Author Topic: The politics of language  (Read 532 times)

Hawkmoon

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The politics of language
« on: December 02, 2021, 02:57:23 PM »
The French have decided that there are only two [liguistic] genders: masculine and feminine.

https://www.rt.com/op-ed/541774-france-importing-wokisme-gender-fail/

For once, I agree with the French.

Quote
A movement for so-called “inclusive writing” has butted heads with France’s famously conservative Académie française, which described any changes put forth by the would-be reformers as “harmful to the practice and intelligibility of the French language.”

That hasn’t stopped a small but determined contingent from attempting to adopt a genderless pronoun, importing “le wokisme” from the US with the neologism “iel” (a mixture between the masculine “il” and the feminine “elle”).

It’s not going so well for iel, though. Center-right legislator François Jolivet has spearheaded a campaign to keep the gender-neutral pronoun out of Le Petit Robert dictionary, declaring its inclusion to be a form of “militancy” – “you legitimize words, you legitimize thoughts,” he said, describing himself in an interview with the French press as “a tolerant man convinced that ‘iel’ was the wrong battle.” 
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100% Politically Incorrect by Design

zahc

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Re: The politics of language
« Reply #1 on: December 02, 2021, 08:55:16 PM »
Whatever the academy says doesn't really matter. The academy is almost a joke organization. It's like a few guys. None of them are even linguists or have any credentials.

Plenty of people out there on the internet writing things stupidly trying to be inclusive. I don't think it will catch on because you can't pronounce most of the mutant words.

The education system seem to be against it, typically claiming they already have a hard enough time teaching kids (including lots of immigrants) to spell standard French, and introducing more words that aren't part of standard French and words they don't even use it a literacy barrier.

Some French feminist a long time ago said "on ne naît pas femme, on le devient" (we aren't born Woman, we become it).

I don't think French people really notice, but it's an infamous phrase for students of french because "femme" is a feminine noun, but when you refer to the generic concept of "femme" you still use masculine gender (it/le) to refer to it...
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230RN

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Re: The politics of language
« Reply #2 on: December 03, 2021, 06:36:01 PM »
We ought to put this woke stuff back to sleep.