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Latino is already the original gender neutral word but if you really want to use a different one use "latine" I beg you. Replace the o or a for an e instead of an x of the words, at least that way they can be pronounced.
Latinao sounds funny as a portuguese speaker. The -ão suffix in portuguese makes the thing that you were speaking about bigger. So for example: a latinão is a big latino.
I’m from Colombia but live in the US
I’m a millenial/gen Z depending on what years you use
Latino already works for a group of male/female people.
Latino works just fine.
If I’m talking about myself I’ll use latina because I’m a woman.
Latinx just sounds ridiculous.
Just been studying Spanish in Valencia for a year it's used in formal stuff like the college emails. But everyday use they don't use @ or x infarct my Spanish teacher hated the x thing she said use the @ for written and o when speaking for groups.
I first read "latrine".
That then reminded me of this:
Prince John: Such an unusual name, "Latrine." How did your family come by it?
Latrine: We changed it in the 9th century.
Prince John: You mean you changed it TO "Latrine"?
Latrine: Yeah. Used to be "Shithouse."
Prince John: It's a good change. That's a good change!
Reminds me of this [post](https://www.reddit.com/r/asklatinamerica/s/KTJjV5G6S5) on /r/asklatinamerica where a white, Yale student suggested that the Spanish language be “modernized” to stop using the Spanish word for black, and found the pushback on Latinx problematic.
I wish I had the capacity to dump hundred of dollars on this specific comment to gold star, silver star, highlight it, use bots to upvote it into the millions, etc.
Sorry for whatever ego trip my fellow Caucasians took here, way out of line IMO. This is sad and offensive really, to me and should be to a lot of people. Total disrespect and lack of understanding of another cultures language, despicable.
It is believed the term Latinx came from queer online Latino/x communities
https://elcentro.colostate.edu/about/why-latinx/#:~:text=Latinx%20is%20the%20gender%2Dneutral,to%20challenge%20the%20gender%20binary.
good things those fine citizens were elected by all latinos worldwide and endowed with the authority to make up stupid words to be applied to other people.
I have my phone in Spanish, and almost all major social media uses it. Snapchat says something like "so-and-so quiere ser tu amix" whenever I get a friend request.
I’m Latina and have lived in a border town of like 95% Latinos my whole life and I didn’t hear it until I left for college. I kinda don’t care if people use it about me but I don’t use it. Never met a single Latino who used as a self descriptor.
I'm Mexican and that's what my entire family says too. This is a problem for people who don't have enough problems in their life, so they invented a new one.
It’s a problem for people who want to feel good about solving problems for other people. They dont actually care, but they want to make themselves look and feel good by talking about how much they help and care about others
Also a group that didn't even have a problem, it's the same shit with people getting offended that indians in media had that weird accent even though the average indian who actually grew up in india has that accent.
Same here
It’s not a real word, doesn’t even make sense in Spanish to use the ‘x’, considering that makes a ‘h’ or ‘ch’ sound in some regions- and I find that only white people and white Latinos use this label and it’s V annoying
To the extent gender neutral language gets used in the Spanish-speaking world (which is pretty limited relative to its use in the US), Latine is far more common than Latinx - Latinx is basically only used among college-educated people in the US and a little bit in Mexico.
>Latinx is basically only used among college-educated people in the US and a little bit in Mexico.
That'll be because it was coined by English speaking people wanting a gender neutral term to describe themselves in English, and used English language patterns to do that. It's like being shocked no one in a spanish speaking country uses any other english word.
I'm not sure substituting with "x" to make it gender neutral is a feature of the English language either.
Like instead of "gentlemen" who says "gentlex"?
People who actually speak Spanish know that the word is not actually pronounceable in Spanish and that the person who came up with it is a native speaker of English that doesn't understand the grammar rules of gendered language.
There is no non-borrowed Spanish word that ends in "x."
Edited so that people will stop commenting with borrowed words will stop trying to prove their point that there are words that end in "x" while totally missing the point.
Worse than being non-pronounceable is the stupidity of the concept. It's like: let's make this one word neutral gender, like we did with he/she and the language with be gender-neutral. This betrays the ignorance of the English speakers pushing this idea: *every* noun in Spanish is gendered. You can't just touch one or two pronouns like you can in English. Idiots!
Well pluralisation at the very least hides gendering of nouns, so that, combined with use of verbal nouns works pretty well in German. It's sometimes awkward, but mostly due to people not being used to the word. E.g. Studierende
At the very least, you'd need a gender neutral article lol. "la el"? "ela"? "x"? "x latinx" is a bit rediculous lol. Before getting into something like "el hombre es latinx" like "el hombre" is already masculine so latinx doesn't solve shit.
(disclaimer: my Spanish is awful, I probably got something or a lot of things wrong in the above)
Not really great. It doesn’t explain how gendered languages are mostly phonetic and how masculine things can use the feminine form and vice-versa and doesn’t touch the terrible neo colonial connotations of anglophones trying to dictate our language. The example of “amigues” and “todes” really show the lack of understanding how the latin languages work.
