More at:
French dictionary accused of ‘wokeism’ over gender-inclusive pronoun
Education minister condemns use of ‘iel’, saying inclusive writing is not the future of the French language
www.theguardian.com
Exclude if old
-
Ever wanted an RSS feed of all your favorite gaming news sites? Go check out our new Gaming Headlines feed! Read more about it here.
-
We have made minor adjustments to how the search bar works on ResetEra. You can read about the changes here.
French dictionary accused of "wokeism" over gender-inclusive pronoun
- Thread starter DiipuSurotu
- Start date
- News
More at:
www.theguardian.com
Exclude if old
OP
OP
Further context:
www.lgbtqnation.com
Major French dictionary adds non-binary pronouns for the first time
The pronouns
www.lgbtqnation.com
We have a similar debacle with the Spanish language, the RAE refuses to accept the e as a gender neutral vocal but at the same time has no problem adding slang and more useless terms, a lot of people defend that by saying that is ruining the sanctity of language or some garbage like that.
nothing says "unity and equality" like banning people trying to get comfortable with themselves through language
"This is an insult to our language. Now someone please give me a definition for twerk, pogchamp, and NFT to inscribe in our dictionary."
How are gender-exclusive nouns/pronouns aspects of "unity and equality"?
wouldn't equality/unity denote the redundancy of such terms?
France has to work very, very hard to enforce the idea that there is long-lived French identity and French language and French "ideals," when in fact their land has been a weird messy crossroads for wildly different peoples throughout history, and the present nation is a useful figment.
OP
OP
OP
OP
I'm sure 99% of the population has never heard of the word to begin with
The thing that concerns me is that, due to the Academie Francaise, as I understand it there's actually a possibility of *official* recognition of this one way or the other - and they're famously rather strict.
Out of interest, when a new noun turns up, how is its linguistic gender determined?
Out of interest, when a new noun turns up, how is its linguistic gender determined?
OP
OP
The Academie Francaise has no authority on the French language. Their opinion is meaningless.
Their recognition is meaningless, the real language is the one spoken by the people..
It's gonna take more then just Iel for the French language to be gender inclusive. Every single word in our language has a gender to begin with.
"iel" est un changement bienvenue, qu'il soit accepté va simplifier la vie. C'est aussi plus élégant qu'écrire il/elle, ou simplement y aller au "il" à la seconde qu'un homme est dans le groupe. C'est une des rares situations où le français peut s'aider en ce qui attrait à rendre la langue plus inclusive sans changement majeur. Le pire côté de la langue inclusive en français c'est l'utilisation des "." comme par exemple "professeur.es" au lieu de juste ramener au masculin les noms.
Les langues évoluent, les langues changent. Tous ces changement vont se faire critiquer jusqu'à ce qu'ils deviennent la norme, ou simplement accepté, et après on passe à autre chose. Je pense honnêtement qu'une grande partie de la haine autour de "iel" n'est pas simplement dûe à de la transphobie, du sexisme ou du anti-wokisme. Y'a simplement encore beaucoup de gens qui ne comprennent pas le principe d'une langue évolutive.
Perso, j'utilise "iel" depuis un moment déjà, ça rend les textes plus beaux et c'est plus simple. C'est une adaptation très facile. Maintenant, s'attaquer au genre de tous les mots on peut pas s'en sortir à moins de changer la langue du tout au tout.
Les langues évoluent, les langues changent. Tous ces changement vont se faire critiquer jusqu'à ce qu'ils deviennent la norme, ou simplement accepté, et après on passe à autre chose. Je pense honnêtement qu'une grande partie de la haine autour de "iel" n'est pas simplement dûe à de la transphobie, du sexisme ou du anti-wokisme. Y'a simplement encore beaucoup de gens qui ne comprennent pas le principe d'une langue évolutive.
Perso, j'utilise "iel" depuis un moment déjà, ça rend les textes plus beaux et c'est plus simple. C'est une adaptation très facile. Maintenant, s'attaquer au genre de tous les mots on peut pas s'en sortir à moins de changer la langue du tout au tout.
