“My homeland is the French language,” author Albert Camus once wrote—and many French people would agree. That’s why any attempt at changing the language is often met with suspicion. So the uproar was almost instantaneous when, this fall, the first-ever school textbook promoting a gender-neutral version of French was released. . . .I don't have strong feelings about this sort of thing. Languages are always changing to reflect changing social realities, so you won't find me dying on a cross of traditional grammar. My only suggestion would be that any changes made in the cause of inclusiveness make the language simpler, not more complex. For example, there was an American a few years ago who changed her name from Cooperman to Cooperperson; why not just Cooper? Instead of complex mixes of endings, I support the adoption of single, gender-neutral words, like just dropping the word "actress" altogether and calling all performers "actors," as many women in movies already do.
In French, pronouns, nouns, and adjectives reflect the gender of the object to which they refer. So, le policier is a policeman; la policière is a policewoman. The language has no neutral grammatical gender. And there are many nouns (including those referring to professions) that don’t have feminine versions. So, a male minister is le ministre and a female minister is la ministre. What’s more, French students are taught that “the masculine dominates over the feminine,” meaning that if you have a room full of ten women and just one man, you have to describe the whole group in the masculine.
Feminists who believe that these features of the French language put women at a disadvantage disagree about how best to remedy them. Most recommend creating feminine versions of all professional nouns and/or using neutral nouns whenever possible. Many also recommend a grammatical tool that consists of adding a “median-period” at the end of masculine nouns, followed by the feminine ending, thus indicating both gendered versions of every noun (like musicien·ne·s, which would read as “male musicians and female musicians”). Some have even recommended creating a gender-neutral pronoun (the equivalent of how “they” is sometimes used in English, or “hen” in Sweden). These and other recommendations have collectively become known as “inclusive writing.”
Monday, November 27, 2017
Gender Neutral French
Surely we all knew this was coming:
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3 comments:
Normally I'm skeptical of conscious and intentional efforts to guide the evolution of a language, but in the case of the French we have a curious exception, because they actually have a governmental body dedicated to the formalized institution of the French language.
As I understand it, there are almost effectively two distinct French languages - the organically derived common French vernacular, and the carefully curated official "Academy" French used for situations of any degree of formality.
If the Académie française sees fit to endorse reforms such as these, it will certainly shape the way French politicans, the military, academics, and others both publically write and speak the French language. But I wonder if such a change would then influence the French vernacular to follow suit, or if it might instead further widen the pre-existing gap between formal and informal language in France.
It really will depend heavily on convincing people that such reforms are necessary or beneficial. Moreover, I feel that if the government is going to be leading by example on this, then much of their potential for success will hinge on the simple matter of whether the government itself is popular or not while the reforms are being carried out.
Personally, I have my doubts that this will see much success. Language is notoriously difficult to shape, even if resorting to extreme measures.
It is worth noting that Persian has no grammatical gender. Iran must be the least sexist nation on earth.
Yes. I like the English "Fresher" which they use for... freshmen at college, at least at some schools.
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