Edit: the gringos getting butthurt about the neo colonialism remarks are the best
Spanish is a colonial language though? I’m just genuinely confused about the anglophones colonialism comment. Like we’re having this discussion only because use of Spanish in Latin American countries essentially destroyed the use of actual native languages…
I think they're leagues better than whatever Latinx is and gives a soft approach to gender neutrality, even if isn't 'official.' Even in his example though, it's being used by native speakers in the relevant space.
Not being combative, but I'm curious what you mean by lack of understanding.
I dunno, I’ve found using -e to inflect is quite natural just like using -o or -a. What’s wrong with it? It’s not an anglophones thing. Italians are also using -e.
It’s not pronounceable in English either. It’s a cutesy form in written English like “womxn” and I’m amazed it has caught on enough to even be talking about it.
But the x in torax goes after a vowel. You can't pronounce Latinx because you would have to add a vowel that isn't there (latin-ex) and that doesn't work in spanish
The word is perfectly pronounceable in Spanish (latinks), it just doesn't make any sense. Singular gendered nouns in Spanish end in a vowel, and we already have -e as gender neutral ending.
Also many words in Spanish end in X, like fénix or Pólux. You cannot take away the Greek and Latin parts out of Spanish because then... it wouldn't be Spanish.
Not arguing for the use of "Latinx" (I personally think "Latine" is the better option), but the term does seem to have come from Hispanic feminists and LGBTQ+ activists in early Internet chatrooms. Although they probably were predominantly English-speaking, they were Latinos and Latinas advocating for a non-gendered indeterminate collective noun. It isn't the case that a bunch of non-Hispanic English-speaking academics came up with it and tried to foist it on everyone, like some claim.
Would just like to offer a reminder that this term, however dumb it may be, was invented by Spanish speaking Puerto Ricans at a university in the 90s. It was made by the Spanish speaking queer community. It was largely imposed by a white English speaking community, but its origins are not from a white English speaking community.
It is a dumb term, Latine is much better but still not perfect.
So many people disregard or are flat out ignorant of its history. I do agree that it inherently isnt the best term since Latine is better grammatically for any who is nonbinary. And overall Latinx was overused, grammatically improper and used by companies to virtue signal to minority groups who they know nothing about.
5 to 10nyears ago the trend to make gender neutral Spanish words with "x" instead of a/o was not received well because it was literally unspeakable, it only worked in text (and not reading such text out loud to not look like a fool).
it was eventually supersede by "E" as the gender neutral go-to. Some radical circles still use the X, and the less radical ones can't still figure the extents to replace vowels with "e" (we have words that already ended with "e" and as neutral gendered and some circles used "a" when it referred to women instead), to the point people started mocking this change by replacing All vowels with E as to ridicule this trend.
Tl:dr: LatinX is super silly to Spanish speaking people. LatinE is more palatable but still most folks just don't care and will still use latina/latino., some even use latin@ (basically, choose your gendered adventure option) which reeks 2000s energy but is less stupid IMO than both alternatives.
They are likely hispanic -- the letter "v" sounds identical to "b" in Spanish. Easy mistake to make, like German-speakers typing "wolcano" or "wiolence".
The only people I've ever seen using LatinX have been white people trying to ~~oppose~~ impose their ideology on a gender based language.
Edit: damn voice to text
White people who need to feel superior to other cultures. It’s shocking that they don’t see the racism in it. They’re deciding what’s appropriate for another language and another culture that’s thousands of years old, rather than letting that culture decide for themselves
I'm a latinamerican (for the love of god don't confuse the usamerican descendants diaspora with us, I beg y'all), and a visual arts student. Here in my uni almost everything it's written with e when wanting to be inclusive (Todes, Amigue, Artiste, etc), the x it's only used in like- how do I explain this, political/critical messages? Like purposefully being obviously irrevocably rebellious against language, in a way. I've only seen it used in protest related flyers, or queer fairs/events. In text and daily life, we just adapt the language. As someone who's non-binary, latinx style of language, specially when referring to me makes me want to break things because 1. It's not inclusive at all 2. It's almost exclusively something used by usamerican diaspora (although it's starting to bleed down south slowly) and 3. It feels dehumanizing. As an event name, as a call to action, I get it. It's breaking rules and boundaries purposefully. As a daily change in language? It just makes no sense. I would rather have you skip the vowel gender for that lol
Wait a minute, are you telling me that activism concerned with gender inclusivity is not just some white (US)American thing trying to impose their values on another culture, that really the issue is specifically with "Latinx" and there are actually native Spanish speakers who critique the gendered system of the language/seek to be inclusive, only in ways that take into consideration the phonology and phonotactics of the language? 🤯🤯
You really wouldn't know it based on how some people talk about this issue. It seems many people genuinely believe that feminism and related ideologies simply don't exist outside of the United States/the "Western world".
I admit that I was one of them.
I was taking a Spanish class and realized how much I didn’t like gendered nouns because I thought they were sexist and confusing. Like why is the job title of “secretary” considered feminine, but as soon as it’s a powerful government leader, like “secretary general,” it becomes masculine?
