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Curious how pronouns in a language influence perception of gender. @ bilingual people here.

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[–]OPPRESSED_REPTILIANIntersex male | GNC | Don't call me "a gay", "twink" or "queen" 7 insightful - 1 fun7 insightful - 0 fun8 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

This is another reason the gender crowd's simultaneous fetishization and hatred of Russia annoys me.

In Russian we have grammatical gender as a lot of languages do, but also, past tense verbs are gendered often to match the person speaking. So basically the word will change slightly depending on whether you're male or female, and it means that in writing you can often tell the sex of the author.

Fortunately though, the LGBT+ think we're all gay-torturing barbarians and don't want to come near, unless it's to fetishize the USSR and horrible oppression of people from a distance. Some trans pick up Russian names here and there to be edgy and to live out their weird, somewhat offensive Hollywood stereotype of "evil russian bad guys". But I have yet to see any of them actually try to pick up the language or campaign to get it changed to be "Gender inclusive"

When it comes to third person pronouns, we do have a "neuter" one but it's more like "it." Not really appropriate to use it to refer to a person.

In my opinion as someone who speaks both? Language is language. I don't see why it needs to be political. It would be like if feminists declared that feminine/masculine grammar was sexist somehow, when really it's kind of... what's the word - abstract? It has little to do with things like gender identity or sexism. It just is.

When I speak English and verbs aren't gendered I don't feel like my sex is being "erased", that would be ridiculous. And honestly, people who want to change an ENTIRE LANGUAGE, spoken by countless people, that has existed for a very long time JUST because of their make believe "gender identity" is extreme narcissism that's very shocking.

[–]RedEyedWarriorGay | Male | 🇮🇪 Irish 🇮🇪 | Antineoliberal | Cocks are Compulsory 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

It's very interesting how gendered Russian is. I remember studying French in secondary school, and while I don't remember it fully, I do remember that gender is heavily present and greatly emphasised in the language. Verbs that end in "-er" have to be adjusted in the past tense to agree, not just with the gender, but also the plural/singular. But that's just the third person. The first and second person are both neutral. Apparently, English is one of the only languages without gendered verbs or nouns. But I find it interesting that Russian uses gender on the first and second person. I was also told that there is a distinct pronoun for dead people in Slavic languages. Is that true?

[–]VioletRemiCat, homosexual one 7 insightful - 1 fun7 insightful - 0 fun8 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

All of our verbs are gendered towards speaker, and many other words too. To add new pronouns we will need change at minimum half of the words and most likely almost every word. And that will be only understandable within those communities who invented that pronoun and spend years for changing whole language, so any other person will just not understand them at all.

[–]8bitgay 5 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 0 fun6 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I got to thinking about how transwomen seem super common in Hispanic communities in the US and spanish as a language is ridiculously gendered.

If it's only about transmen/women they just use the words of the opposite gender. The issue is more with non-binary / genderneutral stuff. While English has "they" as a pronoun that people tend to go for genderneutral, Romance languages don't have such a pronoun. So non-binary people create different genderneutral pronouns, and it can get quite confusing since different groups will use different neopronouns. The language is also gendered beyond just pronouns, so even people who use neopronouns will easily say gendered stuff because they forget to adapt adjectives, verbs, etc. to the neopronouns.

You get the American Hispanics who are trying to make Latinx a thing while actual Hispanics look at that word like "wtf?"

I mean, another issue is that in Latin American countries the words latino/latina are barely used. Why would you call yourself latino in a country where everyone is latino? And if you really wanna use a neutral word, why not call yourself... You know, Latin American?

[–]julesburm1891 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I’m trying to learn Italian right now. One of the things that struck me, as a native English speaker, is how heavily gendered everything is. A lot of things depend on the sex of the subject or the gender of the noun in question. For example, if you wanted to say, “she’s pretty,” you’d say “È bella.” But, if you wanted to say “he’s pretty,” you’d say, “È bello.” There doesn’t seem to be any way to say “they’re pretty” without it being very clearly a plural they. Again, I’m just learning, but my impression is that expecting gendered languages to be gender-neutral is actually impossible. It also seems completely unrealistic to expect people to not only call someone clearly of the opposite sex their “preferred pronouns,” but to also effortlessly change entire sentences at the drop of a hat.

[–]RedEyedWarriorGay | Male | 🇮🇪 Irish 🇮🇪 | Antineoliberal | Cocks are Compulsory 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Hasan Piker is associated with the Young Turks. I wonder what Turkish people living in Turkey think of them. Though I could probably guess that Turkish people are not fond of them, as they're not too fond of woke culture or neoliberalism.