Anyone else notice this new word: Latinxs?

[kenny]

I assume the purpose it so cover both (or all 3 zillion genders) ... latino for male and latina for female.

I first saw it here, today ... https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2018/03/10/588306001/can-you-lose-a-language-you-never-knew

Partial snip:
"What I didn't know at the time was that my situation reflects a question in the broader Latinx community: Just how important is knowing how to speak Spanish, anyway?"

How exactly are such new words "born"?

 

[monarch64]

I guess people grow tired of using different suffixes or pronouns? In this case of “latinx” it just seems like it’s an easier way to incorporate all pertinent pronouns...

 

[kenny]

I do grow tired of writing, "(s)he".

Languages were established long before gender-equality was rising in the eastern sky.

 

[monarch64]

Yes, and I suppose changes in words reflect what’s happening as well as human’s laziness. ? Just a thought/throwing things out there. Interesting subject!

 

[AGBF]

The way that "Latinx" is used by the author of the article makes it hard to distinguish from "Latinos". If you read the story of his history, you will see that he did not really study language, certainly not a language where gender is stressed. I am not sure that that the use of "Latinx" follows any grammatical rules and that the word actually replaces anything specific. It may just be an interesting phenomenon that has sprung up and that we can watch.

Thanks, kenny. Interesting posting as usual.

Deb

By the way, my daughter is a Latina who did not know Spanish "naturally". She started out life as a citizen of Colombia, and we tried to have her learn Spanish here in the US. She certainly studied it. It was not her nature to be gregarious and to use it in conversation, however. She is very inhibited.

 

[cmd2014]

I have to admit that I have no problem using whatever is most appropriate (i.e. he or she) when describing transgender people. But I find "they or them" awkward for those who do not identify with either gender (as I find using plural pronouns for a singular person very distracting - I feel like I am talking about a hive mind or something, and "it" is just dehumanizing). I wish there was a better pronoun for those who are both/neither that was less awkward. I imagine it is even more awkward when using romance languages that are even more gender specific than English. I hope that we can find better solutions soon so that we can be both respectful of people and comfortable in speaking to and about them.

 

[elizabethess]

This is a term I definitely have seen in active use for at least a year now by "the kids" (my coworkers, majority of whom are millennials and younger) to describe the group inclusively without calling out a specific gender. My understanding is it grew from the queer community, especially to be inclusive to trans or non-binary folk, many of whom identify as latinx. When spoken, it was pronounced "lateen-ex"

I read this article a little while ago, if you're interested: https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entr...g-the-term-latinx_us_57753328e4b0cc0fa136a159

 

[nala]

This is a term I definitely have seen in active use for at least a year now by "the kids" (my coworkers, majority of whom are millennials and younger) to describe the group inclusively without calling out a specific gender. My understanding is it grew from the queer community, especially to be inclusive to trans or non-binary folk, many of whom identify as latinx. When spoken, it was pronounced "lateen-ex"

I read this article a little while ago, if you're interested: https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entr...g-the-term-latinx_us_57753328e4b0cc0fa136a159

This. I just heard My daughter who attends Cal (very liberal institution) use this term a few weeks ago. Lol. She’s probably been using it for a while but I assumed she was just butchering her Spanish as usual. Lol. But I finally tried to correct her pronunciation and she explained the meaning and corrected me.