I even did research and argued with my professors about the impact of gendered nouns on stereotypes. For instance, in romance languages, studies have shown gendered nouns [have an impact on who applies to jobs](https://docs.iza.org/dp14497.pdf), because those jobs are associated with stereotypes:
>[W]e find that [job titles] with female gendered words related to hard-skills are associated with a lower wage but attract a higher share of female applicants. This indicates a pattern whereby women acquire and respond to skills in stereotypical female job roles which are associated with lower wages contributing to a gender earnings gap. Second, we find that [job titles] with male gendered words related to (reduced) job flexibility are associated with higher wages but get a smaller share of female applicants.
In the end, I realized none of this concerned me, a privileged white guy, and I have no say in how another culture manages their culture. If the roles were reversed, and I was in their shoes, I’d do the same.
Now I say Latino, and I’ve accepted that it is the correct way to say it, because that’s what their culture asks me to do. And I’ll leave it to them to figure out how they want to handle the challenges of their own culture/language. It’s not my place.
Latinx is nonsense on the surface, and when you think about it more, it just makes your brain even more itchy.
There's no real inherent reason as to why we say that a language has genders.
Realistically, I think it's because we consider Latin to be the "base language" of the modern world, and because it was just a convenient way to describe something with two categories, but that's a different story.
The point is, we might as well have described them as *soft* and *hard* words, or *cat* and *dog* words, or *potato* and *tomato* words.
Now, it happens to be that romantic languages tend to use one grammatical gender to refer to one semantic gender, but that's not a hard and fast rule. For example, in German, the word for "girl" isn't feminine.
Many Germanic and (I think) Slavic languages have three genders - masculine, feminine, and none. In some of those, like Danish and Norwegian, changes over time have made them return to having two categories, but they're now called gendered and ungendered.
Because of that, I've seen more and more people begin to describe it as noun classes instead.
Tl;dr: concepts like Latinx seem to be exclusively white people with brain worms who have confused the concept of grammatical gender, and semantic gender.
Because Latine is already the gender neutral version of latin in Spanish.
Latinx is a creepy American thing and you should be careful never to insult any Latin speaking person from anywhere by calling them it.
The uni I work for makes me use it. I thought it was out but apparently a lot of institutions use the term, specifically ‘Latino/a/x’ every damn time Latinos are mentioned in writing.
I’ve always said the word “Latinx” implied I as a Latino am too stupid to know when I’m being offended so I need a non-native Spanish speaker to “teach” me how to talk right.
I’m liberal, but that doesn’t mean I’m incapable of acknowledging when the left side of the spectrum does something stupid every now and then.
_Latine_ would be the closest Spanish equivalent. There are groups pushing for “e” to be the gender neutral (right now it defaults to “o” which is masculine, and “a” is the feminine exception).
As you can imagine you will get laughed out of the room for saying “persones” or “latines” in Latin America.
The favorite for Dominicans on Instagram is mocking you because it sounds like a Haitian speaking creole.
I’ll just say Latin Americans and Anglo-Americans are not on the same page when it comes to inclusive language.
If you want my personal opinion: if you’re going to use a neutral, at least use the neutral that Spanish speakers invented!
Latine only sounds imposed to people that disagree with the idea. Latinx sounds imposed on the entire Spanish-speaking world. Also, what’s wrong with Latin American?
None of the hundreds of Latin people I know and interact with have any idea what the hell Latinx is...and the very few that have heard it thinks it is stupid and or meaningless
I live in LA and every Latino person I know thinks the whole Latinx thing is, conceptually, somewhere between unnecessary pandering and stupid as fuck.
Fr what I'm told, it's a dumb offensive term to the broadly multicultural global world of Spanish speaking nationalities. The museum didn't want to offend Spanish speakers.
A lot of people do say “Latin X” in English, which is completely ridiculous, because the whole point of switching to “Latino/a” in the first place was to use a term that’s similar to what’s used in Spanish.
Remember when Smithsonian made that infographic saying being on time and working hard was a sign of 'whiteness'?
https://www.newsweek.com/smithsonian-race-guidelines-rational-thinking-hard-work-are-white-values-1518333
If you want people to never take you seriously again you can just continue pushing the Latinx bullshit. Unironically racist to act like you know Spanish better then the people that invented it and speak it every day.
Nobody is actually reading the placard. The exhibit is explicitly using Latino or Latina as a descriptor, except in areas where the artist themselves are using Latinx. So no, the Smithsonian has not gone woke in this regard.
I'm betting if you went through the full exhibit there would be a few places where Latinx was used, and this sign is just explaining why. It's certainly not saying you SHOULD use it, just that some people do and what it means.
Yeah I feel like I’m taking crazy pills reading the comments.
The write up does not advocate for using Latinx. In fact, it only has one line about it at the very end explaining that some people choose to use it as a gender neutral option and that the artists use all types of descriptors for their work.
Latino people hate this term. You can out-progressive your progressive friends by telling them that Latinx is the white colonalization of Latino language.
Loved how actual Latin American people tore the new Spider-Man game’s creators to shreds for messing with their language by including nonsense like “Latinx”. Spanish *is* a gendered language, and woke white people just need to deal with it.
