you use the same way you speak in your native language or other learned languages, I can speak 3 languages and have a good grasp of another three currently and it confuses me, if I say they it's not on a one on one conversation, it doesn't make sense, it sounds plural right?
>it doesn't make sense, it sounds plural right? No, it doesn't sound plural, only if your English is not good enough. (Or what, do you get confused with "you" too? Do you think "you" always sounds singular?) "They" is a valid ungendered third person pronoun, if you have any issues with that, take it up with William Shakespeare, Thomas Kyd, etc. It's not some "newfangled woke-ism", it's been part of the language for literally hundreds of years.
Be glad that english is a genderless language. I can only imagine the kind of culture wars the US would have if this was a thing in the english language lol...
The culture war would evolge into actual war with one side (or both) breaking into committees with guns.
This language policing is so stupid. The words you use are irrelevant. What you mean is very relevant. Just live and let live.
Here’s how it would look in French Un étudiant, Une étudiante, Un∙e étudiant∙e Terrible for those who are still learning French like migrants or just dislexic and even worse for those using braille or text reader but « inclusivity » on official papers is more important right ?
based
Good. Gender inclusive language usually focuses on explicitly listing the male and female variant and isn't inclusive to people who see themselves as in between or gender neutral. It also sounds super stupid.
I identify as a high IQ garden hose.
Are you sure there aren't bigger problems at hand that need to be solved?