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A New Accent Is Developing in Southwest Kansas

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Re: A New Accent Is Developing in Southwest Kansas

#31

Post by jakelazaroff »

TheCapeGreek wrote: post #29
toomanybeersies wrote: post #25

Does anyone else find the whole 'Latinx' thing nonsensical? I understand the reasoning, it's about being gender neutral. But why don't they just knock the vowel off the end and just say 'Latin'?

I agree it is nonsensical, but I'd rather it stay as it used to be. Through the usual meme grapevine I saw a tumblr post on reddit about this. Being gender neutral/genderless in this case is also actively ignoring Spanish linguistics (and arguably culture). Spanish is a gendered language like many others. It's not some patriarchal conspiracy to say Latino instead of Latina or vice versa, it's just how the language wo…

> Being gender neutral/genderless in this case is also actively ignoring Spanish linguistics (and arguably culture).

That argument that conflates the Spanish language and Latin American culture (which is not homogenous). Portuguese actually edges out Spanish in terms of European languages in South America, and there are hundreds of indigenous languages spoken there [1]. It's an appeal to the purity of a culture that is itself a product of colonialism.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_South_America

Re: A New Accent Is Developing in Southwest Kansas

#32

Post by dep_b »

TheCapeGreek wrote: post #29
toomanybeersies wrote: post #25

Does anyone else find the whole 'Latinx' thing nonsensical? I understand the reasoning, it's about being gender neutral. But why don't they just knock the vowel off the end and just say 'Latin'?

I agree it is nonsensical, but I'd rather it stay as it used to be. Through the usual meme grapevine I saw a tumblr post on reddit about this. Being gender neutral/genderless in this case is also actively ignoring Spanish linguistics (and arguably culture). Spanish is a gendered language like many others. It's not some patriarchal conspiracy to say Latino instead of Latina or vice versa, it's just how the language wo…

Actually I see a lot of people write x or @ instead of o. The x is the variety most sprayed on walls in political statements, the @ is used for stuff like birthday invites. Some people I know do it.

To use x in an English text comes across to me as political activism.

Re: A New Accent Is Developing in Southwest Kansas

#33

Post by ilamont »

arethuza wrote: post #27
baxtr wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isolation is probably an important factor for the development of an accent

I grew up in a small fishing village in the north of Scotland - an area notorious for its very strong accents (to the point of some documentaries filmed locally having to be subtitled in English!). However, people who lived on farms spoke with a noticeably different accent (at least to the ears of locals) - even though they might be physically on a kilometer or two from the nearest village. NB This was in the 70s - I…

The movie "Hot Fuzz" played up variations in regional accents in England. There's a scene (1) where the London cop (Simon Pegg) has to use two rural cops in order to interpret the dialect of an old farmer.

1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cun-LZvOTdw

Re: A New Accent Is Developing in Southwest Kansas

#34

Post by pavlov »

toomanybeersies wrote: post #25

Does anyone else find the whole 'Latinx' thing nonsensical? I understand the reasoning, it's about being gender neutral. But why don't they just knock the vowel off the end and just say 'Latin'?

The Swedish letter Å would be useful here:

"Latinå"

Too hard to type on physical keyboards though.

Re: A New Accent Is Developing in Southwest Kansas

#35

Post by reader5000 »

TheCapeGreek wrote: post #29
toomanybeersies wrote: post #25

Does anyone else find the whole 'Latinx' thing nonsensical? I understand the reasoning, it's about being gender neutral. But why don't they just knock the vowel off the end and just say 'Latin'?

I agree it is nonsensical, but I'd rather it stay as it used to be. Through the usual meme grapevine I saw a tumblr post on reddit about this. Being gender neutral/genderless in this case is also actively ignoring Spanish linguistics (and arguably culture). Spanish is a gendered language like many others. It's not some patriarchal conspiracy to say Latino instead of Latina or vice versa, it's just how the language wo…

The tension between "all non-Anglo culture is unconditionally progressive" versus "we have to pretend linguistic gender is political" is amusing. The meme that the standard English "he", used in the context of referring to a gender unspecified person, is oppressive can't be older than the 60's; it's probably possible to document its exact source and rate of spread. The meme doesn't even make sense for its own purposes because it disallows an English speaker to refer to a person in a gender unspecified way.

Re: A New Accent Is Developing in Southwest Kansas

#37

Post by enriquto »

toomanybeersies wrote: post #25

Does anyone else find the whole 'Latinx' thing nonsensical? I understand the reasoning, it's about being gender neutral. But why don't they just knock the vowel off the end and just say 'Latin'?

I find the usage of the word "latin" in the U.S. rather amusing, because they awkwardly use it to refer to people of non-european heritage... as an european, for me it is synonymous with "ancient roman".

Re: A New Accent Is Developing in Southwest Kansas

#38

Post by astura »

dep_b wrote: post #32
TheCapeGreek wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree it is nonsensical, but I'd rather it stay as it used to be. Through the usual meme grapevine I saw a tumblr post on reddit about this. Being gender neutral/genderless in this case is also actively ignoring Spanish linguistics (and arguably culture). Spanish is a gendered language like many others. It's not some patriarchal conspiracy to say Latino instead of Latina or vice versa, it's just how the language wo…

Actually I see a lot of people write x or @ instead of o. The x is the variety most sprayed on walls in political statements, the @ is used for stuff like birthday invites. Some people I know do it. To use x in an English text comes across to me as political activism.

To clarify, you mean in written Spanish, right?

Re: A New Accent Is Developing in Southwest Kansas

#39

Post by mieseratte »

pavlov wrote: post #34
toomanybeersies wrote: post #25

Does anyone else find the whole 'Latinx' thing nonsensical? I understand the reasoning, it's about being gender neutral. But why don't they just knock the vowel off the end and just say 'Latin'?

The Swedish letter Å would be useful here: "Latinå" Too hard to type on physical keyboards though.

I love the elegance of this, unfortunately I can imagine an attempt to use it devolving into the "more than two genders" argument.

Re: A New Accent Is Developing in Southwest Kansas

#40

Post by pavlov »

mieseratte wrote: post #39
pavlov wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Swedish letter Å would be useful here: "Latinå" Too hard to type on physical keyboards though.

I love the elegance of this, unfortunately I can imagine an attempt to use it devolving into the "more than two genders" argument.

The solution could be that anyone is free to use whatever Scandinavian vowel they prefer. Latinå, Latinæ, Latinä, Latinø...
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