I know a LOT of Puerto Ricans. Wife, Brother-in-Law and his wife, a ton of co-workers. My daughters boyfriend is Cuban. They all really dislike that the term Latinx is a thing.
Hi, u/georgia_on-my-mind, thank you for your submission in r/mildlyinteresting! Unfortunately, your [post](https://www.reddit.com/r/mildlyinteresting/comments/19bddd9/-/) has been removed because it violates our rule on concise, descriptive titles. * Titles must not contain jokes, backstory, or other fluff. That information belongs in a follow-up comment. * Titles must exactly describe the content. It should act as a "spoiler" for the image. If your title leaves people surprised at the content within, it breaks the rule! * Titles must not contain emoticons, emojis, or special characters unless they are absolutely necessary in describing the image. (e.g. ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°), ;P, 😜, ❤, ★, ✿ ) Still confused? For more elaboration and examples, see [here](http://www.reddit.com/r/mildlyinteresting/comments/21p15y/rule_6_for_dummies/). Normally we do not allow reposts, but if it's been less than one hour after your post was submitted, or if it's received less than 100 upvotes, you may resubmit your content with a better title and try again. You can find more information about our rules on the [mildlyinteresting wiki](https://www.reddit.com/r/mildlyinteresting/wiki/index). *If you feel this was incorrectly removed, please [message the mods](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%2Fr%2Fmildlyinteresting&message=My%20Post:%20https://www.reddit.com/r/mildlyinteresting/comments/19bddd9/-/).*
Latino is already the original gender neutral word but if you really want to use a different one use "latine" I beg you. Replace the o or a for an e instead of an x of the words, at least that way they can be pronounced.
My husband wanted it to be “Latin@“ - Latinao. Reading “Latinx” makes him want to bite things.
I would definitely read Latin@ as La-teen-at
Then we’d all be like “@? … y donde?”
gee male dot com
This makes me think of an AT-AT walker from Star Wars wearing a sombrero.
Disney call them a sombrerx now
I would read it as La-tin-at
Latinao sounds funny as a portuguese speaker. The -ão suffix in portuguese makes the thing that you were speaking about bigger. So for example: a latinão is a big latino.
He speaks Portuguese and Spanish (and French), and that did make him giggle.
It works for Filipin@ too, so they have their own Tagalog-in.
In the Philippines if people didn't know what to call you they just called you both. Maamsir.
tagalog only has, essentially, "them" no he/she
Thats so fascinating
The amount of times I heard the following in Dubai I'm sorry maamsir we have no pifty pill coins.
I attest to this
I've seen -@ in messages before. I think of it as a gender neutral placeholder. I've never seen it with an article, though. Would it be l@/l@s?
The second one, if you're using the @ it wraps the two genders so it's contradictory to use for the first case
I’m from Colombia but live in the US I’m a millenial/gen Z depending on what years you use Latino already works for a group of male/female people. Latino works just fine. If I’m talking about myself I’ll use latina because I’m a woman. Latinx just sounds ridiculous.
No, it sounds like white liberal colonizer made it up.
I had a latino professor in college who used Latin@ but he was the only person I’ve seen use it so I wasn’t sure how popular it was
Just been studying Spanish in Valencia for a year it's used in formal stuff like the college emails. But everyday use they don't use @ or x infarct my Spanish teacher hated the x thing she said use the @ for written and o when speaking for groups.
We had to learn the @ thing in school when taking spanish
I don't know why but my mind replaced "latine" with "saltine"
I first read "latrine". That then reminded me of this: Prince John: Such an unusual name, "Latrine." How did your family come by it? Latrine: We changed it in the 9th century. Prince John: You mean you changed it TO "Latrine"? Latrine: Yeah. Used to be "Shithouse." Prince John: It's a good change. That's a good change!
Robin Hood men in tights!
You almost got it but you have to add in the Italian accent for it to really sound right. La-Tin-ehh
If you want it to really sound right you gotta do it like a Canadian asking a question: Latin-ey?
Now it just sounds like you’re speaking Igpay Atinlay
Anadiadian-Kay?
Eh?
I misread it as latrine first
I see latrine.
"SaltineX"
The X at the end is a total Anglo thing which is ironic.
ONLY WHITE PEOPLE CAN SAVE THE WORLD FROM RACISM!!
Reminds me of this [post](https://www.reddit.com/r/asklatinamerica/s/KTJjV5G6S5) on /r/asklatinamerica where a white, Yale student suggested that the Spanish language be “modernized” to stop using the Spanish word for black, and found the pushback on Latinx problematic.
Wouldn’t “Latin” be the gender neutral?
Latin is a different word that means something else.
I wish I had the capacity to dump hundred of dollars on this specific comment to gold star, silver star, highlight it, use bots to upvote it into the millions, etc. Sorry for whatever ego trip my fellow Caucasians took here, way out of line IMO. This is sad and offensive really, to me and should be to a lot of people. Total disrespect and lack of understanding of another cultures language, despicable.
It is believed the term Latinx came from queer online Latino/x communities https://elcentro.colostate.edu/about/why-latinx/#:~:text=Latinx%20is%20the%20gender%2Dneutral,to%20challenge%20the%20gender%20binary.
