OK, this is a question I've been meaning to ask for *ages*, but have never quite got 'round to...

In gendered languages - French, Spanish and so on - what do transgendered people do? Is there some obscure genderless set of nouns, adjectives etc. that people can use but are just never taught, or do you have to explain your situation and that you *do* know that a female is contente/contenta and how to change words' genders, but that you personally are contentwithoutthe'e' or contentowithan'o'notan'a'? *Is* there a way to escape the feminine-masculine of binary-gendered languages?

Merci beaucoup ,

Lutin

I've wondered that too.

As I understand it, most Western Gendered Languages are disgustingly patriarchal will use feminine word endings for feminine nouns, masculine word endings for masculine nouns, and for neutral, it's masculine endings too.


what about saying, "i know a girl is ________. I'm _________." and looking at them as if they're confused?

Well, my maternal language is Spanish, and adjectives have to agree in gender and number with the noun it modifies.  In Spanish, an adjective usually ends in (~o) for masculine (plural ~os), and (~a) for feminine (plural ~as).  To put it bluntly, people just have to get used to it.  Period!  There's no other way "around" it.  It takes effort, determination, and understanding on people's part, yet everything falls into place in time!  .

tink

Quote from: Tink on September 06, 2008, 06:35:09 PM
Well, my maternal language is Spanish, and adjectives have to agree in gender and number with the noun it modifies.  In Spanish, an adjective usually ends in (~o) for masculine (plural ~os), and (~a) for feminine (plural ~as).  To put it bluntly, people just have to get used to it.  Period!  There's no other way "around" it.  It takes effort, determination, and understanding on people's part, yet everything falls into place in time!  .

tink

I speak Chicano!!

Quote from: iFindMeHere on September 06, 2008, 06:43:58 PM

Quote from: Tink on September 06, 2008, 06:35:09 PM
Well, my maternal language is Spanish, and adjectives have to agree in gender and number with the noun it modifies.  In Spanish, an adjective usually ends in (~o) for masculine (plural ~os), and (~a) for feminine (plural ~as).  To put it bluntly, people just have to get used to it.  Period!  There's no other way "around" it.  It takes effort, determination, and understanding on people's part, yet everything falls into place in time!  .

tink

I speak Chicano!!

LOL    what is that supposed to be? Spanglish?

tink

Quote from: Tink on September 06, 2008, 06:45:12 PM

Quote from: iFindMeHere on September 06, 2008, 06:43:58 PM

Quote from: Tink on September 06, 2008, 06:35:09 PM
Well, my maternal language is Spanish, and adjectives have to agree in gender and number with the noun it modifies.  In Spanish, an adjective usually ends in (~o) for masculine (plural ~os), and (~a) for feminine (plural ~as).  To put it bluntly, people just have to get used to it.  Period!  There's no other way "around" it.  It takes effort, determination, and understanding on people's part, yet everything falls into place in time!  .

tink

I speak Chicano!!

LOL    what is that supposed to be? Spanglish?

tink

ugh. NO. Chicano is an american subdialect related to more archaic mexican spanish. its it's own language.

Quote from: Tink on September 06, 2008, 06:35:09 PM
Well, my maternal language is Spanish, and adjectives have to agree in gender and number with the noun it modifies.  In Spanish, an adjective usually ends in (~o) for masculine (plural ~os), and (~a) for feminine (plural ~as).  To put it bluntly, people just have to get used to it.  Period!  There's no other way "around" it.  It takes effort, determination, and understanding on people's part, yet everything falls into place in time!  .

tink

Hey Tink - how difficult was it to get used changing all your words like that? Or for a Spanish speaker, is it no difficult than just changing pronouns because it's automatic?

My landlady is Japanese.  When she is speaking English, she occasionally gets gendered pronouns wrong.  It's always in an area where the Japanese language is genderless.  Don't get your hopes up, though.  There are areas where it is gendered, and then her pronouns are spot-on.

I was told that German is so strongly gendered that inanimate objects (and some common animal types) have genders -- male, female, and neuter.  I know a train is male ('Der Zug').

Quote from: about.comForget linking gender to a specific meaning or concept. Although nouns for people often follow natural gender, there are exceptions such as das Mädchen, girl. There are three different German words for "ocean" or "sea"—all a different gender: der Ozean, das Meer, die See! And gender does not transfer well from one language to another. The word for "sun" is masculine in Spanish (el sol) but feminine in German (die Sonne). A German moon is masculine (der Mond), while a Spanish moon is feminine (la luna). It's enough to drive an English-speaker crazy!

If anything, this discussion seems to be getting more gendered, not less...

Karen

Quote from: Lutin on September 06, 2008, 04:07:35 PM
*Is* there a way to escape the feminine-masculine of binary-gendered languages?

We could all just speak Danish.

