6 ms·

Why did you skip the Swedish example? That's the most similar to this. It's just a shortcut. This is English speaking folks that have adopted a Spanish word an

by jahaja 6y ago

Why did you skip the Swedish example? That's the most similar to this. It's just a shortcut. This is English speaking folks that have adopted a Spanish word and are now making it gender neutral by skipping the last letter. They are under no obligation to continue to follow the the original language's grammar. We would have a major linguistical crises on our hands if that was so.

xyzzyz 6y ago
> Why did you skip the Swedish example? Because I don't know anything about Swedish language :) > This is English speaking folks that have adopted a Spanish word and are now making it gender neutral by skipping the last letter. Which is silly, because "Latinos" is already gender neutral in its actual use, both in Spanish and in English. It declenses in Spanish using masculine form, but as the above example of chair and desk, grammatical gender of a noun doesn't have to say anything about gender of whatever it refers to. It does in the case of the word "latinos", but it only says that the group is not all-female: this is the gender neutral form. > They are under no obligation to keep following the the original language's grammar. Sure, there is no obligation. They could also decide to just call all groups of people from Latin America "Latinas", or just do away with that stem altogether, and just use "Hispanic" instead. Of course, in the former case, the Spanish speakers would be very confused that Americans keep insisting on only referring to females, and in the latter, the Brazilians might get confused why they are now called Hispanic. But, they'd be wrong to have any concerns about this, because languages are completely arbitrary, and Americans are under no obligation to have their language make any sense or be consistent with anything else. The above is, of course, absurd, just like the word "Latinxs". Just use the word Latinos, which is already gender neutral, if you happen to care about it.
- jahaja 6y ago
  > It does in the case of the word "latinos", but it only says that the group is not all-female: this is the gender neutral form. And that requires information about a groups composition ahead of time doesn't it? Anyway, I think it's important to remember that this is English speaking folks that are trying to be more inclusive and finding "Latinos" to refer primarily to a group of males. They may even disagree with the original preference of Spanish to go with Latinos over Latinas for a mixed composition.
  - xyzzyz 6y ago
    > And that requires information about a groups composition ahead of time doesn't it? No, because when you know nothing about composition of the group, you use the gender neutral form (masculine) instead of feminine one. > English speaking folks that are trying to be more inclusive and finding "Latinos" to refer primarily to a group of males. When American use the word “people”, it primarily refers to groups of Americans. Should they be more inclusive and invent a term, say, maybe peoplxs, that includes also non-Americans? That’s absurd, of course.
    - jahaja 6y ago
      > When American use the word “people”, it primarily refers to groups of Americans. Should they be more inclusive and invent a term, say, maybe peoplxs, that includes also non-Americans? That’s absurd, of course. Sorry, but this makes no sense to me at all.
      - xyzzyz 6y ago
        Exactly: just like latinxs.
        jahaja 6y ago
        It's not the same thing?
- dragonwriter 6y ago
  > It does in the case of the word "latinos", but it only says that the group is not all-female: It doesn't even say that; it only means that the groups is not known to be all-female, as the masculine grammatical gender is used for indeterminate as well as mixed human gender. > The above is, of course, absurd, just like the word "Latinxs". Just use the word Latinos, which is already gender neutral, if you happen to care about it. Or, since Latinx is an adjective (not a noun), use “Latin” which American English, at least, already did before adopting the Spanish Latino/Latina. If we're dropping it for a non-Spanish gender-neutral English adjective with the same meaning, why not revert to the one we were using before that was only dropped to respect the language of the described population?
rayiner 6y ago
> This is English speaking folks that have adopted a Spanish word and are now making it gender neutral by skipping the last letter. They are under no obligation to continue to follow the the original language's grammar. Don’t you see how that makes it worse? The English word-Latin—is already gender neutral! Americans adopted “Latino” as gesture to the large number of Spanish speakers living in America. It’s not just a borrowed word Americans happen to use, it’s a word used to refer to a large Spanish-speaking minority group living in the country.
- jahaja 6y ago
  But "Latin" is ambiguous and normally not used to describe people of Latin-American decent, at least not in Europe, and the emphasis in America seem to be towards Spanish speaking countries rather than the Latin/Romance languages as a whole.

