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

Would? They are already doing it. Besides the three genders Er(he) Sie(she) and Es(it), they are trying to push Dey, which is pronounced "they" as an non binary alternative. Also, there was a professor who adressed her students and collegues with "Studierx" ("StudentX") or "Professx" ("ProfessorX"). Normally, the german language uses something called the generic masculinum, which means that if it's not known which gender someone or a group of people use, it is masculine, which is the shorter form (without "-in" which is a female suffix). Ex: Der Bäcker, Die Bäckerin (the baker, the bakeress?)

We still couldn't agree on which special character we should use to "gender" (Yes, it's a verb over here) Ex: Der Bäcker -> Die Bäcker*in / Die Bäcker:in / Die Bäcker_in / Die BäckerIn Apple (Yes, the tech company from the US) uses "Bäcker:in" consistently in it's entire user interfaces in german language, while some people claim it's not inclusive enough for non binary and trans people, because the "Genderstern" (gender-star) is more prominent

Another trend is to change the structure of a sentence to make it sound gender neutral: Der Bäcker bäckt -> Die backende Person bäckt (The baker bakes -> the baking person bakes)

Last but not least, there is this convention to make a spoken gap or pause between the word and the gender suffix. This is, however, only used in some news reports and no sane human being would use it when not speaking infront of a camera. Ex: Die Bäcker backen -> Die Bäcker[pause]innen backen (The bakers bake -> The beker[pause]esses bake)

Hope this german horror cabinet of gendering helps to understand the ridiculousness of this whole debate.

[–]cottoneyejoe 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Thank you for explaining the current trends. I have not been in Germany since 1999 but lived there for 3 years in the army. I loved living there and really enjoyed the Germans I worked with.

I wanted to share with you a short humor piece Mark Twain wrote about his difficulties to master the German language, called "The Awful German Language" -> https://faculty.georgetown.edu/jod/texts/twain.german.html

[–]JerzyZulawski 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

See also: "Diktator:innen wie Putin" https://twitter.com/phoenix_de/status/1532037351085690880