Things That Make You Go Hmm

[liliput1]

How are personal non-binary/gender neutral pronouns handled in foreign languages where all words are gendered?

THBGato has a story (technically 2 stories) where an NB francophone would really rather live in England because they're tired of being misgendered all the fucking time.

It was literally one of the first thoughts I had after encountering an NB person for the first time. Man this would be a pain in the ass in France (or any Romance language)

 

[Britva415]

It depends on the singer. Some I hear clearly. Some, I just have no clue. It's some kind of audio processing error. I always enjoyed Elton John's songs but had a hard time figuring out what he was saying. For instance,

On Tiny Dancer, it sounded to me like "Hold me close and tie me down some."

Or Levon: "Levon wears his wahoo like a crown."

Van Morrison, Brown Eyed Girl: "Gunned down the old man with a transistor radio."

My all time nutty misheard lyric, from the Procol Harum song: "Wyatt Earp Shared His Pail."

Or Pearl Jam's Evenflow

"numma numma numma nom, bumma numma nummaaaa, marma heya"

 

[Kumquatqueen]

"Awful" now means the opposite of what it originally meant. The word "awesome" had to be created to fill that linguistic void.

And now we need 'awe-inspiring' to convey the original intention.

 

[JTass]

THBGato has a story (technically 2 stories) where an NB francophone would really rather live in England because they're tired of being misgendered all the fucking time.

It was literally one of the first thoughts I had after encountering an NB person for the first time. Man this would be a pain in the ass in France (or any Romance language)

I was actually thinking of Hebrew when I wrote this question. Every single noun, verb, and adjective in the language is gendered.

I don't know about modern Romance languages, but I did take Latin in high school, which does include neuter/non-gendered words.

 

[JTass]

And now we need 'awe-inspiring' to convey the original intention.

Terry Pratchett addressed this a bit in the Discworld novel dealing with elves.

"Elves are wonderful. They provoke wonder.
Elves are marvellous. They cause marvels.
Elves are fantastic. They create fantasies.
Elves are glamorous. They project glamour.
Elves are enchanting. They weave enchantment.
Elves are terrific. They beget terror.
The thing about words is that meanings can twist just like a snake, and if you want to find snakes look for them behind words that have changed their meaning.
No one ever said elves are nice.
Elves are bad."

- Terry Pratchett, Lords and Ladies

 

[anthrodisiac]

It depends on the singer. Some I hear clearly. Some, I just have no clue. It's some kind of audio processing error. I always enjoyed Elton John's songs but had a hard time figuring out what he was saying. For instance,

On Tiny Dancer, it sounded to me like "Hold me close and tie me down some."

Or Levon: "Levon wears his wahoo like a crown."

Van Morrison, Brown Eyed Girl: "Gunned down the old man with a transistor radio."

My all time nutty misheard lyric, from the Procol Harum song: "Wyatt Earp Shared His Pail."

Blue Öyster Cult and Nirvana are notorious for this. Nirvana because nobody has any idea what Kurt's saying, and BÖC because nothing they say makes any sense.

 

[TheWritingGroup]

I don't know about modern Romance languages, but I did take Latin in high school, which does include neuter/non-gendered words.

I don't off the top of my head know of a Romance language that kept neuter nouns. They went to the same limbo as noun declination (except for Romanian, which kept declination).

 

[anthrodisiac]

How are personal non-binary/gender neutral pronouns handled in foreign languages where all words are gendered?

I know in Spanish, there's a push to use -e instead of -o/a to have neutral gender (at least where I'm from). I don't know how much traction it has, though.

 

[BeechLeaf]

Latine certainly seems easier to handle than Latinx or Latin@. It's also a solution for Italian, where there is a numerous minority of nouns in non-gendered -e. Pronouns harder; esse would steer between gendered esso and essa, but it's already the feminine plural.

Arabic could take the "actor, waiter" route, just drop the specifically feminine suffix and make the masculine the default. But again, it doesn't work for pronouns.

 

[JTass]

I don't off the top of my head know of a Romance language that kept neuter nouns. They went to the same limbo as noun declination (except for Romanian, which kept declination).

