Changing attitudes to gender are increasingly transforming the German language, and some theorists argue that scrapping the gendered articles altogether may be the most logical outcome.
Now, with the federal justice ministry emphasising that all state bodies should stick to "gender-neutral" formulations in their paperwork, things are changing again. Increasingly, job ads use the feminine form as the root of a noun, so that even a male professor may be referred to as der Professorin. Lecturers are advised to address their students not as Studenten but Studierende ("those that study"), thus sidestepping the gender question altogether.
Many linguists question whether language can be changed through human will. "It's hard to transform grammar through legislation, and even if so, such changes often happen over centuries," said Anatol Stefanowitsch, a linguist at Berlin's Free University.Read the full article here: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/mar/24/germans-get-tongues-around-gender-neutral-language. For more information on gender-neutral language issues in German, see this Wikipedia article: Geschlechtergerechte Sprache.
What do you think? How will the German language change? Post your opinions below! (Also, if someone can find the original statement from the German federal justice ministry, please post a link to it below!)