by jahaja 6y ago

xyzzyz 6y ago

> Why did you skip the Swedish example? Because I don't know anything about Swedish language :) > This is English speaking folks that have adopted a Spanish word and are now making it gender neutral by skipping the last letter. Which is silly, because "Latinos" is already gender neutral in its actual use, both in Spanish and in English. It declenses in Spanish using masculine form, but as the above example of chair and desk, grammatical gender of a noun doesn't have to say anything about gender of whatever it refers to. It does in the case of the word "latinos", but it only says that the group is not all-female: this is the gender neutral form. > They are under no obligation to keep following the the original language's grammar. Sure, there is no obligation. They could also decide to just call all groups of people from Latin America "Latinas", or just do away with that stem altogether, and just use "Hispanic" instead. Of course, in the former case, the Spanish speakers would be very confused that Americans keep insisting on only referring to females, and in the latter, the Brazilians might get confused why they are now called Hispanic. But, they'd be wrong to have any concerns about this, because languages are completely arbitrary, and Americans are under no obligation to have their language make any sense or be consistent with anything else. The above is, of course, absurd, just like the word "Latinxs". Just use the word Latinos, which is already gender neutral, if you happen to care about it.

jahaja 6y ago
> It does in the case of the word "latinos", but it only says that the group is not all-female: this is the gender neutral form. And that requires information about a groups composition ahead of time doesn't it? Anyway, I think it's important to remember that this is English speaking folks that are trying to be more inclusive and finding "Latinos" to refer primarily to a group of males. They may even disagree with the original preference of Spanish to go with Latinos over Latinas for a mixed composition.
- xyzzyz 6y ago
  > And that requires information about a groups composition ahead of time doesn't it? No, because when you know nothing about composition of the group, you use the gender neutral form (masculine) instead of feminine one. > English speaking folks that are trying to be more inclusive and finding "Latinos" to refer primarily to a group of males. When American use the word “people”, it primarily refers to groups of Americans. Should they be more inclusive and invent a term, say, maybe peoplxs, that includes also non-Americans? That’s absurd, of course.
  - jahaja 6y ago
    > When American use the word “people”, it primarily refers to groups of Americans. Should they be more inclusive and invent a term, say, maybe peoplxs, that includes also non-Americans? That’s absurd, of course. Sorry, but this makes no sense to me at all.
    - xyzzyz 6y ago
      Exactly: just like latinxs.
      - jahaja 6y ago
        It's not the same thing?
dragonwriter 6y ago
> It does in the case of the word "latinos", but it only says that the group is not all-female: It doesn't even say that; it only means that the groups is not known to be all-female, as the masculine grammatical gender is used for indeterminate as well as mixed human gender. > The above is, of course, absurd, just like the word "Latinxs". Just use the word Latinos, which is already gender neutral, if you happen to care about it. Or, since Latinx is an adjective (not a noun), use “Latin” which American English, at least, already did before adopting the Spanish Latino/Latina. If we're dropping it for a non-Spanish gender-neutral English adjective with the same meaning, why not revert to the one we were using before that was only dropped to respect the language of the described population?

rayiner 6y ago

> This is English speaking folks that have adopted a Spanish word and are now making it gender neutral by skipping the last letter. They are under no obligation to continue to follow the the original language's grammar. Don’t you see how that makes it worse? The English word-Latin—is already gender neutral! Americans adopted “Latino” as gesture to the large number of Spanish speakers living in America. It’s not just a borrowed word Americans happen to use, it’s a word used to refer to a large Spanish-speaking minority group living in the country.

jahaja 6y ago
But "Latin" is ambiguous and normally not used to describe people of Latin-American decent, at least not in Europe, and the emphasis in America seem to be towards Spanish speaking countries rather than the Latin/Romance languages as a whole.