-us, -i, -o, -um, -o
-i, -orum, -is, -os, -is

 

[TheLobster]

I know in Spanish, there's a push to use -e instead of -o/a to have neutral gender (at least where I'm from). I don't know how much traction it has, though.

Very little, because -o is already functionally gender-neutral in Spanish.

I don't know about modern Romance languages, but I did take Latin in high school, which does include neuter/non-gendered words.

The issue with neuter in tri-gendered languages (which include more than just some of the Romance ones) is that it usually has strong connotation with inanimate objects, so it wouldn’t work or it would be rude to use it to apply to people.

I believe this is also the case in the bi-gendered languages that have neuter (like Swedish), though of course it doesn’t really matter there since they also have the “common” gender.

 

[JTass]

The issue with neuter in tri-gendered languages (which include more than just some of the Romance ones) is that it usually has strong connotation with inanimate objects, so it wouldn’t work or it would be rude to use it to apply to people.

Yeah, I recall my Latin classes defining the masculine/feminine/neuter genders as he/she/it.

 

[EdgySubMic]

I don't know about modern Romance languages, but I did take Latin in high school, which does include neuter/non-gendered words.

French certainly hasn't.

But here's another weird one: In German and also Dutch, "girl" is non-gendered - an "it" - while "boy" isn't.
"Child" is non-gendered, as one would expect when gender is not known or unspecified.

But then again, "dog" is male, irrespective of what the animal in question actually is, while "cat" is female, equally irrespective of etc. But at least for cats and dogs there are also oppositely gendered alternative words that make sense. Not so for human young females, however.

Hmmm...

 

[BeechLeaf]

English has had gender-neutral 'they' for 700 years (originally used with antecedents like 'everyone': everyone put on their hat). If we didn't go that route, would we now be using 'it' that way? E. Nesbit used gender-neutral 'it' for her families of multiple children, but I think that was her idiosyncrasy, not a style of the time. It seems the obvious solution though. We only think of it as inanimate because we didn't need to co-opt it for animates.

In German there are natural entries for this, in two specific groups: diminutives like das Mädchen "the girl" and words for young, like das Kind "the child" or das Lamm "the lamb", are neuter, so would provide an opening for neuter es "it" to be used this way,

 

[TheLobster]

In German and also Dutch, "girl" is non-gendered - an "it" - while "boy" isn't.

Not quite. Every noun has a gender in German (I’m not entirely sure about Dutch), it’s just that the typical word for “girl” happens to be of neuter gender rather than feminine one.

And it is neuter because it’s actually a diminutive of an older word, which at this point had long since gone out of use; but that original word was in fact feminine.

 

[JTass]

Terry Pratchett addressed this a bit in the Discworld novel dealing with elves.

"Elves are wonderful. They provoke wonder.
Elves are marvellous. They cause marvels.
Elves are fantastic. They create fantasies.
Elves are glamorous. They project glamour.
Elves are enchanting. They weave enchantment.
Elves are terrific. They beget terror.
The thing about words is that meanings can twist just like a snake, and if you want to find snakes look for them behind words that have changed their meaning.
No one ever said elves are nice.
Elves are bad."

- Terry Pratchett, Lords and Ladies

Just as an aside, I think Granny Weatherwax is one of the best fantasy characters of all time.

 

[EdgySubMic]

Not quite. Every noun has a gender in German (I’m not entirely sure about Dutch), it’s just that the typical word for “girl” happens to be of neuter gender rather than feminine one.

And it is neuter because it’s actually a diminutive of an older word, which at this point had long since gone out of use; but that original word was in fact feminine.

OK, I should have called it "of neuter gender" rather than ungendered.

That does not take away the hmmm that girl, as a diminutive of a female word, isn't female, whereas boy is male, exactly as one would expect.

 

[TarnishedPenny]

I know in Spanish, there's a push to use -e instead of -o/a to have neutral gender (at least where I'm from). I don't know how much traction it has, though.

One problem with that concept, depending on the language in question, is of course that the same word can have wildly different meanings depending on gender. In German, for instance, ‘der Kiefer’ (masculine) is one’s jaw, whereas ‘die Kiefer’ (feminine) is a pine tree. Trying to crunch them all into one single gender would be chaotic.