Post by Deleted on Jan 14, 2016 1:07:59 GMT 8
Hi, Folks!
I got curious about something today. I was contacted by a man who was asking if I could translate a letter for him from French into English. I’ve dealt with him before and we always communicate in French, since his English is poor. Today I replied that I’d be very happy to—and that’s where I got to wondering.
Now French pronouns have gender of course—but you may know that French nouns and adjectives do as well. So since I’m female, it’s correct for me to use the feminine form of “happy”—“contente”, as opposed to the masculine “content”. If you’re binary, male or female, when you transition, you just start using the other set of words. And it’s actually quite nice. It’s like putting on a skirt instead of pants.
But suppose you’re NB and don’t want to specify gender? That’s a big problem, because every time you attach an adjective to a person, yourself or somebody else, you’re declaring their gender. And maybe you don’t want to do that. So what do French-speaking “gender neutrals” do?
I made a quick check online, hoping to find a forum with a special NB section so I could just ask somebody. But no luck there. However, I did come across an article from 2010 concerning Norrie-May Welby, the first Australian to have legal documents not specifying a gender; and this article answered some questions for me.
Now in English we have the singular “they” or “ze” and other options for those who want a gender-neutral pronoun, and I figured that French speakers must have something of the sort. This is one thing I found in this article:
Male person = il
Female person = elle
NB person = yel
Male persons = ils
Female persons = elles
NB persons = yels.
Very easy and straightforward. Also, somewhat ironically, “his” and “her” are no problem in French because they’re always the same. Like this:
John’s mother --> his mother --> sa mère
Mary’s mother --> her mother --> sa mère.
The reason for this is that the adjective doesn’t agree with the possessor as it does in English. It agrees with the noun it modifies. Since “mère” (“mother”) is feminine, the adjective has to be feminine—“sa” rather than the masculine “son”. Similarly,
John’s father --> his father --> son père
Mary’s father --> her father --> son père.
“Père” is masculine, hence the masculine “son”. And in the plural it’s even easier because there’s only one form for both masculine and feminine:
John’s brothers/John’s sisters --> his brothers/his sisters --> ses frères/ses sœurs
Mary’s brothers/Mary’s sisters --> her brothers/her sisters --> ses frères/ses sœurs.
So all of this is very easy. But it still leaves the question of masculine and feminine adjectives. Generally, an adjective is made feminine by adding an “e” to the masculine:
Happy: (masc.) content --> (fem.) contente
Big: (masc.) grand --> (fem.) grande
Naughty: (masc.) méchant --> (fem.) méchante,
although there are exceptions:
Happy: (masc.) heureux --> (fem.) heureuse
Good-looking: (masc.) beau --> (fem.) belle.
Then there are adjectives that are the same for both genders:
Sick: (masc./fem.) malade
Sad: (masc./fem.) triste.
So what do you do if you don’t want to declare a gender every step of the way? This is the solution that I found in this article. Take a typical adjective like “content/contente”. It was written, “content.e”. (Note that the dot was a raised one in the article, but I don’t know how to type that, so I’ve put it on the line.)
Or, (masc.) soumis/(fem.) soumise --> (NB) soumis.e
I also found this:
Male Australian = un Australien
Female Australian = une Australienne
NB Australian = un.e Australien.ne
Or,
Male inhabitant = un habitant
Female inhabitant = une habitante
NB inhabitant = un.e habitant.e
So it appears to me that’s what they do. Pretty neat solution: use both forms at the same time. Now this is easy enough in writing. Exactly how they pronounce such words in speaking I really don’t know. That’s for another day. I’m tired now, if you’ll excuse me.
I got curious about something today. I was contacted by a man who was asking if I could translate a letter for him from French into English. I’ve dealt with him before and we always communicate in French, since his English is poor. Today I replied that I’d be very happy to—and that’s where I got to wondering.
Now French pronouns have gender of course—but you may know that French nouns and adjectives do as well. So since I’m female, it’s correct for me to use the feminine form of “happy”—“contente”, as opposed to the masculine “content”. If you’re binary, male or female, when you transition, you just start using the other set of words. And it’s actually quite nice. It’s like putting on a skirt instead of pants.
But suppose you’re NB and don’t want to specify gender? That’s a big problem, because every time you attach an adjective to a person, yourself or somebody else, you’re declaring their gender. And maybe you don’t want to do that. So what do French-speaking “gender neutrals” do?
I made a quick check online, hoping to find a forum with a special NB section so I could just ask somebody. But no luck there. However, I did come across an article from 2010 concerning Norrie-May Welby, the first Australian to have legal documents not specifying a gender; and this article answered some questions for me.
Now in English we have the singular “they” or “ze” and other options for those who want a gender-neutral pronoun, and I figured that French speakers must have something of the sort. This is one thing I found in this article:
Male person = il
Female person = elle
NB person = yel
Male persons = ils
Female persons = elles
NB persons = yels.
Very easy and straightforward. Also, somewhat ironically, “his” and “her” are no problem in French because they’re always the same. Like this:
John’s mother --> his mother --> sa mère
Mary’s mother --> her mother --> sa mère.
The reason for this is that the adjective doesn’t agree with the possessor as it does in English. It agrees with the noun it modifies. Since “mère” (“mother”) is feminine, the adjective has to be feminine—“sa” rather than the masculine “son”. Similarly,
John’s father --> his father --> son père
Mary’s father --> her father --> son père.
“Père” is masculine, hence the masculine “son”. And in the plural it’s even easier because there’s only one form for both masculine and feminine:
John’s brothers/John’s sisters --> his brothers/his sisters --> ses frères/ses sœurs
Mary’s brothers/Mary’s sisters --> her brothers/her sisters --> ses frères/ses sœurs.
So all of this is very easy. But it still leaves the question of masculine and feminine adjectives. Generally, an adjective is made feminine by adding an “e” to the masculine:
Happy: (masc.) content --> (fem.) contente
Big: (masc.) grand --> (fem.) grande
Naughty: (masc.) méchant --> (fem.) méchante,
although there are exceptions:
Happy: (masc.) heureux --> (fem.) heureuse
Good-looking: (masc.) beau --> (fem.) belle.
Then there are adjectives that are the same for both genders:
Sick: (masc./fem.) malade
Sad: (masc./fem.) triste.
So what do you do if you don’t want to declare a gender every step of the way? This is the solution that I found in this article. Take a typical adjective like “content/contente”. It was written, “content.e”. (Note that the dot was a raised one in the article, but I don’t know how to type that, so I’ve put it on the line.)
Or, (masc.) soumis/(fem.) soumise --> (NB) soumis.e
I also found this:
Male Australian = un Australien
Female Australian = une Australienne
NB Australian = un.e Australien.ne
Or,
Male inhabitant = un habitant
Female inhabitant = une habitante
NB inhabitant = un.e habitant.e
So it appears to me that’s what they do. Pretty neat solution: use both forms at the same time. Now this is easy enough in writing. Exactly how they pronounce such words in speaking I really don’t know. That’s for another day. I’m tired now, if you’ll excuse me.
