"Inclusive" language in French subs. A butchery of a language >> Begone

[Crypt]

The game is fantastic; I love it, and it is now my favorite game of all time. It used to be DQ8 but now it's BG3.
I'm loving it so much that I'm actually doing a HM Solo run and planning on playing with my gf and introduce crpgs to her.

Anyway, please remove inclusive language from French subtitles.

As some of you know, French is gendered, and now we have to deal with some people trying to adapt the language to make it more inclusive.

Apparently, people have a hard time understanding some basic grammatical rules and also mix gender and grammatical gender.

Just like the Spider-Man 2 Spanish language gender controversy thingy that happened a few months ago. Or the anime localizers from Crunchyroll being blasted over their terrible adaptation. I dare to say the word in "w" or I might be categorized as some far right lunatic making a fuss of a bear having sex or whatever.

It is only a minor inconvenience and its occurrence rare but I hate it so much. I hate that I feel that you are excluding me from my mother tongue.

"Inclusive" language is used by a fringe part of the political spectrum that have infiltrated entertainment. It is a lunacy.
I do not care about bear sex; I do not care if you are gay or whatever; I do not care if you made a drow futa mommy as your Tav.

The problem with this is that it pulls me out of the game every time. It is hard to read and improper French.
Inclusive language uses newly constructed words that have been recognized by 0 institutions. It has no consistency with its rules and places dots in the middle of the words to display both genders as their solution for gender equality.
Dots are used to end a sentence in French.

Eg: (My old friend.) for male

-Mon vieil ami.

Becomes,

-Maon vieil.le ami.e.

"Maon" does not exist. It is an amalgation of "ma" and "mon". ("mine" for female and male)
I am a good reader, yet I was confused when I saw that line. I thought at first it was a typo perhaps or some kind of tropical bird, then with dots my brain literally had a brain fart and I thought it was a visual bug.
It took 2–3 seconds, and I had to reread the sentence a couple of times to get it. It is incredibly annoying.

Inclusive language is not taught in school, not used by the government to communicate with its citizens. It has been deemed improper by the Académie Française. You can find an open letter cojointly written by a woman and a man below from said institution about it (1).

"Inclusive" language is making it harder for everyone to read and learn, including people with dyslexia. Sorry, it's not me who is saying it. I linked a study from someone who is probably from that fringe group pondering over it (2). Inclusive language is making it harder for everyone. There are far more people with dislexia than non-binary people.
Talk about inclusivity.

As a matter of fact, if you do not know the gender of someone in French, you can either use gender neutral terms, drop pronouns, or use "mon" altogether since French's male and neutral grammatical gender are encapsulated together, and if that person gets upset, you can gently remind them of that rule. This is so inconsistent that some parts of the game that should be inclusive are not! I guess multiple people worked on the subs, but team communication wasn't there.

To be clear, I have NO QUARREL if you use that type of language with your friends, but do not force it on people who have not been exposed to it or do not want to be exposed to it. Do NOT butcher MY language. Epicène words are fine, but stop it with the construct words and the d.ot.s. cr.a.p.
I am privileged to be a polyglot, and I can always swap to English, but it saddens me so much that I feel excluded from entertainment in my mother tongue because I don't get your thing and all that from a company that isn't French. I want to tune in after work and relax and play DnD why do you have to put this stuff in the game. I'm just a dude and also I paid for your game... ♥♥♥♥ that.

(1)https://www.academie-francaise.fr/actualites/lettre-ouverte-sur-lecriture-inclusive
(2)https://typo-inclusive.net/ecriture-inclusive-obstacle-infranchissable-pour-les-personnes-dys-synthese-dune-etude-de-lisibilite/

[EricHVela]

Imagine Spanish. People are trying to use -x instead of -a and -o, not realizing that -o was already used for gender-neutral and gender-ambiguous for many centuries. Ending a word with -x is hard to pronounce and just as hard to understand when spoken.

-x wasn't created by Hispanics, though. It was created by another culture imposing their own insecurities on mine with their ignorance of my culture. -x is truly someone misappropriating someone else's culture.

