Re: [OT] Grammatic gender

[Werner Arnhold]

Hy Linguisers and Linguistresses,

Am Donnerstag, den 16.11.2017, 14:22 +0100 schrieb N. Andrew Walsh:
> On Thu, Nov 16, 2017 at 3:04 AM, David Wright
> <address@hidden> wrote:
>         
>         
>         > German: "Das Mädchen aß seine Mahlzeit.".
>         >
>         > >> > It may seem so, because the articles for all three
>         genders are the
>         > >> > same, but words are referred to by ‘he’, ‘she’, or
>         ‘it’. In
>         > >> > English the sun is male, the moon female
>         
>         Think so, grammatically?
> 
> 
> Since this is already well off-topic, I'd like to ask a general
> question of the German speakers here: the Constitutional Court
> recently ruled that forcing people born in Germany to identify only as
> either male or female on official documentation is discriminatory (for
> a number of reasons, including: some people cannot be biologically
> categorized as entirely one or the other, some people are
> mis-assigned, some people don't identify that way, etc.). The court
> provided two possible remedies: either add a third category
> (presumably "unspecified"), or strike sex from official documentation
> entirely. 
> 
> 
> Since German *does* use gendered pronouns, what do you imagine is
> likely to happen here, as people start entering into adult life with
> no specified male or female gender? As noted above, referring to
> biological organisms, much less people, with the neuter pronoun would
> likely be considered unacceptable. So what do you imagine is likely to
> happen here? Is the Duden going to start establishing what is
> effectively a fourth gender category? 

The Duden is never a creator of new forms. They watch the moving and
billowing Landscape of spoken and even more written Language. There are
orthographic forms in use that are definitely considered wrong. But if
they are used in a broad way by many people, the Duden accepts that and
declare it to be correct or at least possible. For example: the English
language knows the saxon genitiv form e.g. "Garner's" (see below). In
German it always was absolutely wrong to use a quote for that reason.
When after the german reunion a big part of the people raised with
Russion as first foreign language, they often used that form, e.g.
"Lisa's Wolllädchen". Some time ago that way of writing was declared
legal.

In the feministic discussion a form came up to write no longer Lehrer
und Lehrerinnen (teacher) but LehrerInnen. Though widely used this form
could not get broad acceptance ans so didn't make it in the Duden.

If a fourth form of gender pronoun will come up and will be widely used
it will make its way to the Duden too.


> As a consummate mannerist, I'm in favor of all linguistic expansion. 
> 

Werner