The gender issue can be complicated, because it goes beyond the biological.
The little that I know about German is that each word is built with others, that is, seeing it from the point of view of someone whose mother tongue is Spanish.
From what I understand, in German they solve the female "gender" problem with a suffix. In Spanish too, we use suffixes for everything, almost unlimitedly, but what happens is that not all words admit a feminine suffix.
It strikes me that worldwide there is a male dominance, before I used to think that it was a "Latin American" problem, of religion, or ideology, but now I have doubts, I don't know if since the beginning of humanity the force of the male prevailed ...
Something I want to tell you is that if I am very clear, it is that our behavior is conditioned by our way of speaking and writing. The language models our thought, or vice versa. This is where this modern concern for speaking and writing in an inclusive way comes from.
Like you, I am in favor of an inclusive society, in which our biological sex, or gender, does not affect the way we are treated, seen, or considered, I believe in freedom and equality.
And well, I know that in natural evolution language follows society, and not the other way around. That is to say, it is not possible from an authority to impose how to speak. The RAE cannot do it in Spanish, nor the DUDEN in German. I mean in practical terms.
Language is a living matter, it is recognized according to how it is used. If it is used, it is adopted, it must be accepted. Whether or not academics like it.
Sometimes academics lag behind, and it is that they must flow with the changes.
I think the Germans will find a way to solve the gender problem, if it really is a problem and not a fashion, because humans find solutions in the midst of necessity. If necessary, then they will adopt the words through everyday use, if they don't, then sometimes the speakers adopt terms from other languages, but the void is always filled.
That's the way I see it...
Thank you so much for going into such detail about my article! That is very impressive, especially since you have recognized the linguistic "gender problem", although you do not speak German.
Right, German allows to form infinitely many "correct" words by combination.
Grammatical gender is often marked by suffixes, as in Spanish.
Now there are two "problems":
First, not every word can be expanded just like that, certainly not in the plural.
Second, how do we make the plural "socially acceptable"?
For example:
el amigo -> los amigos (several male friends)
la amiga -> las amigas (several female friends)
Do you have a special word for a group of male and female friends?!
Not in German, but that's exactly what people are now trying to "impose" on speakers by using funny signs or defacing words where inflection is simply not grammatically possible.
And there I am exactly your opinion:
And so I hope that the natural feeling for language of the majority of Germans will triumph over a supposed "political correctness".... :-)
Post data: There are languages where these gender differences don't exist... So they don't have those problems.
(In English, there is still the problem of she, and he...)
However, I must say that those countries, for that reason, are not exactly liberal, far from it.
In English they don't mark the nouns (well, a very few like waiter/waitress). Their gender discussion is only about the use of pronouns. They might find a solution and however this will look like: it won't hurt a word or its structure.
Hey, I don't know why it takes you so long to write (I say it in a really friendly tone, because I know it may sound like a claim), but I would like to read you at least once a week...
There is a contest over there that could be fun, about what would you do if you were Steemcurator01... I confess that writing about it doesn't encourage me much, but then I thought it could be fun to say what one thinks about it.
I know more or less what you think, but I only say it as a writing exercise, sometimes new things come out of one's mind lol :D
don't you dare? 😁🙈
Please excuse me for waiting "so long" with the answer. Yesterday I didn't have time and today - on my 5th Steemit birthday, which I will not celebrate - I thought for a while about making a post out of the answer. Well, I decided otherwise because I already decided a long time ago not to write about the Steem anymore.... ;-)
Jajaja (<- Spanish), don't worry, I don't take your wish as a claim, but as a compliment.
Well, you can definitely read me every week - I am responsible for the regular Scrabble game of @deutschunplugged, which sometimes "lectures" more, sometimes less extensively. The preparation and supervision of the game are quite time-consuming, I am hardly prepared to give much more time to the Steem. Well, I do: I invest a lot of time in reading and in dealing with other contributions. From the inside out, without forced "engagement" - just the way I've always done it as an oldschool Steemian.
As you can see, I still write my own articles from time to time, of course. I have to really feel like it, because these are not articles that are just written down.
There is a reason why I don't take part in challenges (not even in the past, not just since the "Engagement Challenges"): I like creativity that comes from within, I like people's own ideas, their individual implementation in texts. Yes, I also like good texts. I don't like it when everything is the same/similar, I hate it when all the headlines are standardised, I don't like to read the contributions and certainly don't like to rank myself in them. 'Writing exercise'? This is not meant to sound arrogant, but I don't think I need it. Of course, I know that many people use these challenges for that very purpose. Fine. Fine for them. I really don't need to read such texts in my spare time.
