quote:

Originally posted by Axtremus:
And the survey says ...

https://www.pewresearch.org/hi...3-use-it/#fn-29384-5

https://www.washingtonpost.com...spanics-survey-says/

‘About One-in-Four U.S. Hispanics Have Heard of Latinx, but Just 3% Use It‘

‘Overall, “Hispanic” is preferred by a 61 percent majority of people of Latin American descent, followed by “Latino,” which is preferred by 29 percent, Pew found. Left-leaning people seemed to be more likely to have heard the term “Latinx.”’

3%?

Ok. I guess "Latinix" is DOA.

Yes. I posted that a couple pages back.

The modal user of ‘Latinx’ is a white American.

“A 2019 poll found that use of Latinx has grown to 2% nationwide in the United States (with a 5% margin of error).[3] The Royal Spanish Academy style guide does not recognize the suffix -x.[4] “.

The above according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latinx


I mentioned what the RSA does in my post on page 3.

Latinx is an English word. Not a Spanish one.

Trying to figure out how to pronounce "latinx" in Spanish....

quote:

Originally posted by Cindysphinx:
Regarding “Native,” just . . . No. That is full on Tarzan talk. “The natives are restless.”

On the issue of whether the term Indigenous People is Eurocentric, of course it is. So is Natives, and every other term we’re discussing. The point, I think, is to make clear that, regardless of which tribe arrived where when, the one thing we can agree on is white people were not here first.

Cute Tarzan crack, yes, but don't forget we're trying (I think) to arrive at terms for describing the experiences of other people - ones THEY are satisfied with, with which THEY are comfortable. Not just ones WE approve of.

I looked up that NYTimes interview I mentioned, with young NA/natives (mixed backgrounds, mostly).

Conversation with Native Americans on Race

Reminded me of the experience I had with a N.A. "Indian" boyfriend some years ago. As PD recounted, I learned early on how important it was for me to avoid using the "Native American" term with him and friends. It always led to a condescending guffaw, as they reverted to calling themselves "Indians" (or even "Injuns!").

It's notably different from the "N word" whose usage follows the in-group rule that only members of that group can refer to themselves (or others) as "N's". In this case, though (if I were to turn it into a rule), it would seem to say that in-group members can call themselves "Indians" (or variant thereof) - indeed, they HAVE to, at least among each other. (In "public" presentations, it's different, of course.)

But friends of theirs, can also call them "Indians" - indeed, are laughed at otherwise. Really, the only (semi) solution I've found was just to avoid insofar as possible, using ANY terms. (Instead using workarounds, tribal names, or - something!)

(DO remember too, that "native" is an adjective as well as a noun. )

I also remember my (mixed) friend's explaining to me in detail his family's experience in Oklahoma. As per the "Trail of Tears" narrative, the Oklahoman N.A.s were the survivors of a mixed group expelled from the SEastern US, exiled in effect from their original homeland to a supposedly barren and worthless land.

Only (in a great historical irony) it turned out that that land turned out to be super oil-rich. At that point, the "quantum" rules started to be invented and imposed. As I recall, the NA land-owners were assigned white custodians who were permitted to manage the "Indians''" oil lands (naturally, profiting hugely there from).

Then a secondary rule evolved whereby although NA owners DID have to possess a minimum quantum of NA blood to profit (Chickesaw.Chocktaw in friend's case), if they could prove a certain amount - enough - white blood, they might be permitted to manage their own land (and profit from it!) That is, rather than being forced to turn it over to all-white custodians.

It was as if to say, that with enough white blood they could claim legal competence to manage their own inheritance.

This meant my friend's family ended up really rich thanks to a clever grandmother's ability to prove their "just-right" quantum of Indian blood. In my friend's instance, however, this maneuvering ended up disqualifing him from federal bennies such as free college tuition (to which he would have been entitled on the grounds of being NA)!

(Doubly losing out through internecine competitions for inheritance screwed him over too, as it turned out. IOW he didn't end up inheriting the valuable land OR the birthright benefits for having been supposedly disadvantaged.)

This is the kind of thing these kids were referring to in connection to their need to prove a qualifying amount of "native" blood without which the government could take over their land. With the right blood identities they'd have been entitled to a share of tribal land per the original treaties.

Note that every tribe also has specific rules about how members can qualify for membership. Nowadays this can have immense impact on how much certain tribe members can benefit from ownership of their land - especially when there are unique perks like casino ownership, businesses or oil rights.

Thus per their "colonial" losses, they not only lost valuables but were turned against each other too. It's really important IMO to try to understand the experiences of other people when we discuss such issues as self-labelling, etc. That's a major reason these young people protested governmental rules about quanta and resulting identities. Such differing rules ended up alienating them from each other (tribe from tribe and even within families as for my friend,) Sadly, they very much needed the opposite - to find common ground about what it was like for them to share the experience of being disenfranchised from the non NAs in this country.

(And all the more complexly for mixed race youth as was alluded in these interviews. Also - although they didn't touch on this - for the many/most who are mixed between different tribal identities.)

quote:

Originally posted by jon-nyc:
Latinx is an English word. Not a Spanish one.

Good point.

Obama said Latinos.

quote:

Originally posted by jon-nyc:
Latinx is an English word. Not a Spanish one.

I never said Latinx is NOT an English word nor a Spanish word. I referred to Latinx as word.

After seeing Bernie, Biden, and Obama use “Latinos” I went back and searched a few debate transcripts.

Julian Castro and Univision’s Jorge Ramos used “Latinos” exclusively.


The only campaigner to use Latinx was the solitary white academic in the field, Elizabeth Warren.

Seriously, how did she pronounce it?

Latin-X?

And I'm still serious, how would Latinos (oops, Latinx's?) pronounce it when giving a speech in Spanish? Because it would end up sounding like La-teen-eggs, I guess? That would be easier than La-teen-h or La-teen-ch. I think that one of the reasons it hasn't taken off is because people don't really know how to say it properly.

My 2c, coming from my vast psycholinguistic background

If one were to try to say it in Spanish you’d probably say latin-equis. (IOW pronounce the letter ‘x’ but in Spanish)

How much of a push is there in other languages (Romance and Germanic that have gendered nouns) to de-gender everything? Yes, the French establishment is beginning to move away from distinctions like Madame vs. mademoiselle, and for the same reasons we moved away from it in the US a generation ago.

That's different from assigning gender to nouns for things, and for people. For instance, gens is generally masculine in French. Yes, there is a rule about feminine adjectives in front of gens, but generally les gens (the people) is masculine.

Are other languages seeking to de-gender this portion of the language? Or go further to de-gender common words. You know, la maison, le bateau etc. Why is a house feminine but a ship is masculine. If house if feminine because women belong in the house and make it a home, well isn't that archaic.

I can't imagine gendered noun languages (there's probably an actual term for this) de-gendering their entire language. It's so baked in. We have it so much easier in English, where we just have to deal with labels (like Mrs, Miss, Ms) and pronouns.

Why is dress (vestido) masculine in Spanish? Are all Latin-equis cross-dressers?

(Actually there's a real explanation for it, linguistically, that I learned in high school and promptly forgot.)