sequin pisces @sequinpisces - Tumblr Blog

mysharona1987

soundsof71

Queen: Freddie Mercury, Madison Square Garden 1983, by Larry Marano

rob-pattinson

assyrianjalebi

Vyjayanthimala in Amrapali (1966)

nerdjpg

tealesbian

the rain: makes that soft rain sound

me immediately:

realitytvshow

allthingslinguistic

This young girl uses “los,” “las” and the gender-neutral “les” — watch her explain why. —from REMEZCLA on twitter.

jumpingjacktrash

to all the cowards who whine “how will i explain it to my kids??” i say: how about you shut up and let your kids explain it to you.

dandan-theberserker

Guys, you don’t understand, this isn’t the same thing as people complaining about “they” in English! This is a huge deal in Spanish. Spanish-speakers are much less forgiving of new colloquialisms or loan words from other languages (god forbid you say “slide” for a slideshow instead of “diapositiva”; you’ll get burned at the stake). To explain, I have to give a bit of background:

There is a very old organisation called La Real Academia Española (the Spanish Royal Academy or RAE) whose sole job has been to maintain strict grammar and language rules for the entire Spanish-speaking world. Whenever someone is unsure of a word or rule, it is very common to consult la RAE, but it’s a much bigger deal than just Googling something on Dictionary.com or Webster’s in English-speaking countries. You know those old-people minion Facebook memes people like making fun of? There are some for RAE-approved grammar and language. I’m completely serious. I’ve had Spanish literature professors fucking email RAE officials when teaching some obscure grammar rule to make sure they’re up to date with RAE standards. I’ve had them scold students or dropping points for using a new or loan word in class because “it’s not RAE-recognised”. It’s the biggest deal.

Even if a word is widely understood and used, there are people who refuse to recognise it because “La RAE” doesn’t either. La RAE’s word is law for many Spanish-speakers, and it very rarely adds or changes words. They would never dream of adding “selfie” or “muggle” to the dictionary the way it has happened in English.

Spanish is a gendered language, so it’s hard to make things gender neutral without drastically changing centuries-old language rules. For example, the Spanish word for child is “niño” for masculine and “niña” for feminine. The correct gender-neutral way according to la RAE is “niño”, but lots of people use the “@“ symbol in the place of the gendered vowel to make it more inclusive, giving you “niñ@“. And RAE-thumpers get pissed about it. It’s impossible to make something widely recognised without RAE approval, which sucks because the people who manage RAE are a bunch of stubborn and elitist old people. To be fair, using “@“ is a bit cumbersome and only good for written works, and it’s always been a struggle to find a spoken gender-neutral equivalent. That’s where this sweet girl’s solution comes in.

Using a neutral vowel “e” instead of the gendered vowels “a” and “o” is an incredibly elegant solution to this problem! It’s easy to say and it’s easy to write. But for the average Spanish-speaker to accept “les” instead of “los” or “las” is a huge feat we’re undertaking. Standing up to her teacher, who most likely adheres to RAE rules and regulations, is a huge deal. These rules are centuries old and haven’t changed that much this whole time. What she’s suggesting is making a lot of people irrationally mad.

It’s not like in English where people whine about “they”, and yet you can pull up hundreds of examples of it in older literature. This has never been done in Spanish before. And it’s gonna take a lot more work to make this a thing in such a tightly-regulated language as Spanish.

#she is the future