Hi,
(this discussion is getting sort of long, maybe we should create a pad? ;) )
flapflap:
> Hi,
>
> spriver:
>> Hi,
>> (I'm on holiday right now, so just a short answer ;) ):
>>
>> Max@XGME:
>>> Hi,
>>>
>>> just the background for german (not how it's done in tails but how most
>>> institutions do it).
>>> A few years ago everybody changed from using only the male form when
>>> referring to people of both genders (1 "Mitarbeiter") to using both words -
>>> which makes the sentence much longer - or using a mixed word (2
>>> "Mitarbeiter und Mitarbeiterinnen" or 3 "Mitarbeiter/innen") which was used
>>> by mostly everybody until they "discovered" gender-neutral forms which
>>> don't take up that much space and also include all that crazy made up stuff
>>> of people who identify as whatever they can think of, theoretical it would
>>> also include animals (4 "Mitarbeitende"). So the current situation is that
>>> most Companies and some public institutions use the long form (3 for
>>> titles, 2 in long texts) while some public institutions (and maybe
>>> companies, I don't know) have changed to using the last mentioned form (4).
>>> I don't really know which of those would be better, so I'll just throw this
>>> in here to inform those translators, that maybe don't live in germany
>>> (anymore) and let you decide what to use.
>>> Also I don't have any official sources for this, it's just my experience,
>>> it might differ from other parts of germany.
>>>
>> ACK.
>> In my opinion this is the smartest way to maintain a gender neutral
>> language in German.
>
> Which variant do you refer to?
I referred to the variant (4). Sometimes it is not possible to use such
forms, in such situations I am preferring the "Gender Gap"
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_Gap_%28Linguistik%29
(also an interesting article)
>> So we should agree on a unified translation there.
>
> The wikipedia article (see URL below) gives some pros and cons for some
> of the options, but there's no final recommendation. The best I learned
> from the various cited sources is to be creative, like:
>
> Man solle also nicht mit dem Satz „Die Teilnehmer des Seminars sind
> berechtigt, die Software zu benutzen” beginnen und ihn in „Die
> Teilnehmerinnen und Teilnehmer des Seminars sind berechtigt, die
> Software zu benutzen” umformulieren, sondern gleich „Die Teilnahme am
> Seminar berechtigt zur Benutzung der Software” schreiben.
>
> I think this is something that we can try to follow from now on, yet it
> is no simple approach.
>
I like this also. By just bypassing all gender-related words we just
keep the problem at bay (in situations where it's possible ofc).
>> Has the German translator team met at the CCCamp and discussed this topic?
>
> Some met, but there was too much to see/discover and we had no fixed
> place to meet (as opposed to congress), so no progress for the discussion...
> I (maybe that goes for others too) also don't feel sufficiently
> confident to judge one variant for the other.
> But I find the discussion about problems and alternatives in the
> wikipedia article very informative (already referenced it some emails ago):
> https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generisches_Maskulinum
> (The length of the page almost makes one "feel" the 40 years of debate)
>
> ~flapflap
I read the article and also the links Muri sent. All really interesting,
thanks for providing them. But I have a little concern about just using
the female/male variant. All other sexual identities not fitting into
the binary sexual system of females and males are excluded by this...
(that's why I prefer the Gener Gap or asterisk over the "Binnen-I" or
the slash, maybe I will also dare to use one of them in my documentation
for my final exams of my vocational training ;) )
Maybe it would be a nice idea to construct some sort of code of conduct
or general guidelines? (at least for us, but afaik this is also a bit
new topic to free software in general. But I also do not want to waste
all our energy). Maybe also some other translators could giver their
opinion here (:
Cheers!
spriver