OP
OP
It just takes the gender of the original word the new word is derived from.
In the case of a foreign word being adopted into the French language, the gender can fluctuate (for example some people say "la covid" and some people say "le covid").
That's a fair point, I know they've been cited a few times as being somewhat behind actual real-world usage on a given subject, and far too insular.
User Banned (1 Month): Transphobia
What does a gender neutral pronoun have to do with transgender people?
Imagine having not grown out of prescriptive linguistics at 56.
France is unified and equal, French is a gendered language, therefore gendered language is unified and equal.
No you see, inclusivity is the opposite of unity and equality because by trying to include and make everyone feel welcome we're somehow pitting people against each other, as opposed to demonizing certain groups which will lead to unity because reasons /s
But seriously, it's because these people can't comprehend the idea of different values and ideas coexisting peacefully with tolerance, so they tell themselves their bigotry is justified because surely the only way for people to get along is to make everyone conform to their specific viewpoint, because if everyone is exactly the same nobody would fight (even though this is completely impossible and doesn't even work in practice since divisions will inevitably form over time anyways even if you did unify things at one point)
OP
OP
Par curiosité, tu accordes comment en utilisant iel ? Iel est beau/belle, par exemple. Ou iel est mon/ma professeur.
People who use they/them/non-binary pronouns are generally included in the transgender umbrella
English native speakers, especially English-only speakers, should understand that gendered and inflectional languages work differently at a fundamental level than English, and that grammatical gender and gender are two different things. In a gendered language like French, every noun, pronoun and adjective is gendered. So even if you use a word that refers to a genderless thing like a house or a chair, the noun itself and the pronouns and adjectives that modify it are gendered as well.
In English, gender-neutral pronouns already existed, so extending their usage to refer to individual people is a much easier process than introducing a third category into a grammatical system that only had two categories previously. You then need to think about what to do with plural pronouns, adjectives etc..
Language evolves, but some changes come easier in some languages compared to others, simply due to the fundamental grammar being different. Usage by the French-speaking population will decide whether "iel" as a pronoun, and a third grammatical category for gender, will be established in the lexicon or not. This is not a process that will happen over-night.
In English, gender-neutral pronouns already existed, so extending their usage to refer to individual people is a much easier process than introducing a third category into a grammatical system that only had two categories previously. You then need to think about what to do with plural pronouns, adjectives etc..
Language evolves, but some changes come easier in some languages compared to others, simply due to the fundamental grammar being different. Usage by the French-speaking population will decide whether "iel" as a pronoun, and a third grammatical category for gender, will be established in the lexicon or not. This is not a process that will happen over-night.
J'utilise "iel" dans des contextes plus professionnels où j'utiliserais il/elle et où j'utilise le langage inclusif avec les ".". Plus récemment dans des offres d'emplois, par exemple.
Je ne l'utilise pas de manière courante, ça reste assez rare comme situation "il/elle" dans une conversation "normale" orale ou écrite et l'écriture inclusive est honnêtement lourde à utiliser en tout temps. Et comme j'ai dis, je trouve que ça rend juste l'écriture plus difficile à comprendre, à lire et à suivre. Je crois que le français se doit de faire un effort d'être plus inclusif, mais la réalité c'est que rendre la langue agenre quand on parle de personnes demanderait une refonte complète de la langue, c'est pas simple. Utiliser le masculin par défaut rend tout beaucoup plus simple.
Peut-être que la réponse serait de simplement y aller avec la version qu'on veut? Garder les genres pour des objets, simplement pour la fluidité/cohérence et laisser les gens choisir s'ils veulent utiliser enseignant ou enseignante, ne plus avoir de "défaut" masculin. Mais ça soulève encore le point qu'il y a des gens non-binaires qui ne se retrouvent pas plus là-dedans. Je suis pas linguiste et je sors pas mal tout ça de mon cul présentement.