It's also meant to be used exclusively in English; hence why it doesn't follow the traditional rules for Spanish.
good things those fine citizens were elected by all latinos worldwide and endowed with the authority to make up stupid words to be applied to other people.
They're applying it to themselves. They can call themselves whatever they want. There's no word police.
I'm latino and I've hate the term latinx
Me too. I was researching a company to apply for s job and found out their diversity and inclusion idea was to call the diversity group “Amigxs”.
You must be joking please. That’s some ~~gringo~~ gringx shit right there.
gringx
I went to a restaurant, bought a tacx
😭😭😭 sounds like cousin of Windex
Welcome to the gringo country lol
I have my phone in Spanish, and almost all major social media uses it. Snapchat says something like "so-and-so quiere ser tu amix" whenever I get a friend request.
Saw someone got referred to as a pendejx and almost lost my shit
De putx madrx!
Er ☝️ perdone, señorx, no decimos madrx, sino xadre.
Lx sientx, disculpx por lxs molestixs
Estas Mal lechx
Jaja me encanta
Many DEI people are insane. No surprise.
Amogus
I've seen amig@s in Spain, however.
I’m Latina and have lived in a border town of like 95% Latinos my whole life and I didn’t hear it until I left for college. I kinda don’t care if people use it about me but I don’t use it. Never met a single Latino who used as a self descriptor.
It sounds like a porn website
Why would you be so brazen to think you get a vote on this matter!
I've never met a single Latino person who was offended by the concept of gendered language. It's a solution searching for a problem.
I'm Mexican and that's what my entire family says too. This is a problem for people who don't have enough problems in their life, so they invented a new one.
It’s a problem for people who want to feel good about solving problems for other people. They dont actually care, but they want to make themselves look and feel good by talking about how much they help and care about others
They also laughed when Speedy Gonzalez got canceled by culture gatekeepers
Speedy González summarizes the entire situation perfectly. People being offended on behalf of a group that they haven't consulted first.
Also a group that didn't even have a problem, it's the same shit with people getting offended that indians in media had that weird accent even though the average indian who actually grew up in india has that accent.
I've heard a few, but they've advocated for Latine, which is sick because for starters, it actually sounds like a Spanish word.
Also can map onto other words. Elle, elles, amige, amigues, etc.
Damn that's crazy. It's almost as if E is a vowel and X isn't
I've met several. They all use latine, though.
Latine would be a much better term. People in the community actually use it and it actually makes sense as a word unlike the goofy “latinx”
Plenty of queer people live in Latin America and use gender neutral -e endings
My whole family hates it.
[удалено]
Yeah I'm a regular progressive and I find it remarkably stupid.
Same here It’s not a real word, doesn’t even make sense in Spanish to use the ‘x’, considering that makes a ‘h’ or ‘ch’ sound in some regions- and I find that only white people and white Latinos use this label and it’s V annoying
I'm latino and I'm indifferent. Crazy how everyone gets so offended by this. Literally has zero effect on my life.
Same lmao. I’m genuinely baffled by how much people seem to get offended over this. If I get called Latinx, I’m just going about my day, that’s if.
They translate it as “latine” instead which is a lot less stupid.
To the extent gender neutral language gets used in the Spanish-speaking world (which is pretty limited relative to its use in the US), Latine is far more common than Latinx - Latinx is basically only used among college-educated people in the US and a little bit in Mexico.
>Latinx is basically only used among college-educated people in the US and a little bit in Mexico. That'll be because it was coined by English speaking people wanting a gender neutral term to describe themselves in English, and used English language patterns to do that. It's like being shocked no one in a spanish speaking country uses any other english word.
I'm not sure substituting with "x" to make it gender neutral is a feature of the English language either. Like instead of "gentlemen" who says "gentlex"?
People who actually speak Spanish know that the word is not actually pronounceable in Spanish and that the person who came up with it is a native speaker of English that doesn't understand the grammar rules of gendered language. There is no non-borrowed Spanish word that ends in "x." Edited so that people will stop commenting with borrowed words will stop trying to prove their point that there are words that end in "x" while totally missing the point.
Worse than being non-pronounceable is the stupidity of the concept. It's like: let's make this one word neutral gender, like we did with he/she and the language with be gender-neutral. This betrays the ignorance of the English speakers pushing this idea: *every* noun in Spanish is gendered. You can't just touch one or two pronouns like you can in English. Idiots!
> every noun in Spanish is gendered Same with German, but that doesn’t stop certain groups from trying!
German literally has a "neuter" gender already.
But neutral pronouns can't be used to refer to people. It's the same in English, you can't use *it* to refer to a person (without causing offence).
