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Gender neutral language in French: Difference between revisions
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|Notice the epicene agentive suffix [https://fr.wiktionary.org/wiki/-aire -aire]. | |Notice the epicene agentive suffix [https://fr.wiktionary.org/wiki/-aire -aire]. | ||
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As singular [[wikipedia:Article_(grammar)|articles]] indicate gender ('la' and 'le'), this technique works best with plural forms. However, it also works with singular forms if the noun begins with a vowel, because the article automatically becomes ''l''', which does not express gender. A drawback is that there are not morphologically invariant occupational titles for all professions or functions in regards to [https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_gender natural gender], i. e. [https://www.plus.ac.at/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/Gender_in_German_MWerner.pdf ''Sexus''] | As singular [[wikipedia:Article_(grammar)|articles]] indicate gender ('la' and 'le'), this technique works best with plural forms. However, it also works with singular forms if the noun begins with a vowel, because the article automatically becomes ''l''', which does not express gender. A drawback is that there are not morphologically invariant occupational titles for all professions or functions in regards to [https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_gender natural gender], i. e. [https://www.plus.ac.at/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/Gender_in_German_MWerner.pdf ''Sexus''], "a linguistic category for the sex of real life beings, both the biological sex of animals or the social identity of a person."<ref>"Natural Gender". ''Wikipedia. Simple English: The Free Encyclopedia'', Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., Last Modified Date: 14 March 2024, URL: https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_gender. Accessed 20 March 2026.</ref> | ||
In certain Swiss-French varieties, as in the canton of Vaud, masculine and feminine words ending in <é> resp. <ée> are pronounced differently (e. g., ''une employée'' [ynɑ̃plwaj<u>e:</u>]/[ynɑ̃plwaj<u>e:j</u>] vs. ''un employé'' [ɛ̃nɑ̃plwaj<u>e</u>]/[œ̃nɑ̃plwaj<u>e</u>]). However, this linguistically conservative pronunciation is becoming increasingly marginal: it is primarily confined to Switzerland and, in major cities and among younger generations, the pronunciation is gradually converging with the standard French norm, meaning that the distinction between /e/ and /e:/ (or /e:j/, remnant from [[wikipedia:Franco-Provençal|Franco-Provençal dialects]] spoken in the region before linguistic homogenization) is being [[wikipedia:Neutralization_(linguistics)|neutralized]], resulting in a single phoneme /e/ and causing ''employé'' and ''employée'' to be pronounced identically. As a result, here, these words are considered orally indistinguishable. | In certain Swiss-French varieties, as in the canton of Vaud, masculine and feminine words ending in <é> resp. <ée> are pronounced differently (e. g., ''une employée'' [ynɑ̃plwaj<u>e:</u>]/[ynɑ̃plwaj<u>e:j</u>] vs. ''un employé'' [ɛ̃nɑ̃plwaj<u>e</u>]/[œ̃nɑ̃plwaj<u>e</u>]). However, this linguistically conservative pronunciation is becoming increasingly marginal: it is primarily confined to Switzerland and, in major cities and among younger generations, the pronunciation is gradually converging with the standard French norm, meaning that the distinction between /e/ and /e:/ (or /e:j/, remnant from [[wikipedia:Franco-Provençal|Franco-Provençal dialects]] spoken in the region before linguistic homogenization) is being [[wikipedia:Neutralization_(linguistics)|neutralized]], resulting in a single phoneme /e/ and causing ''employé'' and ''employée'' to be pronounced identically. As a result, here, these words are considered orally indistinguishable. | ||