[Pyromaiden]

Originally posted by EricHVela:

Imagine Spanish. People are trying to use -x instead of -a and -o, not realizing that -o was already used for gender-neutral and gender-ambiguous for many centuries. Ending a word with -x is hard to pronounce and just as hard to understand when spoken.

-x wasn't created by Hispanics, though. It was created by another culture imposing their own insecurities on mine with their ignorance of my culture. -x is truly someone misappropriating someone else's culture.

"Latinx" was invented by two Puerto Ricans.

[Ereghor the Enigmatic]

Same in German, any Slavic tongue...

Karlach talking like she's from the 90's is enough dissonance already, but 2020's linguistic parasites certainly do not belong in a fantasy setting. Might as well then have everyone talk in TikTok lingo then if it doesn't matter.

[Lani]

If it was your intention to start today's gender war topic, congratulations!
(in before the flames!)
If your intention was to raise your issue with Larian, then I'm afraid this post will do bupkis.

You might have luck actually addressing Larian directly:

Originally posted by SaloAtLarian Officer 3 Aug, 2023 @ 7:18pm:

How to report issues to the Larian team
Hello!

To ensure your report reaches the team faster, please report any issues and bugs you might encounter to our Support Team: https://larian.com/support/faqs/how-to-submit-a-bug-report_85

[Crypt]

Originally posted by Pyromania™:

Originally posted by EricHVela:

Imagine Spanish. People are trying to use -x instead of -a and -o, not realizing that -o was already used for gender-neutral and gender-ambiguous for many centuries. Ending a word with -x is hard to pronounce and just as hard to understand when spoken.

-x wasn't created by Hispanics, though. It was created by another culture imposing their own insecurities on mine with their ignorance of my culture. -x is truly someone misappropriating someone else's culture.

"Latinx" was invented by two Puerto Ricans.

The term was created by people influenced by american fringe ideology, how odd that it was indeed invented in Puerto Rico, currently american. To my knowledge it does not resonate well with hispanophones outside of the anglosaxon world.

Originally posted by Lani:

If it was your intention to start today's gender war topic, congratulations!
(in before the flames!)
If your intention was to raise your issue with Larian, then I'm afraid this post will do bupkis.

You might have luck actually addressing Larian directly:

Originally posted by SaloAtLarian Officer 3 Aug, 2023 @ 7:18pm:

How to report issues to the Larian team
Hello!

To ensure your report reaches the team faster, please report any issues and bugs you might encounter to our Support Team: https://larian.com/support/faqs/how-to-submit-a-bug-report_85

No, it is not about gender or sexuality. I thought I made it crystal clear. Langage inclusif uses rules completely inexistent in the French language and tries to amalgamate itself with some legit French (e.g., "épicène" words) to try and sound "normal.". 

It is the expression of an extreme political opinion, and it's making things harder to read.

That forum is called "Suggestions and Feedback."  I assume it is read from time to time by both players and staff. The staff will read it once every week, and the more "hotter" discussions will be taken somewhat into consideration.

TBC, I have 0 expectations that Larian will do anything about it. Their subs are objectively improper French, most French people will be confused by it when seeing these sentences, and it kind of implies that French is a sexist language. They are objectively in the wrong. I understand, though, that people are somewhat reluctant to admit when they are in the wrong, and companies even more so. Realistically, it will probably be waived off as some far-right crazy take or something. 

If they do something about it, the very tolerant crowd that has sprouted over the past few years in the DnD community or gaming journalism will tear them a new one. From Larian's point of view, it may look like a lot of hassle. What's more, they can still say that, although incorrect, it is morally right to use that language because some people say "talking like this is now morally better." Newsflash, it is not. It does not "fix" the things it claims it fixes in society, and we are still believing in 2024 that the language you speak, specifically your choice of vocabulary and grammar, will have an impact on society at large. This is the stuff of astromancy.

