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Languages with grammatical gender, such as French, German, Greek, and Spanish, present unique challenges when it comes to creating gender-neutral language.Unlike genderless languages like English, constructing a gender-neutral sentence can be difficult or impossible in these languages due to the use of gendered nouns and pronouns.
Some Spanish-speaking people advocate for the use of the pronouns elle (singular) and elles (plural). [14] Spanish often uses -a and -o for gender agreement in adjectives corresponding with feminine and masculine nouns, respectively; in order to agree with a gender neutral or non-binary noun, it is suggested to use the suffix -e.
Every Spanish noun has a specific gender, either masculine or feminine, in the context of a sentence. Generally, nouns referring to males or male animals are masculine, while those referring to females are feminine. [1] [2] In terms of importance, the masculine gender is the default or unmarked, while the feminine gender is marked or distinct. [2]
In Spanish, nouns not belonging to the class described above form another class of noun. [1] The gender of nouns in this other class are arbitrarily assigned. However, some general patterns help to predict the gender of nouns. [11] Notably, the endings of nouns give clues to their genders. For instance, nouns ending in -o are usually masculine.
Gender-neutral language or gender-inclusive language is language that avoids reference towards a particular sex or gender. In English, this includes use of nouns that are not gender-specific to refer to roles or professions, [ 1 ] formation of phrases in a coequal manner, and discontinuing the collective use of male or female terms. [ 2 ]
The Spanish language uses determiners in a similar way to English. The main differences are that Spanish determiners inflect for gender (masculine/feminine, with some instances of vestigial neuter) and always inflect for number as well. [1]
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Through language contact, some words that are originally part of a genderless system develop a grammatical gender. There are two primary ways linguists currently classify and understand this process as occurring: the first is through language contact impacting a language independent of borrowings, and the second is explicitly in the context of loanwords or borrowings.