Tuesday, October 3, 2023

In Hebrew, movement toward gender-neutral language

Many languages are gendered. As a culture's understanding of gender evolves and changes, its language changes too. One modern language experiencing these languages is Hebrew.

According to a 2022 article in the New York Times, in Hebrew, "every object has an assigned gender — a table is masculine and a door is feminine, for example — and the language lacks gender-neutral terms for people and groups of people." In the past, when speaking about, or to, a mixed-gender group, people have tended to use the masculine plural. Obviously, women find this exclusionary. So today, to be inclusive, "Israelis are increasingly using both the masculine and feminine forms of each verb and pronoun, along with corresponding adjectives, or are mixing them up." Some people write with "slash signs and dots" to mix the genders. Government forms already ask for "'Parent 1' and 'Parent 2,' which includes same-sex couples."

The Academy of the Hebrew Language doesn't have a solution; for the moment, it has simply recommended has recommended moderation in the use of the masculine and feminine. The head of the Academy’s Scientific Secretariat has said: "People delude themselves that if they change the language to fit their agenda, they will win their battles for some cause or other."

Here's an example of a modern question:

"'When I want to send a message to a group including men, women and nonbinary people, how do I address that group in a way that includes everyone?' asked Michal Shomer, an activist who has been pushing to make Hebrew less gender-specific and who has created a set of all-inclusive characters for the Hebrew alphabet."
ahava, the Hebrew word for love, on a rainbow pride background
Image: Wikimedia Commons

Source

In Israel, a Biblical Tongue Meets Gender Politics A linguistic revolution is underway in the quest for more gender-inclusive language for Hebrew, whose modern form adopted grammatical norms from 3,000 years ago. Not everybody is on board. Isabel Kershner, Aug. 1, 2022

This article mentions that "the United Nations has issued guidelines for nondiscriminatory communications in the six official languages of the organization: Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian and Spanish." It also linked to a "24-page manual of gender-inclusive language guidelines" (PDF, in Hebrew). As well: "Some American students and academics have tried to build gender-inclusive language projects for Hebrew, but they have not caught on here."

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