[Po4a-Devel] Re: Planned po4a release on January 15. Please translate & test]
On Jan 15, 2024, at 11:21, Martin Quinson
<Martin.Quinson(a)ens-rennes.fr> wrote:
Le dimanche 14 janvier 2024 à 23:39 +0000, Marco Ciampa a écrit :
>
> Please note that grammar gender has nothing to do with any meaning in any
> language. So all this work is a waste of time.
>
> See for example: https://blog.duolingo.com/what-is-grammatical-gender/
>
> but there are tons of examples almost everywhere...
I don't quite agree here, even if discussing it at length on this list is
probably difficult. It's cultural, after all.
My personal opinion is that using masculine as a neutral form for nouns which
design humans comes down to invisibilize womens. In french, we say "masculine
takes it all", but it was not always the fact back in time. I'm not sure that
this po4a list is the right place to discuss the the sociologic effect of the
french grammar, and whether the "masculine is neutral" rule is a form of
violence to women, but I do think that words have effects on the world.
That’s correct and there is a significant number of cognitive studies
that show the impact of such rules on human self-perception, so I think
that trying not to emphasize human gender when possible is the best
choice too.
The blog of duolingo is merely about nouns that design objects, not
people.
Isn't it?
That’s what it looks like. And indeed noun gender has no relation to
meaning, although it adds a layer on the perception of things as
womanly or manly, depending on the culture, and even languages that do
not have a grammatical gender, like Japanese, find ways to express that
difference.
> Amike,
If only French had a (true) neutral form as in well designed languages, that
would solve this kind of issues for the best.
That’s what neologisms like “traductaire” attempt to do, or pronouns
like “iel”. Languages evolve with the societies that use them. It’s a
good thing.
Le lundi 15 janvier 2024 à 03:01 +0300, Fat-Zer a écrit :
>
> I've actually noticed a passage like this in the po4a docs where a
> japanese translator was referred to as she. I was wondering if it was
> just a mistake, a some sort of deliberate inclusivity-related thing, a
> subtle joke on the fact that a lot of translators are female, or some
> piece of personal experience petrified in the docs =))
It's deliberate, even if I agree that it's somewhat useless. Words have an
effect, but a small one :)
That’s an interesting remark. I’m writing a book on OmegaT and I’m
trying to find ways to reflect the fact that according to studies 80%
of translators are women. One is to use the feminine in all the
document, another one would be to do as I did in the manual, i.e. try to
reduce the number of occurrences of gendered person nouns. It’s not
easy because unlike French in the 15th-16th century where they had
rules to reflect the plurality of genders, our generations are stuck
with the “masculine is neutral” rule.
Anyway, I’m sure that we’ll find solutions that allow women
readers/users to find the documentation the most welcoming possible.
Thank you for this interesting exchange.
JC