The Germans are tying themselves up in knots

My impression is that the is now being replaced by '-ende' (Mitarbeitende, Studierende, Kaufende) which really annoys me because, gramatically, it just doesn't make any sense.*

I can't get excited about it - we're seeing German change before our very eyes, I'm finding it quite exciting.

I successfully headed off my boss handing me some work today because he (and it surprised me because he usually is very careful about using a Gendersternchen, he takes the piss) only used the male form and didn't say "of course it includes the women". And because he's an arse about it, taking the piss, this time he accepted it. Net time he'll use inclusive language just so i can't do that again

Plenty of us have started using only the female form with an leading to the explanation that everyone should feel included but for ease of writing and flowing language we'll only use the female form.*

My impression is that the * is now being replaced by '-ende' (Mitarbeitende, Studierende, Kaufende) which really annoys me because, gramatically, it just doesn't make any sense.

A question for German speakers (and forgive me, because my German studies stopped 40 years ago).

How do non-binaries like people to say "they:them"? Do you use "neuter"?

From what I've seen, some people are now using 'xier' for they / them. Apparently there are other neo-pronouns one can use instead (such as nin, sier, sif or dey), but xier is the only one I've actually seen in use (by blue-haired people on Twitter or TV, never in the wild).

(that was a rogue capital S in there, sorry)

"Die" is often used in umgangsprache though to mean this, that, it, whatever you want it to mean, so it's not much of a stretch to use die/deren. Some of the DCs friends use it, and it feels fine when we're all talking.

or Sie/ihr (she hers) they use Die*/deren (they/theirs)

Sie can mean she and they as well as the formal you; it depends on context. With a capital letter (Sie), it's the formal you (like Vous in French). So sie (without the capital letter,) could be used as "they", for both sexes, as well as ihr (their, hers). Confusing, I know!

The presiding judge suggested in order to reach an amicable settlement that Audi could "just write to him normally" in future.

A lonely voice of sanity! Just exted that to include writing normally to everyone, and anyone who is too special to use normal language can add their own special words for themselves.

?? The (feminine definite article) / whose (belonging to masculine nouns) ??

How does this make sense? (I know, I know, it doesn't, any more than the rest of this guff, especially in grammatically gendered languages.)

There are several ways, apparently, but I've only encountered one and that is where we would have er/sein (he/his) or Sie/ihr (she hers) they use Die*/deren (they/theirs)

*pronounced Dee

A question for German speakers (and forgive me, because my German studies stopped 40 years ago).

How do non-binaries like people to say "they:them"? Do you use "neuter"?

How would you say "they are a good student", for example?

It'll impress my teen daughter if I know.

There are ways round it. Up to now it's mostly been about male/female forms: use of the so-called Gender-Sternchen (so KollegInnen - with a miniscule pause where the comes in the spoken language). So many of the (mostly) broflakes don't like that and can't see why we can't carry on using the male form "and of course females should consider themselves included".

Plenty of us have started using only the female form with an * leading to the explanation that everyone should feel included but for ease of writing and flowing language we'll only use the female form. Surprisingly my dinosaur of a (middle aged middle class white) boss is happy with this.

In the past if have also used plurals (which usually looks male) or the diminutive form (so Mädchen - girl instead of women, which i loathe) but is the neutral gender.

It's going to be interesting where the language goes from here. Nowhere easy to pronounce i guess, with ever longer sentences.

I do wonder how gendered languages might have to adapt to all this. Will everything become neutral? That will really mess up the endings though. Or perhaps 'misgendering' is more of an English Language privilege, I mean problem.

Interesting. Thank you for sharing :)

Interrssant. Danke für das Mitteilen! :)

I wonder how long it will be before employers start to put clauses in new employment contracts, to protect themselves against this kind of litigation.