this post was submitted on 27 Feb 2024
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Inclusive language is the dumbest fucking thing anyone tried to do to the Spanish language. For those not familiar, Spanish is a gendered language, words ending in -o are male and words ending in -a are female (not a steadfast rule there are tons of exceptions). "Academics" with too much time want to change words to a gender neutral ending -e. And it sounds so fucking stupid.
Spanish speakers could have dropped all the final vowels and basically speak Catalan "los ciudadanos" > "els ciutadans", easy! two problems (gender inclusivity and secession of Catalonia) solved at once.../s
But the Catalan articles are still gendered
What puzzles me is that many IALs/conlangs based on the Romance languages (Interlingua, Elefen, etc.) insist on having a definite article (either la or le) when it could as well be dropped.
Yeah, some Catalan politicians say “els ciutadans i les ciutadanes”, much like some Spanish politicians say “los ciudadanos y las ciudadanas”. Romance languages tend to have gendered nouns (and by extension articles). 🤷♂️
Tsk, tsk, this willow wants to get rid of THE definite article, but they're too afraid to even say it.
You are right, I don't speak Catalan and I was trying to downplay a little on a topic which is dramatic (not for the language per se but for the people who can be hurt by it). Auxlangs, being designed for a purpose, could make some little more effort towards inclusiveness. And that would be one of the few reason to prefer them to natlangs (e.g. for institutional communications).