Quote from: Nero on September 07, 2008, 01:48:31 AM

Quote from: Tink on September 06, 2008, 06:35:09 PM
Well, my maternal language is Spanish, and adjectives have to agree in gender and number with the noun it modifies.  In Spanish, an adjective usually ends in (~o) for masculine (plural ~os), and (~a) for feminine (plural ~as).  To put it bluntly, people just have to get used to it.  Period!  There's no other way "around" it.  It takes effort, determination, and understanding on people's part, yet everything falls into place in time!  .

tink

Hey Tink - how difficult was it to get used changing all your words like that? Or for a Spanish speaker, is it no difficult than just changing pronouns because it's automatic?

For me, it wasn't difficult at all! For others, well...that's a different story.  Mostly everyone gets the pronouns correct at first (i.e, she, her, hers); however, if they keep on utilizing male adjectives when referring to a female, then there is a big problem, and it needs to be corrected immediately.  All the Romance languages (Spanish, French, Italian, Portuguese, Romanian, Catalan, and all the others) follow the same pattern; they're very sexist and rather discriminatory against the female gender.  For instance, if there are 1000 adult females in a room, and a male toddler enters the same room, the group in itself has to be addressed with male pronouns and adjectives; otherwise it is considered offensive for the male baby!

Also inanimate objects (basically all the things you see) have a gender in Spanish.  A table and a window are female while a glass and a tree are male, etc, etc, etc.  But you know what the funny thing is?  that in Spanish, testosterone is female and estrogen is male.  LOL    weird, eh?

tink

Quote from: Lisbeth on September 07, 2008, 07:42:40 AM

Quote from: Lutin on September 06, 2008, 04:07:35 PM
*Is* there a way to escape the feminine-masculine of binary-gendered languages?

We could all just speak Danish.

Whys that?

Posted on: September 07, 2008, 07:47:25 PM

---

Quote from: Tink on September 07, 2008, 02:56:07 PMBut you know what the funny thing is?  that in Spanish, testosterone is female and estrogen is male.  LOL    weird, eh?

tink

 

Quote from: iFindMeHere on September 07, 2008, 07:52:39 PM

Quote from: Lisbeth on September 07, 2008, 07:42:40 AM

Quote from: Lutin on September 06, 2008, 04:07:35 PM
*Is* there a way to escape the feminine-masculine of binary-gendered languages?

We could all just speak Danish.

Whys that?

Danish has two genders: Common and Neutral.  Common is for beings. Neutral is for things.

I don't know which language is MORE gendered spanish or french, from
my own limited knowledge of spanish, I'd say french pushes a bit further.

There are language like Russian where if the person has to mentally switch
everything to a different gender it will be very painful since it affects
words used (the words sometimes don't even look the same) and
even how the sentence is constructed (not sure how that came about in
the language's history?).

Quote from: Lisbeth on September 08, 2008, 05:48:08 AM

Quote from: iFindMeHere on September 07, 2008, 07:52:39 PM

Quote from: Lisbeth on September 07, 2008, 07:42:40 AM

Quote from: Lutin on September 06, 2008, 04:07:35 PM
*Is* there a way to escape the feminine-masculine of binary-gendered languages?

We could all just speak Danish.

Whys that?

Danish has two genders: Common and Neutral.  Common is for beings. Neutral is for things.

Yep lets learn Danish.

Quote from: Keira on September 08, 2008, 07:22:36 AM
I don't know which language is MORE gendered spanish or french, from
my own limited knowledge of spanish, I'd say french pushes a bit further.

There are language like Russian where if the person has to mentally switch
everything to a different gender it will be very painful since it affects
words used (the words sometimes don't even look the same) and
even how the sentence is constructed (not sure how that came about in
the language's history?).

uh oh. i'm going to have a hard time with some relatives then.

I always feel lame when I come late into the discussion and [right now] am too busy to read them all.
I have homework, and i just wanted to check up on everything heh.
Uhm, I'm in ESPANOL DOS! This year... and I'm changing everything from -a endings to -o endings and it's really hard.
But as for neutral? I'm thinkin'.... no.
Sorry...

But then again, I came out to the teachers and my grade... I dunno, it's all weird.
But my Spanish teacher was walking down the hall that my locker was in, and another girl was standing there and she was like "Hola Chicas!" I was like -criiiiingeee-

Quote from: Adrien on September 08, 2008, 05:29:12 PM
I always feel lame when I come late into the discussion and [right now] am too busy to read them all.
I have homework, and i just wanted to check up on everything heh.
Uhm, I'm in ESPANOL DOS! This year... and I'm changing everything from -a endings to -o endings and it's really hard.
But as for neutral? I'm thinkin'.... no.
Sorry...

But then again, I came out to the teachers and my grade... I dunno, it's all weird.
But my Spanish teacher was walking down the hall that my locker was in, and another girl was standing there and she was like "Hola Chicas!" I was like -criiiiingeee-

yup.

Quote from: Adrien on September 08, 2008, 05:29:12 PM
I'm in ESPANOL DOS! This year... and I'm changing everything from -a endings to -o endings and it's really hard.

I would imagine so! and incidentally how would you change the following simple, Spanish sentences from ~a endings to the masculine form:

* Esa chica era artista
* Aquella activista es idealista

LOL 


tink