What is valuable to me is that players can also read these discussions. When they play and read this type of language used in subs, perhaps get annoyed; they might think "Hey, perhaps someone is thinking like me, and I'm not crazy". They might look at the forums and see one, perhaps a few more topics like this. Maybe want to create another one too or add a comment. And with time, if these messages accumulate over the years, it will become a topic of conversation more commonly spoken against in gaming.

For those who do not understand my grief with this. Imagine, you are going to the cinema to watch a French movie with subs (you are one hell of a masochist are you?) and the subs are written in Ebonics. Wouldn't you be confused? Are you not entitled to have your subs in "standard" English, regardless of your background?

[Pyromaiden]

Originally posted by Batu Khan:

Originally posted by Pyromania™:

"Latinx" was invented by two Puerto Ricans.

The term was created by people influenced by american fringe ideology, how odd that it was indeed invented in Puerto Rico, currently american. To my knowledge it does not resonate well with hispanophones outside of the anglosaxon world.

Translation: "Puerto Ricans aren't real Latins!"

I suppose Wallonians aren't true Francophones either? Or did you forget BG3 was made by a Belgian company?

Look bro, I'm sorry that your native language is so primitive that the concept of genders outside of the artificial binary is confusing to it but maybe instead of pretending third-or-more genders don't exist and deliberately misgendering people out of some gross nationalistic pride or whatever perhaps you shoulder expand your language to include new grammar and terminology in order to address this very real concept which exists in practice?

Because right now you're basically complaining that your language doesn't have a word for "rain" and that attempts to circumvent this obvious issue are a 'corruption' of your language by 'foreign influences' and other xenophobic dogwhistles. Maybe go harass your language's big linguistics nerds and have them work that out instead of stalking a video game forum to preach jingoistic drivel.

[Ereghor the Enigmatic]

Originally posted by Pyromania™:

Look bro, I'm sorry that your native language is so primitive that the concept of genders outside of the artificial binary is confusing to it but maybe instead of pretending third-or-more genders don't exist and deliberately misgendering people out of some gross nationalistic pride or whatever perhaps you shoulder expand your language to include new grammar and terminology in order to address this very real concept which exists in practice?

Because right now you're basically complaining that your language doesn't have a word for "rain" and that attempts to circumvent this obvious issue are a 'corruption' of your language by 'foreign influences' and other xenophobic dogwhistles. Maybe go harass your language's big linguistics nerds and have them work that out instead of stalking a video game forum to preach jingoistic drivel.

Isn't that... xenophobic? Lingoist? Whatever?

In any case, pretending that English (the product of grossly simplified and crossbred mix of Latin, Germanic, and Gaelic tongues) is some kind of "advanced" language when its speakers have difficulty learning and using any of the "primitive" ones is not winning any favours.

Would you cancel a theoretical alien civilization if its language(s) only recognize gender binary then?

[Pyromaiden]

Originally posted by Ereghor the Enigmatic:

Originally posted by Pyromania™:

Look bro, I'm sorry that your native language is so primitive that the concept of genders outside of the artificial binary is confusing to it but maybe instead of pretending third-or-more genders don't exist and deliberately misgendering people out of some gross nationalistic pride or whatever perhaps you shoulder expand your language to include new grammar and terminology in order to address this very real concept which exists in practice?

Because right now you're basically complaining that your language doesn't have a word for "rain" and that attempts to circumvent this obvious issue are a 'corruption' of your language by 'foreign influences' and other xenophobic dogwhistles. Maybe go harass your language's big linguistics nerds and have them work that out instead of stalking a video game forum to preach jingoistic drivel.

Isn't that... xenophobic? Lingoist? Whatever?

In any case, pretending that English (the product of grossly simplified and crossbred mix of Latin, Germanic, and Gaelic tongues) is some kind of "advanced" language when its speakers have difficulty learning and using any of the "primitive" ones is not winning any favours.

Would you cancel a theoretical alien civilization if its language(s) only recognize gender binary then?

I don't "cancel" anything and I don't give a ♥♥♥♥ about the English language in any specific capacity. I certainly don't regard it as "superior" to any other; it's a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ mess and needs desperate fixing.

