5 ms·

Though I'm an American, I speak a little German and have friends who speak Spanish/French/Italian (either natively as they were born in a country that speaks th

Though I'm an American, I speak a little German and have friends who speak Spanish/French/Italian (either natively as they were born in a country that speaks those languages or they learned it). The thing that has always perplexed me about "Latinx" is that the those pushing that formulation are grafting what is a Germanic language construction onto a Latin-based word. It makes no sense, and it's non-pronounceable (or at least difficult to pronounce) in Romance languages.

bryanrasmussen 5y ago
I always pronounced it as Latinsk, which funny enough is the Danish word for Latin.
amluto 5y ago
As a native speaker of American English, I find Latinx to be either unpronounceable or lacking in an obviously correct pronunciation. Is it La-tinks? Or Latin-exks? The natural English construction of an adjective derived from “latin” that lacks gender would he just “latin”, not “latinx”, as English doesn’t have gendered adjectives in the first place. (I don’t really understand how “Latina/Latino” came to be used for this purpose to begin with.)
- mkd1964 5y ago
  I think it's just more political correctness gone wild. The vast majority of Spanish speakers in America are from Mexico but it somehow became derogatory to refer to them as "Mexican". How is that any different than calling somebody a Puerto Rican or a Brazilian? It simply denotes their place of origin.
Bayart 5y ago
>The thing that has always perplexed me about "Latinx" is that the those pushing that formulation are grafting what is a Germanic language construction onto a Latin-based word. To be fair, English is extremely accustomed to etymological chimeras. A large portion of it is made of Old French, Latin and to a lesser degree Greek stems with English and Norse affixes/suffixes. Which is a perfectly valid way to import words while preserving the overarching grammar. The problem with Latinx specifically is that it's closer to a regular expression than English.
pseudalopex 5y ago
Latinx came from LGBT Hispanic people. Probably it was influenced by spellings like folx and womxn. Latine seems to be more popular outside North America. So Latinx is an English word mostly. And I think it became popular in writing before anyone much thought about pronunciation. A bit like Latin@.
- 8f2ab37a-ed6c 5y ago
  Let’s not forget that womxn is actually allegedly transphobic, as Twitch learned the hard way recently.
- notsureaboutpg 5y ago
  All these are stupid. Latino includes everyone. There's nothing wrong with masculine gender in grammar, there's nothing wrong with the suffix 'man', and there's nothing wrong with being a man or being masculine
- remarkEon 5y ago
  >Latinx came from LGBT Hispanic people. I have a very hard time believing that this was invented by people who speak a Romance language as their first language. Do you have a source? >Probably it was influenced by spellings like folx and womxn. Which is ... also a Germanic construction. Those words are not pronounceable in Spanish, Italian, or French. Is the idea that you just "imagine" that the word is spelled correctly when you pronounce it and this is just a thing you do when writing it?
  - alpaca128 5y ago
    I would claim "womxn" is not pronounceable in many other languages as well. My native language is German and whenever I see this I can't help but wonder how anyone would voluntarily agree with such an unelegant abuse of a word. I'm not a language elitist or anything, but it's not a secret that language evolves towards easier and quicker pronunciation. And enforcing the opposite for ideological reasons is not just a bad idea, it's also doomed to fail.
    - 5y ago

bryanrasmussen 5y ago

I always pronounced it as Latinsk, which funny enough is the Danish word for Latin.

amluto 5y ago

As a native speaker of American English, I find Latinx to be either unpronounceable or lacking in an obviously correct pronunciation. Is it La-tinks? Or Latin-exks? The natural English construction of an adjective derived from “latin” that lacks gender would he just “latin”, not “latinx”, as English doesn’t have gendered adjectives in the first place. (I don’t really understand how “Latina/Latino” came to be used for this purpose to begin with.)

mkd1964 5y ago
I think it's just more political correctness gone wild. The vast majority of Spanish speakers in America are from Mexico but it somehow became derogatory to refer to them as "Mexican". How is that any different than calling somebody a Puerto Rican or a Brazilian? It simply denotes their place of origin.

Bayart 5y ago

>The thing that has always perplexed me about "Latinx" is that the those pushing that formulation are grafting what is a Germanic language construction onto a Latin-based word. To be fair, English is extremely accustomed to etymological chimeras. A large portion of it is made of Old French, Latin and to a lesser degree Greek stems with English and Norse affixes/suffixes. Which is a perfectly valid way to import words while preserving the overarching grammar. The problem with Latinx specifically is that it's closer to a regular expression than English.

pseudalopex 5y ago

Latinx came from LGBT Hispanic people. Probably it was influenced by spellings like folx and womxn. Latine seems to be more popular outside North America. So Latinx is an English word mostly. And I think it became popular in writing before anyone much thought about pronunciation. A bit like Latin@.

8f2ab37a-ed6c 5y ago
Let’s not forget that womxn is actually allegedly transphobic, as Twitch learned the hard way recently.
notsureaboutpg 5y ago
All these are stupid. Latino includes everyone. There's nothing wrong with masculine gender in grammar, there's nothing wrong with the suffix 'man', and there's nothing wrong with being a man or being masculine
remarkEon 5y ago
>Latinx came from LGBT Hispanic people. I have a very hard time believing that this was invented by people who speak a Romance language as their first language. Do you have a source? >Probably it was influenced by spellings like folx and womxn. Which is ... also a Germanic construction. Those words are not pronounceable in Spanish, Italian, or French. Is the idea that you just "imagine" that the word is spelled correctly when you pronounce it and this is just a thing you do when writing it?
- alpaca128 5y ago
  I would claim "womxn" is not pronounceable in many other languages as well. My native language is German and whenever I see this I can't help but wonder how anyone would voluntarily agree with such an unelegant abuse of a word. I'm not a language elitist or anything, but it's not a secret that language evolves towards easier and quicker pronunciation. And enforcing the opposite for ideological reasons is not just a bad idea, it's also doomed to fail.
  - 5y ago