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I said Latinx is an English word mostly. Many Hispanic people are natively bilingual. Many speak English primarily. Folx sounds like it looks. Womxn sounds li

I said Latinx is an English word mostly. Many Hispanic people are natively bilingual. Many speak English primarily. Folx sounds like it looks. Womxn sounds like woman or women usually. Latin@ depends on the speaker. Latinx rhymes with Kleenex.

throwaway894345 5y ago
I’m still skeptical it came from Hispanic people at all and not some handful of rich white sophomores at a private university, but it doesn’t actually matter because it is used far more frequently by wealthy whites than by any of the victim groups they purport to protect.
incrudible 5y ago
> Latinx rhymes with Kleenex. ...which is probably a big reason why it doesn't gain traction. It doesn't make sense as a word in any language. It feels like a foreign object pushed into the language by someone who is obviously out of touch. One could easily come up with something that at least reads and sounds like a word: Latinoa, Latinem, Latines... Another big reason is that it doesn't solve a problem that most people have. If you look at Urban Dictionary, you see that many "up-and-coming" word creations are solving actual semantic problems, gaining traction organically, from the bottom-up. This is how language changes naturally. On the other hand, the hypothesis that "generic masculine" forms are harmful is borne out of academia. It is entirely speculative and for practical purposes, unfalsifiable. Most people have to be told that the "moral" position is to comply with such language changes "from the top", for some perceived "greater good". Appropriately, have a word for this: newspeak.
jmcz 5y ago
That's a pretty common misconception, but the correct pronunciation of Latinx is (lah-tinks). It was supposed to rhyme with "thinks" from its inception. I went to CU-Boulder and a part of the Latinx community, trust me, this is a quite hurtful anglo-ization of our tribe.
- underdown 5y ago
  I honestly can't tell if you're trolling. "La-tinks" is just as much of an anglo-ization as pronouncing it like "Kleenex". There aren't a lot of cases in Spanish where three consonants are mashed together. Especially not ending with an "s" sound.
  - ummonk 5y ago
    In fact, Spanish syllables only end in up to two consonant sounds (nearly always "ns" or "ks"), unlike English which can end in up to four consonant sounds (e.g. "texts").
    - umanwizard 5y ago
      Texts might end in four consonants in some underlying representation, but does anyone actually pronounce it that way? I think I reduce it to “Tex” unless I make a conscious effort to enunciate.
      - ummonk 5y ago
        Yeah that's probably the case - I'm in the same boat (two consonants as in "tex" unless I consciously try to enunciate it in full). Three consonant endings do get routinely pronounced in full in English though, e.g. "thinks".

throwaway894345 5y ago

I’m still skeptical it came from Hispanic people at all and not some handful of rich white sophomores at a private university, but it doesn’t actually matter because it is used far more frequently by wealthy whites than by any of the victim groups they purport to protect.

incrudible 5y ago

> Latinx rhymes with Kleenex. ...which is probably a big reason why it doesn't gain traction. It doesn't make sense as a word in any language. It feels like a foreign object pushed into the language by someone who is obviously out of touch. One could easily come up with something that at least reads and sounds like a word: Latinoa, Latinem, Latines... Another big reason is that it doesn't solve a problem that most people have. If you look at Urban Dictionary, you see that many "up-and-coming" word creations are solving actual semantic problems, gaining traction organically, from the bottom-up. This is how language changes naturally. On the other hand, the hypothesis that "generic masculine" forms are harmful is borne out of academia. It is entirely speculative and for practical purposes, unfalsifiable. Most people have to be told that the "moral" position is to comply with such language changes "from the top", for some perceived "greater good". Appropriately, have a word for this: newspeak.

jmcz 5y ago

That's a pretty common misconception, but the correct pronunciation of Latinx is (lah-tinks). It was supposed to rhyme with "thinks" from its inception. I went to CU-Boulder and a part of the Latinx community, trust me, this is a quite hurtful anglo-ization of our tribe.

underdown 5y ago
I honestly can't tell if you're trolling. "La-tinks" is just as much of an anglo-ization as pronouncing it like "Kleenex". There aren't a lot of cases in Spanish where three consonants are mashed together. Especially not ending with an "s" sound.
- ummonk 5y ago
  In fact, Spanish syllables only end in up to two consonant sounds (nearly always "ns" or "ks"), unlike English which can end in up to four consonant sounds (e.g. "texts").
  - umanwizard 5y ago
    Texts might end in four consonants in some underlying representation, but does anyone actually pronounce it that way? I think I reduce it to “Tex” unless I make a conscious effort to enunciate.
    - ummonk 5y ago
      Yeah that's probably the case - I'm in the same boat (two consonants as in "tex" unless I consciously try to enunciate it in full). Three consonant endings do get routinely pronounced in full in English though, e.g. "thinks".