Hi Laura,
Thanks for the correction and the information. As you spotted I am clueless in other languages, I just happened to pick up the Huffington article but I did not think about perspectives such as the potential for bias to American Spanish; it seems obvious now you have pointed it out. Consider the example dropped. :-)
100% agree that the discussion and choices of how to handle gender neutral guidelines in different languages is for /those language communities/, with all of their lovely variety and complexity, not the English speaking/writing community on our projects applying a solution by majority blunt force.
In the example of Commons, the project is multilingual, however our policy pages have an agreed default of being written and maintained in English, with versions in other languages based upon that English baseline. The proposal I put forward on the Commons Village pump recognizes this critical limitation, and I wrote a clarification in the discussion there:
"The question of non-English translation is a separate issue. I did have some discussions with German and Spanish speakers over the weekend about precisely the issue of handling gendered languages and their default bias to male forms. These questions are for those language communities to reach a consensus on and is a technical translation and cultural issue. This proposal is focused on our default policy language of English, I recognize that moving to a more gender neutral form for other languages is much harder, but that is not a reason for our community to avoid showing leadership within our Wikimedia projects, and we should forge ahead where it is possible and reasonable to do so. I'd even say this is worth a little 'discomfort' in order to adopt modern best practices and take positive steps to feel more welcoming for women, trans and genderqueer future contributors."
By the way, if the Commons proposal succeeds, which appears likely, it would be great if specific community discussions about how, or whether, it can be implemented in various language versions. It should not be turned into a big deal, as the number of policy or help pages affected is small and the changes will be modest. However I don't know the best way of going about this, and I hope that those with a passion for having sensible discussions about gender neutral prose in their favorite languages will take a lead. It's a knotty complex area, but I'm hoping we can foster a pattern respectful discussions so everyone feels their voice is heard and they are welcome to participate, especially those with a trans or genderqueer experience for whom this may feel like a highly personal discussion.
Thanks, Fae
On 6 April 2017 at 08:59, Laura Hale laura@fanhistory.com wrote:
Hi Fae,
On Wed, Apr 5, 2017 at 12:52 PM, Fæ faewik@gmail.com wrote:
Defaulting_to_gender_neutral_language_in_the_Commons_namespace
- "Latinx" is a reaction against using gendered forms Latino and
Latina, in a language that has no neutral gender. This is becoming an accepted practice in related forums and academic publications. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/why-people-are-using- the-term-latinx_us_57753328e4b0cc0fa136a159
I don't know how familiar you are with language politics, but you're 100% factually incorrect here when saying that Spanish has no gender neutral. It does have gender neutral, and I can have full conversations about my spouse in Spanish without giving away the gender of the spouse. Your comment appears to be based on a lack of understanding of how gender works in Spanish, and it is not helpful as a result as comments like this suppress the voices of linguistic minorities and already marginalized groups.
Beyond that, how people gender neutral certain gendered words in Spanish can be very culture specific. The link to the Huffington Post is clearly an American Spanish perspective, and there is a huge debate in various Spanish language communities about US Spanish. It is not a standard form of Spanish, and there are discussions about if American Spanish will become its own linguistically distinct language in the next decade or so, as a sort of English/Spanish combination. Trying to impose American Spanish on other Spanish speakers would be grossly offensive given these linguistic issues. I don't think you'd appreciate Jamaican English being imposed on you, and your handling of gendered language issues in English. I also don't think you'd appreciate having Germans with little to no grasp of English trying to impose on you standards of use of English. I'd suggest reading some of the materials published by LGBT organizations in Spanish speaking countries. http://www.felgtb.org/rs/1232/d112d6ad-54ec-438b-9358-4483f9e98868/05d/fd/1/... is one of them. http://www.uab.cat/Document/964/953/Guia_uso_no_sexista_lenguaje2,0.pdf is a guide by a university in Barcelona in how to use gender neutral language in Spain.
Rather than have a group of non-Spanish speaking men with little knowledge of the Spanish language and less knowledge of the cultural issues facing the LGBT community in the countries where Spanish is the dominant language try to justify their interference into linguistic debates for which they are ill equipped to participate and where they are not the discriminated against group (because my understanding is that and most of the other men involved in this discussion are CIS gendered men), why don't you reach out to WikiMujeres? This is a Wikimedia user group of Spanish speaking women found at http://wikimujeres.wiki/ . This group actively discusses these issues in Spanish and on Wikimedia projects. They have good working relationships with chapters and can push towards more inclusive Spanish language usage on Wikimedia Commons much more effectively than you can given their contacts and fluency in the language.
I am on their mailing list. If you're actually invested in this issue, beyond linking to an linguistically dubious article that doesn't reflect the broader picture of Spanish and making factually incorrect statements, I'd be happy to reach out to the women I know in WikiMujeres to see what opportunities there are for Wikimedia LGBT to work with WikiMujeres to address this issue. WikiMujeres also has regular edit-a-thons on Mondays in Madrid when MediaLab Prado is open. If you're keen to take this further, I can see about getting you (or any other member of this group) an invitation to one of these sessions to discuss this issue and how to resolve it. (I know they were present in Berlin. Did you have a chance to speak with them?)
And as WorldPride is taking place in Madrid this year, doing Spanish language activities here with the local Spanish groups might be something seriously worth considering to take advantage.
Sincerely, Laura Hale -- twitter: purplepopple