But addition to official regulations: spelling advice against gender star duty

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It remains complicated. In Germany and Switzerland there has long been a public debate about genders with colons, underscores and asterisks in the middle of the word – such as “students”, “students” or “students”.

The whole thing has long been politically charged and continues to boil – in schools, at the kitchen table, at work. In everyday life, for example, it involves asking whether gender is counted as a mistake in an exam at school.

The latest statement from the Council for German Orthography will probably not change the whole debate and the wide range. Anyone hoping for a clear positioning that can be reduced to a simple common denominator was disappointed.

Even in the body, which is a major authority on spelling, the session on gender-equivalent writing was highly controversial, as Council President Josef Lange reported on Friday in Eupen, Belgium. The council also met because in the run-up there were many questions from governments and schools about how to deal with the gender issue.

Result: The Council for German Orthography does not classify gender symbols in the middle of words as a core component of German orthography. At the same time, in a new supplement on special characters, the Council lists the genders in the middle of the word – colon, underscore and asterisk.

Council President Lange told the German news agency that it was intended to describe the social phenomenon itself. The signs conveyed “super linguistically charged” that all gender identities were intended. The Council takes into account that the phenomenon exists in society and is developing linguistically. At the same time, Lange added: “The sex star is not part of the core area of ​​German orthography.” So there are still no fixed characters. As a result, it could lead to grammatical problems in a number of cases. You have to keep looking at it.

socio-political discussion

There were no other handouts. However, the Council sees its future work better systematised. From his point of view, Lange also made it clear that gender is not an orthographic discussion, but a socio-political one. The tension cannot be resolved by orthographic means. The spelling is just a vehicle.

The Council’s task is to maintain the uniformity of spelling in the German-speaking area on behalf of government agencies in various countries that use the German language and to further develop spelling, also with a view to language change.

The Council now wants to propose to the state authorities – in Germany the Conference of Ministers of Education and the Federal Ministry of the Interior are involved – to add the special characters section to the official rules. There is only a binding effect with the permission of the government. A hearing is now expected to follow and a final decision could be taken in December.

Previous recommendations not withdrawn

At the same time, the Council’s previous recommendations have not been withdrawn, as the panel announced. Most recently, in 2021, the Council recommended that asterisks, underscores, colons, or other forms of identifying multi-gender designators in the middle of the word should not be included in official regulations at this time. Now it would still not be recorded regularly, but described as a phenomenon in the field of special characters. In relation to its recommendation, the Council stated, among other things, that gender-equivalent spelling should not make learning the written German language more difficult.

The President of the Council further summarized on Friday: It is a political decision how you formulate administrative texts. On the subject of schools: There is a unanimous opinion in the Council that the standard language German should be taught in primary school and that this can be assessed more differentiated in higher education.

Big debate in Germany

In Germany, it has been debated for years whether – and if so, how – the masculine forms in the language can or should be replaced by broader terms – for example to involve women more aggressively. The gender asterisk as with teachers is a possibility. Some put a colon or an underscore instead. In the spoken language and on television or radio this is then expressed as a speaking pause.

Bavarian Prime Minister Markus Söder (56, CSU) – the state parliament in the state will be elected this year – categorically ruled out an obligation to gender in Bavaria before the end of the session. “Everyone should keep it personal, the way they want it! But for Bavaria there will certainly be no gender obligation in the Free State…” Söder wrote on Twitter on Friday. Söder and the CSU have been campaigning on this issue for some time.

Another example from politics and the media: CDU leader Friedrich Merz (67) indirectly positioned himself against gendering in public broadcasting at a CDU party congress in 2022, saying: “Universities, ladies and gentlemen, and public broadcasting Broadcasting is not public education institution.” The accusation was rejected by the broadcaster.

The issue of gender has also long since arrived in business and in the courts. For example, last year the court of Ingolstadt dealt with a lawsuit against a guide to gender-sensitive language use at car manufacturer Audi.

Source:Blick