I’ve never understood LatinX. Is it supposed to be a gender neural Latino/Latina? I’m only a Spanish beginner but I’m fairly sure Latino can be masculine and gender neutral.
“LatinX” was indeed the first attempt at a gender neutral description. “Latino” is still considered by many native speakers to be “neutral”, but the most feasible solution I’ve seen popping up is the “latine” (as in “estudiante”, “vigilante”, etc). Since it uses an explicitly non-gendered suffix, it is more correctly inclusive than the “latino”. It will take a while though, und until it is really widely adopted.
“Latino” is still considered by many native speakers to be “neutral”
So like, is there any sizeable Latin community actually calling for a gender neutral term or is this just a middle-class white people thing? Because as a white person I’ve never seen anyone push for this other than white people and it just seems like a white savior/ daddy knows best thing. But my experience is just my experience
There are some people who identify as Latinx. Pew puts it at 2-3% of Latin Americans, usually those who are non-binary.
I think the reason that it has the astroturfed white middle class vibe is that it’s really been pushed by corporate culture for whatever reason, who use it as catch all for all Latin Americans which clearly doesn’t line up with how the majority self-identify.
That is what I myself thought on the first place, but it’s more of a “global” movement. It’s not just “white people”, but rather also native Spanish speakers learning nuances of other languages, plus Gender Studies research, etc.
I swear I replied to this and then both my reply and your comment disappeared 🤷🏼♀️
Thank you for the explanation. Is “le” as an indirect object pronoun the same kind of gender neutral example? I’m really struggling with that atm. Every noun is going to be gendered except him and her?! I suck at languages.
Well, I’m no expert. I just enjoy learning languages and am a native Spanish speaker myself. With regards to the grammar I’m quit lost in my own language, but I can tell you this:
“le” is was and always has been neutral. It and the other examples I gave are just the basis that shows that Spanish is capable of implementing gender neutrality/equality.
I don’t know if you know any Spanish, but every single noun is already gendered. This is more about pronouns getting another third person singular pronoun, and also trying to expand the base of the language and noun or adjectives that are already gendered to include this gender neutrality + equality.
I hope I could answer your question properly, but of not, feel free to elaborate.
Thanks for that! I’ve been learning Spanish for about a year now, but on my own and I don’t know anyone who speaks it. I’m very much still a beginner. I learnt French at school so the idea of gendered nouns wasn’t so much of a problem, but for someone reason indirect object pronouns (I also had no idea what this meant in my native tongue!) have been tripping me up.
“Me gusta mucha esta falda, pero le no quiero comprar” for example. I don’t understand why I’m using “le” when the “it” I’m talking about is feminine.
Or if I want to say “I’ll ask her for her number” it’s “le pediré su numero” (I think, I’m not sure I’ve got the verb form for pedir correct). But what if a boy and girl are standing next to each other, how do you know I’m talking about her if le is gender neutral?
And then sometimes duolingo tells me it’s “la” and I have no idea why! Duo isn’t great for learning more than the basics imo though. I’m sure it will become more natural/easier/I’ll stop over thinking it eventually. It seems like such a silly thing to get caught on, but here I am!
I’ve spoken about this in a learn Spanish sub and someone recommended a book called “English grammar for students of Spanish” or something similar and it’s SO helpful, because no one has ever taught me what an “indirect object pronoun” is in English so it made it really difficult to even describe what I didn’t understand, if that makes sense? Clearly I need to read some more of that book!
Well, a couple things to correct:
“me gusta esta falda, pero no la quiero comprar” (la falda, therefore feminine “la”, so you were correct in your assumption :))
“Le pediré su número”, is more roughly transated to
“I’ll ask for their number”, which like in English might shine some light on how you could be more specific, by providing extra information about the indirect object in question in your sentence to remove uncertainty:
“Le pediré su número a él/a ella” (in your two cases)
Like I said, I’m no good when it comes to grammar, but I can tell you, that there are just so many languages, and many have features that others just don’t (like Russian has no article (definite or indefinite), Arabic has verbs that depend on the gender of the speaker, etc). With Spanish I just know that the biggest hurdles are the past tense, and the gerundive, but I can’t really point you to a good resource other than a book I kind of saw a while back: Pons. I read the “german version” (I think) for learning Spanish (I was tutoring at the time), and it was quite informative but dense. Maybe there’s something for you there as well.
I don’t know where you come from or what languages (apart from English) you might speak, but:
“Latin” in Spanish means the same on English: Latin, as in the sense of the language spoken by the romans. I don’t think there is a single Spanish speaking country that calls latine “latin”.
Most languages (including Spanish) have gendered nouns. German even has 3. Swedish has 2 (although those are “common” and “neutral”.
Language evolves with time. It’s not “professors teaching new words”, it’s actually society coming up with new words. The Swedish even got themselves (relatively recently) a new third person pronoun noun specifically for a neutrally gendered/ungendered person. It is now part of the language’s standards. Even the Germans are having quite difficulty trying to make their nouns more inclusive, since (like Spanish) most nouns are used in a “masculine is the standard” (for lack of a better description).
It was first seen in online queer activist circles around 2004. You can read a little about it here. Latino is traditionally masc/neutral but English style guides also said the same about “he” when referring to someone of unknown or unspecified gender for a long time, which has largely fallen out of use for singular “they” now.
