The old sexism in grammar issue is acute in languages that have gendered “a” and “the.” French for example.
A French actress is facing a torrent of online abuse for challenging a four-century-old grammatical rule that the masculine form should take precedence over the feminine.
Typhaine D, 35, has received insults and death and rape threats over her attempt to feminise a language that she says discriminates against women. “Every sentence we speak integrates the notion that women are inferior, and that creates a terrain . . . that is favourable to violence,” she said in an interview.
Even without the violence bit, it’s true and it matters.
The pre-eminence of the masculine form dates from the 17th century when L’Académie Française, the academy that governs the language, laid down what Typhaine D calls the “absurd and illegitimate” grammatical rules that still hold sway. The Immortals, as the academy’s members are known, decreed that if a sentence contained a masculine noun and a feminine one, any pronouns and adjectives would have to agree with the former.
English doesn’t have that issue so much because we don’t gender all the nouns, but it does have issues like everybody somebody etc.
The academy argues that the masculine form has taken on the role of the Latin neuter, which explains its dominance.
That just pushes it back a step. Why has the masculine form “taken on the role of the neuter”? Because…you know…it’s the one that counts, the one that’s real, the one that’s general. The female is particular and weird and disconcerting.
Good luck to her.
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16 responses to “The role of the Latin neuter”
Spanish has the same issue, and it extends to the first and (in Spain) second person plural pronouns “nosotras/os” “vosotros/as” (literally “we others” and “you others”). My wife tells me that some men have taken to using “nosotras” when they’re referring to a group that is majority female.
Interesting. Well done those men.
“ does have issues like everybody somebody etc.”
I don’t understand – why is saying everybody or somebody an issue?
Sorry, that was unclear – I meant the practice (which was I think generally actually taught in school & considered A Rule) of saying “everyone must hang his coat up” etc, i.e. the “neutral” pronoun used was male.
Like so many grammatical “rules” they teach you in school, that goes against the natural tendency of English speakers. It’s actually one case where singular “they” is preferable.
I’ve never been able to get on board with interpreting grammar as commentary on reality. It’s one of the reasons the preferred pronoun brigade bothers me.
The issue isn’t that it’s commentary on reality but that it shapes people’s thinking. Do you think it doesn’t shape people’s thinking?
I mean, yes. That’s a rather low bar to clear, though, as nearly every stimulus shapes thinking in some way. Language, of course, has a unique place, in that the boundaries of language arguably define the limits of thought.
Yes, here, means, “Yes, language shapes thought.”
Nullius @8 “…the boundaries of language arguably define the limits of thought.” This made me wonder what the arguments for that would be. Possibly that sentient non-human life have thought processes without language, or even a human that was raised without language (if there was such a thing)? I think a study of animal behavior might support an argument to that effect. I never could agree with the notion that there is no thought without language, but it usually ends up in the p-zombie argument.
Why do I have to clear a bar?
I think I’m missing your point entirely.
Unfortunately at this point in time the alternative is letting the gender goblins control the language… L’ Academie is at least a bulwark against that shit.
In my wife’s Spanish the problem doesn’t arise: in the singular everyone is tú or usted (no gender marked for either) and in the plural everyone is ustedes. It works that way in most of Latin America (and in the Canary islands). It’s more complicated in places like the River Plate region where they have vos< (but still not marked for gender) as well.
Athel,
But what do they use for first person plural? As far as I know, all dialects of Spanish use “nosotras/os”.
Yes, you’re right, but it’s worth noting that subject pronouns, though compulsory in English, are usually omitted in Spanish.
Yes, but it wouldn’t just be the subject pronouns that are affected; it would extend to adjectives and nouns. “Estamos listas” vs. “Estamos listos”, for example, or “Somos profesores” vs. “Somos profesoras”.