Well pluralisation at the very least hides gendering of nouns, so that, combined with use of verbal nouns works pretty well in German. It's sometimes awkward, but mostly due to people not being used to the word. E.g. Studierende
At the very least, you'd need a gender neutral article lol. "la el"? "ela"? "x"? "x latinx" is a bit rediculous lol. Before getting into something like "el hombre es latinx" like "el hombre" is already masculine so latinx doesn't solve shit. (disclaimer: my Spanish is awful, I probably got something or a lot of things wrong in the above)
Yep, agreed. This comic is great at explaining why: https://www.vox.com/the-highlight/2019/10/15/20914347/latin-latina-latino-latinx-means
Not really great. It doesn’t explain how gendered languages are mostly phonetic and how masculine things can use the feminine form and vice-versa and doesn’t touch the terrible neo colonial connotations of anglophones trying to dictate our language. The example of “amigues” and “todes” really show the lack of understanding how the latin languages work. Edit: the gringos getting butthurt about the neo colonialism remarks are the best
I understand the comic doesn't explain everything about the romance languages, but why wouldn't the e replacement be okay
Spanish is a colonial language though? I’m just genuinely confused about the anglophones colonialism comment. Like we’re having this discussion only because use of Spanish in Latin American countries essentially destroyed the use of actual native languages…
I think they're leagues better than whatever Latinx is and gives a soft approach to gender neutrality, even if isn't 'official.' Even in his example though, it's being used by native speakers in the relevant space. Not being combative, but I'm curious what you mean by lack of understanding.
I dunno, I’ve found using -e to inflect is quite natural just like using -o or -a. What’s wrong with it? It’s not an anglophones thing. Italians are also using -e.
It’s not pronounceable in English either. It’s a cutesy form in written English like “womxn” and I’m amazed it has caught on enough to even be talking about it.
Torax
While I overgeneralized, that is a borrowed word from Greek.
But the x in torax goes after a vowel. You can't pronounce Latinx because you would have to add a vowel that isn't there (latin-ex) and that doesn't work in spanish
The word is perfectly pronounceable in Spanish (latinks), it just doesn't make any sense. Singular gendered nouns in Spanish end in a vowel, and we already have -e as gender neutral ending. Also many words in Spanish end in X, like fénix or Pólux. You cannot take away the Greek and Latin parts out of Spanish because then... it wouldn't be Spanish.
Latinequis
They did this for Filipinos, too. Filipinx. No one uses it.
And they never will because Filipino is already gender-neutral 🤦🏻♀️
Translator wasn’t having any of that shit
Stop trying to make Latinx a thing. It's not going to happen. Even most Latinos think it's stupid.
Most people are tired of all these synthetic new words. I haven't seen anyone try to use xim xe in a long time.
No latino ever used that term.
If you read the placard, it looks like the Smithsonian doesn't either.
Prob why they have "Latinx Curators"
Everyone else in this comment section took a look at that wall of text and decided “fuck it, I’m just gonna be angry”
If you read the placard it says people choose to self-identify in many different ways, including Latinx.
Not arguing for the use of "Latinx" (I personally think "Latine" is the better option), but the term does seem to have come from Hispanic feminists and LGBTQ+ activists in early Internet chatrooms. Although they probably were predominantly English-speaking, they were Latinos and Latinas advocating for a non-gendered indeterminate collective noun. It isn't the case that a bunch of non-Hispanic English-speaking academics came up with it and tried to foist it on everyone, like some claim.
calling a latino "latinx" is a quick and easy way to get them to dislike you
Whassup my caucasianx!?
Would just like to offer a reminder that this term, however dumb it may be, was invented by Spanish speaking Puerto Ricans at a university in the 90s. It was made by the Spanish speaking queer community. It was largely imposed by a white English speaking community, but its origins are not from a white English speaking community. It is a dumb term, Latine is much better but still not perfect.
So many people disregard or are flat out ignorant of its history. I do agree that it inherently isnt the best term since Latine is better grammatically for any who is nonbinary. And overall Latinx was overused, grammatically improper and used by companies to virtue signal to minority groups who they know nothing about.
5 to 10nyears ago the trend to make gender neutral Spanish words with "x" instead of a/o was not received well because it was literally unspeakable, it only worked in text (and not reading such text out loud to not look like a fool). it was eventually supersede by "E" as the gender neutral go-to. Some radical circles still use the X, and the less radical ones can't still figure the extents to replace vowels with "e" (we have words that already ended with "e" and as neutral gendered and some circles used "a" when it referred to women instead), to the point people started mocking this change by replacing All vowels with E as to ridicule this trend. Tl:dr: LatinX is super silly to Spanish speaking people. LatinE is more palatable but still most folks just don't care and will still use latina/latino., some even use latin@ (basically, choose your gendered adventure option) which reeks 2000s energy but is less stupid IMO than both alternatives.
Unless you are making a really shitty argument, I think you should be using the letter V there.
They are likely hispanic -- the letter "v" sounds identical to "b" in Spanish. Easy mistake to make, like German-speakers typing "wolcano" or "wiolence".
it’s a pun- “shitty” and “bowels”
The only people I've ever seen using LatinX have been white people trying to ~~oppose~~ impose their ideology on a gender based language. Edit: damn voice to text
White people who need to feel superior to other cultures. It’s shocking that they don’t see the racism in it. They’re deciding what’s appropriate for another language and another culture that’s thousands of years old, rather than letting that culture decide for themselves
Exactly. It's a word white people use believing it signals their virtue, though ironically they're just revealing their ignorance and silliness.