Personally, I don’t use Latinx in writing to refer to all Latinos/Latinas as polling has shown only 2-3% of people readily identify with it. But I do think you absolutely should use it if that’s how someone personally identifies.
For some reason people get violently ill when they see someone use pronouns on the internet, so they came up with an alternative words so that their ideas match up with reality.
I’ve never understood LatinX. Is it supposed to be a gender neural Latino/Latina? I’m only a Spanish beginner but I’m fairly sure Latino can be masculine and gender neutral.
“LatinX” was indeed the first attempt at a gender neutral description. “Latino” is still considered by many native speakers to be “neutral”, but the most feasible solution I’ve seen popping up is the “latine” (as in “estudiante”, “vigilante”, etc). Since it uses an explicitly non-gendered suffix, it is more correctly inclusive than the “latino”. It will take a while though, und until it is really widely adopted.
So like, is there any sizeable Latin community actually calling for a gender neutral term or is this just a middle-class white people thing? Because as a white person I’ve never seen anyone push for this other than white people and it just seems like a white savior/ daddy knows best thing. But my experience is just my experience
There are some people who identify as Latinx. Pew puts it at 2-3% of Latin Americans, usually those who are non-binary.
I think the reason that it has the astroturfed white middle class vibe is that it’s really been pushed by corporate culture for whatever reason, who use it as catch all for all Latin Americans which clearly doesn’t line up with how the majority self-identify.
My experience is also your experience.
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I am trans and Latina and it is totally a thing. We have queer people too, we come in all the normal colors and a few weird ones too.
That is what I myself thought on the first place, but it’s more of a “global” movement. It’s not just “white people”, but rather also native Spanish speakers learning nuances of other languages, plus Gender Studies research, etc.
There is John Leguizamo, though it definitely feels like he’s trying to manage his waning popularity as a c-lister.
I never liked him much until he guest hosted the Daily Show earlier this year. He was terrific.
I swear I replied to this and then both my reply and your comment disappeared 🤷🏼♀️
Thank you for the explanation. Is “le” as an indirect object pronoun the same kind of gender neutral example? I’m really struggling with that atm. Every noun is going to be gendered except him and her?! I suck at languages.
Well, I’m no expert. I just enjoy learning languages and am a native Spanish speaker myself. With regards to the grammar I’m quit lost in my own language, but I can tell you this:
I hope I could answer your question properly, but of not, feel free to elaborate.
Thanks for that! I’ve been learning Spanish for about a year now, but on my own and I don’t know anyone who speaks it. I’m very much still a beginner. I learnt French at school so the idea of gendered nouns wasn’t so much of a problem, but for someone reason indirect object pronouns (I also had no idea what this meant in my native tongue!) have been tripping me up.
“Me gusta mucha esta falda, pero le no quiero comprar” for example. I don’t understand why I’m using “le” when the “it” I’m talking about is feminine.
Or if I want to say “I’ll ask her for her number” it’s “le pediré su numero” (I think, I’m not sure I’ve got the verb form for pedir correct). But what if a boy and girl are standing next to each other, how do you know I’m talking about her if le is gender neutral?
And then sometimes duolingo tells me it’s “la” and I have no idea why! Duo isn’t great for learning more than the basics imo though. I’m sure it will become more natural/easier/I’ll stop over thinking it eventually. It seems like such a silly thing to get caught on, but here I am!
I’ve spoken about this in a learn Spanish sub and someone recommended a book called “English grammar for students of Spanish” or something similar and it’s SO helpful, because no one has ever taught me what an “indirect object pronoun” is in English so it made it really difficult to even describe what I didn’t understand, if that makes sense? Clearly I need to read some more of that book!
Well, a couple things to correct: “me gusta esta falda, pero no la quiero comprar” (la falda, therefore feminine “la”, so you were correct in your assumption :))
“Le pediré su número”, is more roughly transated to “I’ll ask for their number”, which like in English might shine some light on how you could be more specific, by providing extra information about the indirect object in question in your sentence to remove uncertainty: “Le pediré su número a él/a ella” (in your two cases)
Like I said, I’m no good when it comes to grammar, but I can tell you, that there are just so many languages, and many have features that others just don’t (like Russian has no article (definite or indefinite), Arabic has verbs that depend on the gender of the speaker, etc). With Spanish I just know that the biggest hurdles are the past tense, and the gerundive, but I can’t really point you to a good resource other than a book I kind of saw a while back: Pons. I read the “german version” (I think) for learning Spanish (I was tutoring at the time), and it was quite informative but dense. Maybe there’s something for you there as well.
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If someone knows a YouTube video or something about this, I’d be interested.
I don’t know about videos, but here is an article
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I don’t know where you come from or what languages (apart from English) you might speak, but:
Hope that makes it clearer.
It was first seen in online queer activist circles around 2004. You can read a little about it here. Latino is traditionally masc/neutral but English style guides also said the same about “he” when referring to someone of unknown or unspecified gender for a long time, which has largely fallen out of use for singular “they” now.
Personally, I don’t use Latinx in writing to refer to all Latinos/Latinas as polling has shown only 2-3% of people readily identify with it. But I do think you absolutely should use it if that’s how someone personally identifies.
Am I the only one who reads LatinX as rhyming with larynx?
I read it as a Latino fetish porn site.
I read it like latinks
Yeah
For some reason people get violently ill when they see someone use pronouns on the internet, so they came up with an alternative words so that their ideas match up with reality.