Honestly, it's the challenges that kept me from reapplying to be a community curator after three months. The work was never as boring as it was from the moment the challenges started. One post like the other and as a curator who takes his job seriously, you had to read them all. Of course, there are always posts that stand out from the crowd, but you have to find them first. Besides, with most texts you notice(d) that they are not written because the author likes or is able to write, but solely to get the attention of the sc(01). That is terrible! This behaviour (which of course is partly even provoked by the Steemit team itself) disgusts me, because I have always kept to the netiquette (Spanish version), believed in it. Unfortunately, many of my old oldschool friends are now gone - also because of this. No, not directly after the fork almost three years ago. Drop by drop until today...
Besides, it annoys me when users shoot their contribution into the community announcing the challenge and don't give a damn about the texts of the other participants. How rude! The Steem is based on the principle of give and take. If I don't do it by voting, I have to give others the attention I expect from them!
As for this particular contest you mention: Wow, what a lot of participants! Ooh, always the same "interesting" title. I wonder if the actual addressees read it all?!?
Well, at least they have already voted for some texts before the contest is even finished and evaluated...
Hihi, of course I understood that this is a joke. Nevertheless, I pick it up because this "not dare" is sad fact with so many, many users. They prefer to bend, become hangers-on or blaspheme in the background for fear they might mess with the sc01. I do not like the company of such people. Not in real life, not on the platform.
If I have something to say to the Steemit team, then I really don't need a "challenge stash" for it, then I tell them directly.
The team even knows what I would do: I would vote nothing for two, three months, pure nothing (not even boring cr-reports). Only then would the wheat be separated from the chaff and we would finally know who is just chasing (high) votes and who is really interested in blogging and/or blockchain development. And there are other benefits of a whale staying out of the voting: The community learns to take responsibility for the blockchain. We own the chain, not the Steemit team alone. So we all are responsible for it.
Yes, I suggested that directly to the team. They actually found the proposal very interesting and worthy of an experiment, but said it wouldn't work for them for economic reasons. Unfortunately I can't find the link anymore, but here the dialog continued a few days later:
https://steemit.com/hive-185836/@chriddi/rf6ghw
Thanks for your attention. I hope I didn't slay you, but now you know my opinion.... 😘
So ist Recht. Immer schön an die Geheimcodes halten!
Das haben die Chinesen früher so gemacht, um Zensursperren zu umgehen. Damals. Als Maschinen Text auf Bilddateien noch nicht lesen konnten. Lang' ist's her.
OK, die Faeser Crew aus dem Wahrheitsministerium kann das heute noch nicht. Die brauchen halt mehr
manESpower und haben ja ihre ehrenamtlichen Denunzianten im ganzen Land. Klappt auch.Ist auch besser, schneller und witziger. Bevor du wieder unwissentlich auf hiveans_punkt_com rum pöbelst oder auf Porno Seiten in einseitige Small-Talks verwickelt wirst.
Der Bot ist ja süss, aber wieder sooo unkreativ. Hätte ich da mehr Einblick... Au weia.
Es gäbe die hilfsreichsten Befehle im BC Universum. Von !fuckofthisshit, !kleimian'nmors über !karmaisabitch bis zu !Waatdatwatt-Datwaatwatt wäre für jede Lebenslage was dabei.
Für Nixchecker sogar mit Lernfunktionen: !Joisteinvollstaendigersatz
I won't forget you and will answer tomorrow - there is a lot of explanation needed in your request and I don't have that much time right now... ;-)
Oh, okay, I'll wait for you... 😊
Yes, that's right, in English they don't mark nouns.
In conclusion, I would not worry about the deformation in the structure of the words (in other languages), because what becomes effective is what is used.
In Spanish, in the plural, it is assumed that in the masculine suffixes, they include the feminine by default, so "amigos" include "amigas y amigos".
However, many are not satisfied with this and say that there is an implicit machismo in it.
It may be true right? LOL.
Well, there are some who go further (in Spanish, and I have seen that in English as well, although I have not delved into what letters they use in English) and say that if he is not "feminine" or "masculine" they should not refer with those suffixes, then they have intended to add an intermediate letter that includes the other genders... the "e". The "e" would be a term that replaces the feminine "a" and the masculine "o".
With the "e". We could say "Les amigues" and there we would include the other genres.
Needless to say, this looks so forced, that no one uses it.
And now without wanting to, I fell directly into the problem of gender... Because the solution that is being sought is not to merge masculine and feminine, and integrate the two, but that they want an additional third gender to be included, and by the way I don't know how many genres there are.
But as I have read above in other comments, wouldn't this way of speaking force the differences more? Why so many classifications and categories?
I don't know, but if everyone talked like that, obviously we would all adopt it, but so far I haven't seen it.
Same here. People rather joke about it and use this imposed form for language games and provocation. This is attention that the actual target group definitely does not like. They don't want to stand out as something special, but want to be integrated on an equal footing.
I think so, yes.