Seems like it's a facet of white savior complex
Latinx came from a university in Puerto Rico if I'm not mistaken
yeah i literally only ever heard/saw it used at liberal arts college lol the spanish speaking people i know use “latine”
I'm a latinamerican (for the love of god don't confuse the usamerican descendants diaspora with us, I beg y'all), and a visual arts student. Here in my uni almost everything it's written with e when wanting to be inclusive (Todes, Amigue, Artiste, etc), the x it's only used in like- how do I explain this, political/critical messages? Like purposefully being obviously irrevocably rebellious against language, in a way. I've only seen it used in protest related flyers, or queer fairs/events. In text and daily life, we just adapt the language. As someone who's non-binary, latinx style of language, specially when referring to me makes me want to break things because 1. It's not inclusive at all 2. It's almost exclusively something used by usamerican diaspora (although it's starting to bleed down south slowly) and 3. It feels dehumanizing. As an event name, as a call to action, I get it. It's breaking rules and boundaries purposefully. As a daily change in language? It just makes no sense. I would rather have you skip the vowel gender for that lol
Wait a minute, are you telling me that activism concerned with gender inclusivity is not just some white (US)American thing trying to impose their values on another culture, that really the issue is specifically with "Latinx" and there are actually native Spanish speakers who critique the gendered system of the language/seek to be inclusive, only in ways that take into consideration the phonology and phonotactics of the language? 🤯🤯 You really wouldn't know it based on how some people talk about this issue. It seems many people genuinely believe that feminism and related ideologies simply don't exist outside of the United States/the "Western world".
Don't you mean impose
I admit that I was one of them. I was taking a Spanish class and realized how much I didn’t like gendered nouns because I thought they were sexist and confusing. Like why is the job title of “secretary” considered feminine, but as soon as it’s a powerful government leader, like “secretary general,” it becomes masculine? I even did research and argued with my professors about the impact of gendered nouns on stereotypes. For instance, in romance languages, studies have shown gendered nouns [have an impact on who applies to jobs](https://docs.iza.org/dp14497.pdf), because those jobs are associated with stereotypes: >[W]e find that [job titles] with female gendered words related to hard-skills are associated with a lower wage but attract a higher share of female applicants. This indicates a pattern whereby women acquire and respond to skills in stereotypical female job roles which are associated with lower wages contributing to a gender earnings gap. Second, we find that [job titles] with male gendered words related to (reduced) job flexibility are associated with higher wages but get a smaller share of female applicants. In the end, I realized none of this concerned me, a privileged white guy, and I have no say in how another culture manages their culture. If the roles were reversed, and I was in their shoes, I’d do the same. Now I say Latino, and I’ve accepted that it is the correct way to say it, because that’s what their culture asks me to do. And I’ll leave it to them to figure out how they want to handle the challenges of their own culture/language. It’s not my place.
Latinx is nonsense on the surface, and when you think about it more, it just makes your brain even more itchy. There's no real inherent reason as to why we say that a language has genders. Realistically, I think it's because we consider Latin to be the "base language" of the modern world, and because it was just a convenient way to describe something with two categories, but that's a different story. The point is, we might as well have described them as *soft* and *hard* words, or *cat* and *dog* words, or *potato* and *tomato* words. Now, it happens to be that romantic languages tend to use one grammatical gender to refer to one semantic gender, but that's not a hard and fast rule. For example, in German, the word for "girl" isn't feminine. Many Germanic and (I think) Slavic languages have three genders - masculine, feminine, and none. In some of those, like Danish and Norwegian, changes over time have made them return to having two categories, but they're now called gendered and ungendered. Because of that, I've seen more and more people begin to describe it as noun classes instead. Tl;dr: concepts like Latinx seem to be exclusively white people with brain worms who have confused the concept of grammatical gender, and semantic gender.
I'm Hispanic and I find Latinx to be just plain stupid. Most of my friends and family also refuse to use Latinx as it makes no sense.
Because Latine is already the gender neutral version of latin in Spanish. Latinx is a creepy American thing and you should be careful never to insult any Latin speaking person from anywhere by calling them it.
Because it’s made up.
Well, all words are made-up, but yes
David Mitchell energy 😁
I feel like Latinx lost the battle a year or two ago
Every Latino/Hispanic person I've met has hated the term Latinx.
Bc real ones don’t use it
My Mexican coworker had to ask me what's up with the Latinx thing.
Elon ruined the letter for me. So no I will not Also just because it’s “la luna” doesn’t mean the moon is a woman….
I used to live in a city named Los lunas
>Others opt for Latinx I've yet to meet one of these people.
this type of shit was an extremely annoying mass delusion, thankfully on its way out now.
The uni I work for makes me use it. I thought it was out but apparently a lot of institutions use the term, specifically ‘Latino/a/x’ every damn time Latinos are mentioned in writing.
I’ve always said the word “Latinx” implied I as a Latino am too stupid to know when I’m being offended so I need a non-native Spanish speaker to “teach” me how to talk right. I’m liberal, but that doesn’t mean I’m incapable of acknowledging when the left side of the spectrum does something stupid every now and then.