But the simple fact of this matter is that French, Spanish, and all the other gendered languages are working expressly on two extremely illogical premises:

1. That everything - even inanimate objects - have to have a gender.
2. That there are only two genders.

Neither of which is true. You are free to criticize attempts to break from the binary for being awful. Is Latinx terrible? Yes, because it doesn't make sense in Spanish. An often proposed alternative which is more in line with Spanish grammar is "Latine"; this is an example of CONSTRUCTIVE CRITICISM.

The opening post of this thread? Yeah, that's not constructive criticism - it's just prejudice. The core of OP's critique isn't that the gender neutral labels Larian introduced make no sense in French. If it was they would have stopped there, or would have suggested a better alternative for the goal in mind, or would have encouraged Larian to find a better alternative themselves.

Instead OP chose to point fingers at an ebul foreign menace without acknowledging the existence of people outside the binary at all. The message here is that French is perfectly fine as is, that non-binary people can take a hike, and that anyone who disagrees is some kind of foreign imperialist who hates the French language/culture/whatever.

[Fliqpy]

Originally posted by Ereghor the Enigmatic:

Originally posted by Pyromania™:

Look bro, I'm sorry that your native language is so primitive that the concept of genders outside of the artificial binary is confusing to it but maybe instead of pretending third-or-more genders don't exist and deliberately misgendering people out of some gross nationalistic pride or whatever perhaps you shoulder expand your language to include new grammar and terminology in order to address this very real concept which exists in practice?

Because right now you're basically complaining that your language doesn't have a word for "rain" and that attempts to circumvent this obvious issue are a 'corruption' of your language by 'foreign influences' and other xenophobic dogwhistles. Maybe go harass your language's big linguistics nerds and have them work that out instead of stalking a video game forum to preach jingoistic drivel.

Isn't that... xenophobic? Lingoist? Whatever?

In any case, pretending that English (the product of grossly simplified and crossbred mix of Latin, Germanic, and Gaelic tongues) is some kind of "advanced" language when its speakers have difficulty learning and using any of the "primitive" ones is not winning any favours.

Would you cancel a theoretical alien civilization if its language(s) only recognize gender binary then?

I'm sorry that Americans like whatever this person calls themselves think this way. Hard to believe but we're not all this insane and abusive. Obviously "Jennifer" has no respect for other cultures unless they're able to share her beliefs, which ofc is impossible because nobody should have to conform to such nonsense.

[Ereghor the Enigmatic]

Originally posted by Pyromania™:

But the simple fact of this matter is that French, Spanish, and all the other gendered languages are working expressly on two extremely illogical premises:

1. That everything - even inanimate objects - have to have a gender.
2. That there are two genders.

Neither of which is true.

Egads, my limited and bigoted worldview cannot handle such bulletproof reasoning.

Never mind that languages tend to have grammatical components which contribute to which gender a particular world is associated with, that myths regarding some cultures having a "third gender" stem from attempting to plaster the post-modern perception onto the cultural backgrounds without learning the specifics of what that actually meant, and that there are, indeed, two genders.

Otherwise the whole "non-binary" concept wouldn't make sense, no? Since it implies the existence of a "binary". Basic logic.

[Pyromaiden]

Originally posted by Ereghor the Enigmatic:

Originally posted by Pyromania™:

But the simple fact of this matter is that French, Spanish, and all the other gendered languages are working expressly on two extremely illogical premises:

1. That everything - even inanimate objects - have to have a gender.
2. That there are two genders.

Neither of which is true.

Egads, my limited and bigoted worldview cannot handle such bulletproof reasoning.

Never mind that languages tend to have grammatical components which contribute to which gender a particular world is associated with, that myths regarding some cultures having a "third gender" stem from attempting to plaster the post-modern perception onto the cultural backgrounds without learning the specifics of what that actually meant, and that there are, indeed, two genders.

Otherwise the whole "non-binary" concept wouldn't make sense, no? Since it implies the existence of a "binary". Basic logic.