Bref, c'est un gros sujet haha
Oui, l'idée d'avoir a inventer une version neutre de plusieurs centaines de noms pour rendre le langage agenre semble vraiment vouée à l'echec. L'espagnol est aussi une langue dans laquelle les noms ont des genres, mais avec la grande différence que le masculin adopte la terminaison "o" et le féminim la terminaison "a", du coup l'apparition du langage inclusif a simplement consistée à adopter une terminaison neutre "e" ou "i". Pour le français je vois pas de raccourci malheureusement.
nobody is expecting it to happen overnight and that's not what the discussion is about, so I don't get what your point is. Saying something is hard in and of itself is not really a justification for why somebody would be actively against something like this, and has nothing to do with why this conversation is happening or what's being discussed here
Further context: they added it to the online version of the dictionary, and explicitly said that theirs was a descriptive, not prescriptive approach to cataloguing words.
Also, if that clown of an education minister new his history, he would know that French was more inclusive in the middle ages, before the creation of the Academy and its deliberate push towards the masculinization of the language.
Also, if that clown of an education minister new his history, he would know that French was more inclusive in the middle ages, before the creation of the Academy and its deliberate push towards the masculinization of the language.
OP
OP
Even in job offers, how frequently do you need to use il/elle/iel instead of just "vous"?
You can also use "les gens", "la personne", "les personnes", "tout le monde", etc. These words have a grammatical gender but are still inclusive (for example if you start with "la personne", you can subsequently refer to them as "elle" and that wouldn't be controversial at all).
Haha je vois merci. Et oui justement vu le bordel que ça crée niveau linguistique d'utiliser un pronom non-genré, je suis curieux de voir comment ils vont faire évoluer ça.
Genre on a des jeux qui arrivent qui vont proposer l'option non-binaire. Pour avoir travaillé dans la localisation, je n'envie pas ceux qui auront la tâche d'adapter ça en français.
OP
OP
Wait, they only added it to the online version? :o
As for the education minister, he probably considers that the French language before the Academy was prehistoric or wasn't real French or something lol
I think understanding that to have a gender neutral version of french you would need to invent hundreds of adjectives and nouns is a pretty important fact if you want to assess the obstacles that lay in the way.
Last edited:
People like Blanquer (and the Académie's old farts) treat our language as if it's something that should never change, a holy relic that appeared ex nihilo and is absolutely perfect.
Yet, when you study how it evolved from classic latin, it has gone through so many changes, most of them directly caused by ordinary folks' usages. Some other were pretty dumb, like the re-latinisation during the 16th century.
Anyway, Beluga man is a dumbass.
Yet, when you study how it evolved from classic latin, it has gone through so many changes, most of them directly caused by ordinary folks' usages. Some other were pretty dumb, like the re-latinisation during the 16th century.
Anyway, Beluga man is a dumbass.
Ok, but that's not what's being discussed here in the first place which is why I'm saying it's not relevant. This isn't a discussion about how we would get a gender neutral version of french, hell it isn't even a discussion about creating one in the first place (since including gender neutral pronouns for people doesn't mean we have to change every other word. Not to mention my understanding of gendered languages from my experience with latin is that the difference tends to be a suffix attached to the word, so it's not nearly as hard to alter on a fundamental level since you'd be making a simple substitution that could be pretty much universally applied)
But this arguement isn't about that, it's about a high government official pushing back at the attempt of including a single form of more inclusive language, not a discussion on the practicality or difficulties of changing the language. Again, whether it's easy or hard is irrelevant here and nobody is expecting the language to change over night
OP
OP
Personally I think the only downside with "iel" is that it's a bit hard to pronounce. If you say it fast, chances are people will actually hear "il" or "elle" instead of what you wanted to say. It's not like "they" in English which is blatantly different than "he" and "she".
But it's still better than having no gender-inclusive pronoun at all.
But it's still better than having no gender-inclusive pronoun at all.
OK, I generally agree with you but, speaking as a Slavic language user, the bolded makes laugh out loud. You have no fucking clue, gender is a fucking nightmare grammar wise.