On December 20, 2019, during the first session of the Argentinean Senate after the last presidential election, Senator Mayans thanked the Argentinean President with "gracias, Presidente" at the end of his speech. Cristina Kirchner, who had just been appointed Chairperson of the Senate, corrected him: "Presidenta, Mayans: Presiden...ta". She basically asked to be called Mrs. President and not Mr. President. She insisted on this, even when the Senator tried to justify himself by saying that in his opinion the word "President" was not necessarily masculine.
The incident quickly evolved into a digital debate until the Real Academia Española (RAE), the institution for the preservation of the Spanish language, announced on Twitter that the chairwoman was right in her claim. "If referring to a woman, "presidenta" is the correct form. This feminine form has been documented in Spanish since the 15se vuoi chiudo
th century and has been in the academic dictionary since 1803" - this was a tweet from the RAE.
The issue had already been raised in South America in the past. As reported in an article in the Argentine newspaper "La Nación" on 4 July 1974, the Colombian Academy felt it inappropriate for General Perón's widow to be appointed "excelentísima Señora presidente" (i.e. to be the esteemed Mrs. President) following the death of her husband.
It is known from anthropology and linguistics that the concepts of a language reflect the actual conditions and needs of the people who speak and develop it. For example, the Eskimos have many words for "snow" in their language because its condition and quality are vital to them. Italians refer to pasta by innumerable names - some of them consider this differentiation to be vital. In the same way, the increasing demand for gender equality in society has been incorporated into the language and has become a question for translators... However, the issue of a gender-sensitive language is not so much about word diversity as about a deep intervention in spelling and grammar.
In English there has already been a change in the female form of address. Since the 1970s, the form "Ms" has increasingly become the rule - especially in business use - as a replacement for the forms "Mrs" and "Miss", which distinguish married from unmarried women.
But what would you do if, for example, in the source language the majority of the words have neutral endings, but in the target language there are differences (in the endings or the whole word)? In German, the statement "Sie sind zufrieden" ("You are satisfied") fits both a group of men and a group of women. In the case of Romance languages, you would have to decide whether "zufrieden" is translated with a male or female ending. To include both possibilities, sentences are now created with a number of words at the end - separated by a slash. The result is therefore gender-neutral and also orthographically and grammatically correct. But not beautiful. Such a text often seems cumbersome and is difficult to read. So, what to do? There is no straight answer to this question: translators will probably judge from case to case based the type of text whether a gender-neutral adaptation is appropriate or should be avoided.
These examples show how important it is for translators to keep up-to-date and stay in lively touch with the changes in their own language in order to deliver a translation that is both linguistically and socially correct. We take this aspect into account when choosing our staff to ensure that the translated texts are consistent for the recipient and thus convey the desired meaning.
Photo by Paul Want on Pixabay https://pixabay.com/it/photos/rugby-sport-rugby-union-3718788/
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