"German gendering" with a "happy ending"?
Hesse's new government wants to abolish "gendering". That's a good thing, says our author. Instead of over-correct asterisks and laborious double nouns, we should take our cue from English. The anglicization of our language is unstoppable anyway.
When German Chancellor Olaf Scholz spoke about the situation in Gaza last week - it was during the Turkish president's visit, and it was about the evacuation of people - he mentioned "foreign nationals". Not "men and women from abroad" or "women and men", "members of foreign nations" or "foreign nationals". He also dispensed with the so-called "gender gap", i.e. a pause between "foreigners" and "nationals".
Instead of "gendering" in a politically correct way, i.e. using "gender-equitable and gender-neutral language", the Federal Chancellor chose an English term. "Foreign Nationals" was snappy, internationally accessible - and gender-neutral, as English makes virtually no distinction between male and female attributions. Admittedly, there is "the Queen" alongside the King, and "cleaning women" may sometimes be spoken of disparagingly. However, these examples in particular show that the distinction is the opposite of progressive and is often perceived as discriminatory.
Media such as the Guardian, which capitalize "wokeness", would not report on "actresses" as "actresses". "Gender-appropriate" in English is "actor" - for everyone: male, female and diverse. In a sense, it translates as "the actor". Or "the chancellor".
Masculine drawn*
A few days before Scholz, Gregor Gysi demonstrated just how laborious "German gendering" is - when completely different topics than gender are being discussed. In an interview for "Der Spiegel" - the topic was the attitude of Germans in the Middle East conflict - the eloquent politician hurriedly flitted through "Palestinians and Palestinians" and "Jews and Jews". It sounded tortured, unmotivated - and anything but gender-appropriate.
Linguistic conservatives would certainly have recommended that Gysi simply say "Palestinians and Jews". This is undoubtedly easier, more comprehensible and leaves more space and time for other words and thoughts. It is the so-called "generic masculine" of German grammar that the Hessian CDU wants to make official: as a reaction to long double nouns and tricks with asterisks, colons, underscores or "Binnen I" - which have created a "generic feminine" with the endings "-in" and "-innen". The "Bäuer:innen" (farmers) in the Green Party's manifesto illustrates the confusing blossoms that have been created. From a linguistic point of view, this is an "overcorrection" and from a grammatical point of view, it is wrong. The underlying problem is that the desired "gender neutrality" is actually based on the structure of words. For example, there is no gender-neutral form of "German", but there is for "Italian", while "French" has to do without its men. In addition, the flow of text is impaired by special characters that resemble programming code. Hesse wants to put an end to all this!
Opponents are outraged: banning gendering would violate the right to free speech, as guaranteed by Article 5 of the German Basic Law. This is as true as the reverse is true: the compulsion to use gender is the opposite of freedom. It can, as Olaf Scholz has demonstrated, lie in the English language. Why didn't Gysi just say "Palestinians and Jews"?
In response to the counter-question as to whether it would not be artificial to embed English terms in the German mother tongue, we can refer to many English terms that have long been commonplace: "kids", "expats", "celebrities", "VIPs", "refugees", "insiders", "influencers", "fans and followers", "users", "whistleblowers" or "boomers". Collective terms such as "audience", "in-crowd" or "people". And countless contemporary "job titles", from "junior accountant" to "senior consultant", "store attendants" or "customer agents", not to mention "marketing rock stars" and "chief rainmaking officers".
Love me gender, love me sweet ...
The English description of people alone reveals a radical linguistic development away from the pure German mother tongue towards a hybrid everyday language expression that draws on two sources: German and English. The former provides the framework or - in the image of a hybrid drive - perhaps the bodywork. The latter provides the drive that propels forward: Statements that are directed towards the future. Operative and programmatic terms for which we no longer have any native language equivalents. In the context of gender, for example, we naturally talk about "sex" and "gender". Unequal treatment is reflected in the "gender gap", which can lead to the "pay gap". The list of terms in this field alone is long, including "queer" or "#metoo", as well as "PoC" for "People of Color" in the wider debates on identity.
The desire for hybrid expression sometimes goes so far that we seem to make up English words, so-called pseudoanglisms. For example, the spoken pause after the underscore is also called a "gender gap". In the English-speaking world, this meaning is just as little known as "Christopher Street Day" (they say "Pride Parade") or "spouse splitting" - our dreadful spousal splitting!
If you look at the programs of the major parties alone, you get the impression that English has long been the second language of the country, or at least of politics: from "diversity budgeting" to "racial profiling". In 2021, the FDP program for the Bundestag election used more than 60 Anglicisms (including weird pseudo-anglicisms like "top sharing"). The Green Party program used 30, the CDU/CSU and the Left Party 20 and the SPD 14 - all terms that make up the strategy and content of politics. They make it clear that the anglicization of German is at least as widespread and accepted as - attention, correct English: - "gendering". The fact that we have Germanized it with "Gendern" is not nice, but it is an indication of the general tendency towards linguistic density.
There would be no reason for controversy if "gendering" were really fair and neutral. Who wants to spread prejudices or false assumptions in texts? If I write that "politicians exercise censorship", I don't want it to be understood as meaning that only people who have a penis ("sex") or perhaps none but a male gender identity ("gender") are evil. The same should apply to "murderers", "thieves" or "tax cheats". Pay attention: "Straftäter*innen" or "Verbrecher_innen" are remarkably rarely mentioned! The German language has only a few gender-neutral ascriptions such as "der Mensch", "die Person", "der Säugling" or "die Leiche".
In English, they are standard. And the more not only English loan words, but also the logic of the English language eats into German, the more they relativize or even displace them. A glance at the Duden dictionary shows this: "Der/die/das Spam", "der, das Event", "das Timing".
Increasingly, we are seeing Germanized nouns with the English suffix -ing, not least "das Gendering" itself. They are everywhere: "The wine pairing" (or "the tasting"). "The dribbling" or "pressing". "The - attention, pseudo-anglicism! - "Mobbing", in common English: "Bullying".
So why not really "das Politiker", "das Schauspieler", "das Bundeskanzler", "das Palästinenser", "das Autor"? Perhaps "German Gendering" will automatically develop in this direction - with a "happy ending".
*Admittedly a hip-hop band from Berlin
Source: www.ntv.de
