ACI Prensa Staff, Mar 3, 2024 / 08:00 am (CNA).
The move toward so-called inclusive language finds its origins in the feminist movement where activists considered sexist the generic masculine form of words, which has perennially been understood to include both men and women.
In the past, for example, no one thought of challenging “for the good of mankind” as excluding women. However, the feminist movement drew heightened sensitivity to what activists considered the “patriarchal” nature of language.
Various publications started to use terms or forms of words that made it clear that a job could be performed by both men and women. Hence “fireman” became “firefighter” and “mankind” became “humankind,” etc.
While some of these changes are not that dramatic or noticeable in English, introducing inclusive wording in languages such as Spanish, where nouns are either grammatically masculine or feminine, becomes quite obvious due to the novel alteration of noun endings.
Gender-neutral language has similarly become an issue in Germany, as German nouns are also either masculine or feminine.
Inclusive language has also been identified as “one of the tools” of gender ideology, a school of thought that has been repeatedly criticized by the Catholic Church.
Pope Francis has warned about this school of thought on several occasions. As recently as March 1, for example, the Holy Father pointed out that gender ideology “erases differences and makes everything the same; erasing differences is erasing humanity.”
What does inclusive language mean?
The Royal Spanish Academy, considered the definitive authority on what is correct Spanish, describes inclusive language as “a set of strategies that aim to avoid the generic use of the grammatical masculine.”
In addressing the issue, the academy has stated that the generic masculine is “firmly established in the language and does not imply any sexist discrimination” and that the recently invented artificial gender-neutral noun endings “that are supposedly gender inclusive are … unnecessary since the grammatical masculine already fulfills this function.”
In a May 2022 article in the Argentine newspaper La Nación, Alicia María Zorrilla, president of the Argentine Academy of Letters, said that inclusive language is based on the error of taking literally the concept that, in language, the masculine [form of a word] always refers to the men only.”
Pushback
In a YouTube interview with Edgardo Litvinoff, Nobel Prize winner in literature Mario Vargas Llosa said that within feminism “there are some excesses” that he believes are “very important to combat,” for example, in the field of language.
“We cannot force language by completely denaturalizing it for ideological reasons; it doesn’t work that way, languages do not work that way, and so the so-called inclusive language is a kind of aberration within language,” he noted.
Cardinal Fernández weighs in
In 2022, while still archbishop of La Plata, Argentina, the current prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández, warned about the “ideological imposition” that “inclusive language” can trigger.
In June of that year, Fernández wrote in a column in the Argentine newspaper La Nación: “Fundamentally, the intention does not seem to be to ‘incorporate everyone’ but to make the very conception of ‘male-female’ disappear. The aim is that what was called ‘sex’ leaves room for a personal construction that ‘fabricates’ the identity that each person comes up with.”
“Destroying the language and expecting everyone to submit to a certain ideology can only be counterproductive and, due to the law of the pendulum, will cause more intolerance and tension,” he warned.
Growing backlash
In 2021, the French Ministry of Education prohibited the use of inclusive language in educational institutions because, according to the Daily Mail, such alterations “are a threat to the language.” The Académie Française, a nearly 400-year-old institution similar to its Spanish counterpart, said inclusive language is “harmful to the practice and understanding” of French.
Uruguay’s National Administration of Public Education, for its part, established restrictions in 2022, determining that “language that conforms to the rules of the Spanish language” must always be used.
The City of Buenos Aires, Argentina, banned inclusive language in 2022, arguing that this variation of the language creates difficulties for students in learning grammatical rules.
Most recently, Argentina’s government, led by recently elected President Javier Milei, extended the ban to all areas of national public administration. The spokesman for office of the president, Manuel Adorni, announced on Feb. 27 that artificial alterations of word endings to make them gender neutral are now prohibited.
This story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.
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Said Confucius when asked what he would do to save his country: “I would restore the meaning of words.”
Gender theory is sexualized Esperanto.
This is not a new phenomenon. It goes back to the 1970s, when certain female religious communities were hung up over these issues. That’s why “I Am the Bread of Life” changed from the Biblical text (“I will raise him up”) to the singer talking in God’s name (“I will raise you up”), a theological deformity. But those same orders are now largely old age octagenarian houses of dying orders, while their damage reigns in the usual Sunday hymnal.
Dr. Grondelski, I agree wholeheartedly. But few Americans are aware of the extent to which we Americans exported our degenerate liturgies to Central and South America.
We recently spent 6 weeks in Belize and, although we were blessed to be able to attend daily Mass, we were subjected at every Mass to: guitars in the choir loft; the words of the Mass (Creed, Pater, Gloria, etc) being projected on not one but two screens astride the altar; the priest celebrant teaching us how to use sign language for the Responsorial Psalm; video announcements of upcoming “programs” at the parish projected on the aforementioned video monitors; the old hackneyed 60’s and 70’s “hymns” that we all love to hate sung in Spanish to the tune of “Michael Rowed the Boat Ashore” and “Here I Am, Lord.” The celebrant even altered the liturgy by kissing the Sacred Host and the Chalice of Precious Blood after replacing them on the altar. Each daily Mass I asked myself why it’s necessary to sing 3-4 hymns at 7 AM Mass. So the Church in America has a lot to answer for because we can all be certain that the indigenous Mayan Catholics did not think up all these innovations on their own. And to think: the Pope hates the Extraordinary Form of the Mass and this is what we’re left with.
The question is, what…Hath God Said.
Bravo to the Spanish, French and German defenders of their language.
Time for English to follow suit. There is a general need for everyone to defend his language.
I recently read about a group challenging the formal species names of dinosaurs. (!) They were distressed that the terminology was “gendered masculine.” Given the nature of Greek and Latin grammar, the same is true of almost any species designation one can think of–including Homo sapiens. But give them time . . . .
This sort of thing has been building for a long time. I remember back during Desert Storm when Sadam used the expression “mother of all battles” the media instantly took to it. Previously the popular expression had always been “the grandaddy of (fill in the blank)”. Gender ideology is supported by what Geoge Orwell called “newspeak”, the twisting and purging of language and expressions by the tyranny of 1984.This has gotten so bad that when I saw a copy of the “second international dictionary “at a friends of the library book sale I eagerly snatched it up. You know, one of those huge tomes that sat on library tables back in the day. The staff threw it in for free having been convinced that no one could ever possibly want it! It has the real meaning of words in it.
Although i agree with your intent JJR, “Mother of All Battles” is a bad example because it reflects an Arabic idiom, not an English one.
People who feel diminished by the ordinary use of male and female pronouns need to get some psychiatric help. As a woman i can promise you that no pronoun on Earth has the power to suppress my sense of self. I pity such people, but i do not believe the rest of us have to jump yhrough hoops fir them.
Sandra we had a long standing and perfectly serviceable English idiom beginning with “granddaddy” but our media instantly switched to the foreign one because it began wth the feminine word “mother”. They have used the arabic phrase ever since.
“Inclusion” is expanding. For example, what does “journey” mean? What does it HAVE to mean? It’s just a word. It’s been said lately that literature is “a thorn in the heart that sets us on a journey”. I suppose this is trying to say that all pining is pining for God and is a good starting point if you recognize it as God’s call?
“Journey” also relates with Scripture, as when the Lord said, “Come follow Me and see.” Yet some priests will utter it and not lead faith. (Sorry I’m so slow.)
In what ways do cultural differences affect communication in multinational teams, and how can understanding these differences improve collaboration, hence enhancing productivity?, regard Telkom University