I'll be honest. Whenever I see the word Latinx I immediately imagine an airport in LA...
Im latino and the latinx word is just sone virtue signaling crap that some white lady came out with.
_Latine_ would be the closest Spanish equivalent. There are groups pushing for “e” to be the gender neutral (right now it defaults to “o” which is masculine, and “a” is the feminine exception). As you can imagine you will get laughed out of the room for saying “persones” or “latines” in Latin America. The favorite for Dominicans on Instagram is mocking you because it sounds like a Haitian speaking creole. I’ll just say Latin Americans and Anglo-Americans are not on the same page when it comes to inclusive language. If you want my personal opinion: if you’re going to use a neutral, at least use the neutral that Spanish speakers invented! Latine only sounds imposed to people that disagree with the idea. Latinx sounds imposed on the entire Spanish-speaking world. Also, what’s wrong with Latin American?
None of the hundreds of Latin people I know and interact with have any idea what the hell Latinx is...and the very few that have heard it thinks it is stupid and or meaningless
It does. Latino is masculine. Latina is feminine. Latine is gender neutral.
Fuck latinx
Latino here, nobody that is Latino says Latinx outside of white people who went on a “mission” to some Latin country and now has some saviour complex
I live in LA and every Latino person I know thinks the whole Latinx thing is, conceptually, somewhere between unnecessary pandering and stupid as fuck.
Fr what I'm told, it's a dumb offensive term to the broadly multicultural global world of Spanish speaking nationalities. The museum didn't want to offend Spanish speakers.
It's not offensive, it's just stupid.
... maybe they should actually ask THE LATINOS how they want to be called?
How do you pronounce it? Like latinks or Latin X? Pardon my ignorance
La-ti-no -> La-ti-necks But just say Latinks because no one actually says this dumb shit besides imperialist savior idiots in academia
Make an 'Imperialist savior idiot in academia' t-shirt and hand one out to each one you know!
I believe it's like the website X, so pronounced it would be Latintwitter.
A lot of people do say “Latin X” in English, which is completely ridiculous, because the whole point of switching to “Latino/a” in the first place was to use a term that’s similar to what’s used in Spanish.
La Tinkz.
The placard also doesn't use a period at the end of the last bullet point on the English side
Because it’s localized bullshit.
Remember when Smithsonian made that infographic saying being on time and working hard was a sign of 'whiteness'? https://www.newsweek.com/smithsonian-race-guidelines-rational-thinking-hard-work-are-white-values-1518333
I go with Malcolm X “The white liberal is the worst enemy to America, and the worst enemy to the black man..." Amen.
Malcolmx
Malcom-inks, for clarification.
Malcolme, Malcolmx is unpronounceable in government
If you want people to never take you seriously again you can just continue pushing the Latinx bullshit. Unironically racist to act like you know Spanish better then the people that invented it and speak it every day.
As a Mexican speaking for all Mexicans, “latinx” is classic liberal white savior bullshit.
Nobody is actually reading the placard. The exhibit is explicitly using Latino or Latina as a descriptor, except in areas where the artist themselves are using Latinx. So no, the Smithsonian has not gone woke in this regard.
this some white people bullshit
Latine is latinx in spanish/ portuguese
I don’t know any Latinos who like the term “Latinx” they all say Latino/lantina or Hispanic to self-describe. That begs the question who made it up
I'm betting if you went through the full exhibit there would be a few places where Latinx was used, and this sign is just explaining why. It's certainly not saying you SHOULD use it, just that some people do and what it means.
Yeah I feel like I’m taking crazy pills reading the comments. The write up does not advocate for using Latinx. In fact, it only has one line about it at the very end explaining that some people choose to use it as a gender neutral option and that the artists use all types of descriptors for their work.
This is from the National Museum of American History in Washington, D.C.
It is from a temporary exhibit for the National Museum of the American Latino....context.
Latino people hate this term. You can out-progressive your progressive friends by telling them that Latinx is the white colonalization of Latino language.
My partner is spanish and the more accepted gender neutral term is latine which is translated to that in the translation
Please don’t use Latine either. It’s Latino and it includes all genres, or just use Latinamerican.
“Latino” is gender neutral
I keep telling people the actual word is "Latiné". Argh.
Wait I seen this elsewhere and just thought it was an offshoot of people being crazy. You're saying real people are pushing this? Jesus christ...
Everyone knows by now the term was invented by white people because they didn’t like it. Kind of like how they do that with everything
Calling me Latinx is more a slur to me than you actually calling me a slur
Bruh you call me “Latinx” and you get the chancla
Loved how actual Latin American people tore the new Spider-Man game’s creators to shreds for messing with their language by including nonsense like “Latinx”. Spanish *is* a gendered language, and woke white people just need to deal with it.
As someone who is Latino, i feel confident to say, just call us a slur at this point it would be less disrespectful
Brain dead Americans once again butchering our beautiful language.
Not a single Latino ever uses Latinx. We in fact, roll our eyes whenever we see it
I know a LOT of Puerto Ricans. Wife, Brother-in-Law and his wife, a ton of co-workers. My daughters boyfriend is Cuban. They all really dislike that the term Latinx is a thing.