garfieldDec 31, 2018
I absolutely hate how gendered French is, it's literally impossible to talk about someone without gendering them and it sucks
Show threadgarfieldDec 31, 2018

When I say it's impossible to talk about someone in French without gendering them, this is not strictly true. There is an entire system of "inclusive writing", complete with neopronouns (there are no gender-neutral pronouns in what I'm going to call "classical French") to remedy the language's huge flaws.

But the use of gender-neutral language in France isn't simply a question of using the words to make them more commonplace. It's a political battle.

Show threadTricoteurDec 31, 2018

@garfiald

My understanding is French (langue d'oïl) was deliberately gendered under a committee instigated by Cardinal Richlieu. Prior to which nouns were about 60% gendered, 40% neuter.

While that may be too early to be considered 'classical French', it does show it to be an artificial set of rules imposed on the natural language.

Show threadgarfield
@tricoteur yes absolutely! This is what I was talking about when I referred to the amount of texts we have in which grammarians explicitly state that they are changing the rules to make the language less inclusive
Dec 31, 2018 at 2:27pmMastalab
Show threadTricoteurDec 31, 2018

@garfiald <nods>

Although I was under the impression (I am a French language learner, beginner) that 'on', as a pronoun, was rather neutral when refering to first or third person.

Show threadgarfieldDec 31, 2018
@tricoteur yeah it is but it hasn't ever historically been used to refer to a single individual, and I haven't yet seen people use it as a pronoun over neopronouns like "iel"