this post was submitted on 30 Aug 2023
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[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

Oh gendered pronouns are fun in german.

Especially when combining the male and female version of a word to one gender neutral word.

For example doctor:

Arzt (male) + Ärztin (female) = ärzt'in (Singular) / ärzte'innen (Plural)

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Are you sure? I think for plural it would be ärzt*innen, without the e, but i'm no expert

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I mean there are no formal rules on how to form a gender neutral noun yet afaik, but what you stated is the form that would be used most commonly. Ärzte'innen is definitely nothing that I've seen so far, especially with the ' character. Usually * or : is used

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

I tried using the * but then my text just went bold so yeah

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Could be i wasn't sure about that one

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

You're right but tbh I think it's so silly that using* stars has become the defacto politically correct way to address gendering in the first place. It's such an eyesore

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (2 children)

If you use it, I much prefer a :, like Arbeiter:innen.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago

There's also the Binnen-I, like ArbeiterInnen

[–] [email protected] -2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It's still dumb. When we're at a point where we have to butcher our language with asterisks and colons to please Karens we've gotta admit that the language itself is heavily flawed.

Turns out English and Asian languages without gendered pronouns are simply superior

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

please Karens

what do you mean by that?

gotta admit that the language itself is heavily flawed

Are you proposing to get rid of the German language because it is flawed, instead of adapting it? First time i heard that idea

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

English should absolutely do this you'd end up with some really cool words. Also because Jodorowsky was absolutely right - emperoratrix is a fucking kickass title

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Emperoratrix sounds really clunky to me, -atrix is the feminine counterpart to -ator. Imperator, dominator, navigator, etc. I'm particularly fond of the overextension that is 'alligatrix' myself.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Fine fine, then Emperoress instead. It's what the actual English translation of The Incal uses

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Why not 'Empress', I wonder? Nothing actually wrong with any of the options, just rings strangely to my ears.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Because the entire point was that the character in question is genderless and this was the early 80s and also French so more modern gender neutral terms didn't exist yet, and "let's just smash the two gendered endings together" was his attempt at one (I'm guessing emperoratrix comes from a literal translation from French, where a female emperor is an imperatrice, and -trice is -trix in english, so imperatorice -> emperoratrix) The book also uses s/he as a pronoun instead of they.

I mean hey, it's much more gender neutral than just defaulting to the masculine like say Le Guin did in left hand of darkness

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago