Visibility - language

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*, ə, ɜ

Broad language

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Three major groups of languages ​​are identified. 1. Genderless languages ​​(e.g., Hungarian, Finnish, and Estonian). In these languages, both nouns and pronouns are completely genderless. 2. Natural-gender languages ​​(e.g., English, Swedish, and Danish), where nouns are genderless but pronouns are gendered. For example, English has three forms for the third-person singular personal pronouns: he, masculine; she, feminine; and it, a neuter pronoun usually used for inanimate objects or abstract concepts. 3. Grammatical-gender languages, such as Slavic and Romance languages, such as Italian, French, and Spanish, among others, in which both nouns and pronouns are gendered; some languages, such as German, also have neuter gender.

In 2018, the High Level Group on Gender Equality and Diversity at the European Parliament published a report outlining the current situation and how more balanced solutions are being sought in the languages ​​of the European Community.

Not INCLUSIVE

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Example of non-broad language in English: freshman

Italian is a language with two grammatical genders, having lost the neuter, which existed in Latin for inanimate objects and abstract concepts; in these cases, the grammatical gender does not have a direct relationship with the semantics of what it describes (for example, the masculine il sasso and il mare, against the feminine la luna and la sedia). For animals and human beings, the grammatical gender of the word is generally associated with the semantic gender of what it defines, so we have gatto/gatta, apparent professor of the animal or person defined.

Italian

Languages ​​cannot be considered inherently sexist, even if they tend to reflect the androcentric cultures from which they arose. What can be sexist is the use we make of a language: sexism does not reside in linguistic structures and mechanisms, but in our choices as speakers. Italian, like other languages, contains all the linguistic tools necessary for a non-sexist use, at least adhering to the binary vision of gender; and where solutions of this type do not exist, it is possible that over time they will be found.

Tongue

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Promiscuous gender names: the tiger, the snake, the guard, the pawn, the genius, the spy. These words, usually for etymological and historical reasons, exist only in one grammatical gender, which is used to indicate any semantic gender: there is no guard, just as there is no genea, except for semi-serious purposes. In animal nouns, the opposite gender is indicated by adding male, female or the male of/the female of: the male tiger, the female of the snake.

Fixed gender nouns: father/mother, brother/sister, husband/wife, ox/cow. In this category, the masculine and feminine are formed from different roots, and word analysis is not sufficient to understand that the terms are related.

As regards the formation of the feminine, Italian nouns can be divided into four categories that follow different patterns: 1. fixed gender nouns 2. promiscuous gender nouns. 3. common gender nouns 4. mobile gender nouns

Feminine nouns

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Movable gender names: the teacher, the auditor, the manager, the nurse. These nouns form the feminine according to the morphological rules of Italian, which vary. In some cases, there may be more than one possible feminine form (difensora/difenditrice), so it is necessary to check the most common form in the dictionaries.

Common genus names: the therapist, the astronaut, the teacher, the principal. These nouns are epicene (dictionaries indicate them as masculine and feminine nouns) and therefore the gender is understood based on the agreement with the other members of the sentence. Many of these nouns end in -a for etymological reasons, but this ending is not a marker of the feminine.

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A bit of history

• On 12 July 1984, the Office of the Council of Ministers established the National Commission for Equality and Equal Opportunities between Men and Women. • The creation of this official commission was the Italian response to a wave of interest in gender issues in Europe. • The commission supported the publication of several reports and documents, including Alma Sabatini's Recommendations for a Non-Sexist Use of the Italian Language (1986), which, she says, still serves as a guideline and point of reference. • A first and notable exception was provided in the 1930s by Bruno Migliorini's observations on the growing presence of women in public life and the consequent use of feminine forms such as author, director, doctor, professor, patroness and senator; • Presidentessa rather implied the president's wife and deputata was more commonly used than deputatessa. • His observations prefigure what Sabatini would write fifty years later.

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• Other examples of unbalanced use of Italian provided by Sabatini are:
• the use of the article only before female surnames (la Thatcher but not *il Brandt);
• the use of the name only for female public figures (Maggie (Thatcher), to whom today we could add Kamala (Harris));
• the use of the masculine too extensively when referring to a mixed-gender group (cari tutti, benvenuti);
• and the overly extensive use of nouns such as uomo or fratellanza which hide the feminine presence.

Sabatini's essay explores the situation of the 1980s, highlighting how speakers were reluctant to accept linguistic changes. After an introduction that explains the importance of explicitly naming women so that they gain (social) visibility, it discusses the structural imbalances of the Italian language in relation to gender. It starts with the question of how to refer to women who fill traditionally male roles and emphasizes that it is correct to refer to them with a feminine noun, as was already done for professional roles that had a significant female presence; it therefore advocates the use of forms such as ministra or ingegnera, rarely used at the time, together with the more common maestra and infermieri.

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In the second part of the essay, Sabatini presents several proposals for a non-sexist use of Italian. Among these, avoiding the article before female surnames, using the feminine for every type of job and professional position (la cancelliera), and discarding hybrid solutions such as *la cancelliera Merkel or *ilcancelliere donna Merkel. Sabatini also suggests using feminine forms with a zero suffix, where possible, and avoiding the suffix -essa, which he considers useless and reductive (avvocata not *avvocatessa, sindaca not *sindachessa). When referring to a mixed group of people, Sabatini suggests choosing the feminine or masculine depending on the majority (buonasera a tutte or buonasera a tutti) or, alternatively, using the masculine and feminine forms together (buonasera a tutte e tutti). He also suggests favoring semantically neutral formulations such as essere umana, persona or individuale instead of uomo.

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English: The latest contribution available on the Crusca website (at the time of writing) is the Theme of the month of February 2021 by Vittorio Coletti, one of the most authoritative voices among those who believe it is superfluous to propose solutions that avoid excessive sexism to take into consideration not only female subjects but also non-binary people. In "Professional names and gender issues", he defends the use of the overextended masculine, because the doubling of existing forms, as proposed by Sabatini, would cause the functional advantage of the "inclusive masculine" to be lost, "which is now just a very convenient grammatical option that neither exalts nor humiliates anyone". The article continues with a polemic aimed at do-gooders, who today begin their letters with 'Dear all and dear all' (not to mention those who write 'car* all*', violating traditional spelling so as not to irritate the most radical feminists and, for some time, also those who do not identify with either sex).

Unlike the Real Academia Española or the Académie Française, which are responsible for supervising the development of the language and defining the standard, the Italian Academy does not play a regulatory role, but aims to support the study of the Italian language and to develop awareness of its history and evolution to the present day.

Italy and the Accademia della Crusca

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Schwa singular

Overextended feminine

Schwa plural

Asterisk

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