Am 07.02.2011 15:28, schrieb Lena ...:
On Mon, Feb 7, 2011 at 11:43 AM, Thomas Koenigfossa@gmx.li wrote:
JFTR: "Benutzerinkonto" is not a German word, it would look awkward
to say
the least to any native German speaker.
That's right, but that's because "Benutzerinkonto" is wrong German grammar. "Benutzerinnenkonto" would be correct and sounds fine to me.
Some possibilities to solve the problem might be to -find neutral words whenever this is possible so that you don't need any gender markers anymore - to not use gendered prefixes or markers whenever the sense of a multi sense word (like "account") is made clear by the context - to directly adress the person so that direct speech is employed.
like (instead of user account) only "account" and afterwards the login field ; or "your account" in German, the possibilities proposed above would come up to sth like Nutzungskonto or Benutzungskonto, only "Konto" or "Dein Konto/Ihr Konto"
Besides that, I find all the chatter about grammar, quite tangential. There is a culture of misogyny in the Wikimedia projects, way above the level of comparable work or even volunteer environments, which is
neither
due to the use of grammar, nor can it be adequately fought with a change grammer rules in the software.
I agree that grammar is not the main problem, but it might well be the one that is most easy to solve! You just need to change a few words to maybe have a big impact. :)
Yes, changing a few words may have a big impact, but that does not solve at all the beyond structures that ally language, socialisation and society.
To change the culture is much more complicated and will take much longer, although it's admittedly more important. (But maybe changing the words is a first step to changing the culture?)
Changing some or even a lot of words is not equal to changing the grammar, so - yes, changing some words may have an impact, but as long as the language determining grammar structures stay unchanged, the effects of changing some words will probably stay limited. That does not mean at all that we shouldn't change words! - its just to underline that, at the end, we also need to analyze and to trying to change the underlaying structures.
Best, Lena
Best, Manu