Il glottologist Daniele Vitali completes, on the initiative of goWare, the discussion already started last Sunday on FIRSTonline on the issue of promiscuous plural within an inclusive language. Here are some of his reflections on the possible use of asterisk and schwa In this compound.
The asterisk and the schwa have been proposed as ways of rendering the less sexist language but these proposals, exotic on a written level, create even more problems on an oral level, configuring a language never heard before. A criticism that also applies to other solutions.
The invented language
In fact, saying “Carə amicə, I present to you ə our talented artists: acrobats, trapeze artists, actors and musicians who will take you back to when you were children, schoolchildren and students” would be speaking a language that does not exist.
This kind of creations is certainly a lot useful for artistic purposes (think of Tolkien's elven) and spectacular (the languages used by the various monsters of Star Wars), but the same cannot be said when it comes to communicate messages that anyone can take tolerably seriously.
Indeed, such an uncommunicative way of expressing oneself risks above all having the effect of be teased, even when you have something really important and useful to say… maybe just for equality.
Not surprisingly, the ideological proposals for the modification of language they follow each other at a dizzying pace and last a little while.
Inclusion and exclusion
Ten years ago I went to a conference in English: the American speaker was continually interrupted because every sentence was translated into Italian; that is, there wasconsecutive interpretation.
The interpreter was a man who agreed on all adjectives as feminine, even if he was addressing an audience made up of men and about half women: "Perhaps you are surprised by this so peremptory statement of mine, but when I have explained what I mean, I hope to have informed and convinced you".
At the end of the conference I asked the interpreter why he agreed on everything in the feminine singular when you in that context it evidently meant "you".
He replied that the "you" was to reach people more directly, and the feminine to fight the sexism that the patriarchy has imposed on the language: "It is important that my work is inclusive of everyone".
Now, “inclusivo verso tutte” means in Italian “towards all women”, therefore to the exclusion of men, and it is not clear how an excluding language can be inclusive.
Sure, I understood what my interlocutor meant, but the grammar rule provides that the coexistence of the sexes is indicated by the masculine, not the feminine, and the deviation from this rule had prevented me from concentrating on the conference: if I hadn't also listened to the original English, I would not have understood much of what the innocent was saying overseas orator unaware of our quarrels.
It doesn't seem like a great result for a communication professional as an interpreter should be.
The intrepid Vladislava
A few years later I met a certain Vladislava, a Slovakian girl who worked in an equality office.
He spoke to me in English, but it turns out he knew the Spanish and she was horrified by how unpolitically correct that sinister sexist language was: “When a Spaniard addresses a group that includes both women and men,” she ruled, “he should only use the masculine if the men prevail. Otherwise, if women prevail, he should use the feminine ”.
I objected that the grammatical rules of Romance languages could not be violated, because speaking in breach of the basic rules means expressing more incorrectly, no longer correctly.
I added that I saw more effective ways of tackling sexism, such as fighting the pay inequality, femicide, sexual violence.
She retorted that her office dealt with gender equality and it was therefore her precise duty to pave the way for a major change in society that also involved language.
I thought that the young Slovak would suffer many disappointments in her militant career: in fact, it seemed unlikely to me that, with the sheer force of her will, she could change the oral habits of 475 million Spanish speakers.
Come to think of it, I'm right disappointment and frustration that lead to these attitudes: since the progress of equality between men and women, while undeniable, is very slow, here are the cyber-activists spend the day at the computer telling others that if they don't asterish and schwaize their language then they are accomplices of the patriarchy.
But so progress they will stay slow: taken as she was by her glottoclastic fury, the intrepid Vladislava never had the time to face the problems that I had timidly pointed out to her.
What to do?
Having said all this, I want to underline that speaking of others in a respectful way seems to me absolutely essential in a society where there is room for everyone: an inclusive society necessarily speaks an inclusive language.
We've had far too many politicians compare female opponents to orangutans or refer to gays in a one-of-a-kind way. What, however, I feel like contesting is that society can be changed by changing language at the table, affecting its living flesh represented by phonology and morphosyntax.
If anything, when the battles for true equality have made society more just, then even the language will become less violent and sexist.
And this really requires that feminicides be stopped, harassment be combated, work be organized so as not to penalize women.
It has already been proposed to extend paternity leave to the same length as maternity leave, removing a reason for employers to favor men over women.
Something can be done right away
And then, something at the language level can already be done now, that is, one can intervene on the lexicon. Not on that of the others, however: on your own, thus setting a good example (it being understood that the law rightly punishes insults, threats, hate speech, etc.).
Let's take a practical example. What does the average Italian say when he rolls down the window of his car to express disapproval towards other motorists?
Typically it is about sexist insults.. Who limits himself to shouting “idiot!” or “cretin!” he is considered an admirable example of unprecedented temperance.
Well, I think that if we extended temperance to the point of simply saying “but well! who gave you your driving license?”, we would have made a significant contribution to decreasing language violence and sexism.
No need to make indistinct sounds.
. . .
Daniele Vitali, from Bologna, was a translator for the European Commission for years. He has to his credit various glottology works on languages and dialects, including “Linguistic portraits: the Romanian” (Inter @ lia 2002), “Do you speak Italian-Luxembourgish? Notes on the language of the Italians of Luxembourg” (Inter@lia 2009), “Russian pronunciation for Italians” (with Luciano Canepari, Aracne 2013), as well as the great “Dizionario Bolognese-Italiano Italiano-Bolognese” (Pendragon 2007 and 2009, with Luigi Lepri), “Emilian dialects and Tuscan dialects. Linguistic interactions between Emilia-Romagna and Tuscany” (Pendragon 2020) and “Mé a dscårr in bulgnaiṡ. Manual for learning the Bolognese dialect” (Pendragon 2022).