Any reasonable person would realize that I forgot to put an "only" between the "are" and the "two" but as you've demonstrated with this nonsensical argument that third-or-more genders don't exist (which is so easy to disapprove that it's akin to saying ice and snow are the same thing) you're with OP on the side of keeping exclusive languages exclusive because apparently non-binary people don't matter to you.

Or whatever your excuse is.

Originally posted by cluxx:

Originally posted by Ereghor the Enigmatic:

Isn't that... xenophobic? Lingoist? Whatever?

In any case, pretending that English (the product of grossly simplified and crossbred mix of Latin, Germanic, and Gaelic tongues) is some kind of "advanced" language when its speakers have difficulty learning and using any of the "primitive" ones is not winning any favours.

Would you cancel a theoretical alien civilization if its language(s) only recognize gender binary then?

I'm sorry that Americans like whatever this person calls themselves think this way. Hard to believe but we're not all this insane and abusive. Obviously "Jennifer" has no respect for other cultures unless they're able to share her beliefs, which ofc is impossible because nobody should have to conform to such nonsense.

It isn't disrespectful to any culture to point out that their language does not accommodate for the existence of an entire demographic and it's utterly bizarre that you think it is. Why do non-binary people deserve to have their entire existence ignored? To preserve some ridiculous and antique grammar rules? You realize that languages (and cultures for that matter) are supposed to change and evolve over time, and that this is what prevents them from dying? Or that they often require foreign influences to do so?

I have no disrespect for the French culture. I actually like the French language, even. But there are non-binary people who speak the French language natively; people who don't want to be placed into genders they don't identify with. As a transwoman I empathize with that. The French language should obviously account for the existence of these people, and that it doesn't is an explicit flaw.

I don't give a ♥♥♥♥ about American culture. I hate American culture; it's repulsive. This has nothing to do with chauvinism and everything to do with inclusion.

[Ereghor the Enigmatic]

Originally posted by Pyromania™:

It isn't disrespectful to any culture to point out that their language does not accommodate for the existence of an entire demographic and it's utterly bizarre that you think it is. Why do non-binary people deserve to have their entire existence ignored? To preserve some ridiculous and antique grammar rules? You realize that languages (and cultures for that matter) are supposed to change and evolve over time, and that this is what prevents them from dying? Or that they often require foreign influences to do so?

Probably because if you ignore bullies and attention seekers, they eventually go away? Sadly, too much attention is being given to them both by "support" (more like enabling behaviour worsening their already difficult condition) and hatred.

Instead of figuring out as to why there's such an epidemic of people refusing to identify with their gender for whatever reason and seeing to fixing the root of the problem, it's spreading out of English-speaking countries into the rest of the world where impressionate teens and troubled adults are picking the new hot trend and trying to out-pronoun one another because apparently slapping a label on yourself is a suitable replacement for a personality or some tangible accomplishments in life that actually make you "special"(tm).

First world problems should be the least of an average person's worries.

[Sonic Titan]

Originally posted by Ereghor the Enigmatic:

Originally posted by Pyromania™:

It isn't disrespectful to any culture to point out that their language does not accommodate for the existence of an entire demographic and it's utterly bizarre that you think it is. Why do non-binary people deserve to have their entire existence ignored? To preserve some ridiculous and antique grammar rules? You realize that languages (and cultures for that matter) are supposed to change and evolve over time, and that this is what prevents them from dying? Or that they often require foreign influences to do so?

Probably because if you ignore bullies and attention seekers, they eventually go away? Sadly, too much attention is being given to them both by "support" (more like enabling behaviour worsening their already difficult condition) and hatred.

Instead of figuring out as to why there's such an epidemic of people refusing to identify with their gender for whatever reason and seeing to fixing the root of the problem, it's spreading out of English-speaking countries into the rest of the world where impressionate teens and troubled adults are picking the new hot trend and trying to out-pronoun one another because apparently slapping a label on yourself is a suitable replacement for a personality or some tangible accomplishments in life that actually make you "special"(tm).

First world problems should be the least of an average person's worries.

More like Ereghor the excrement, yeesh.

[Pyromaiden]

Originally posted by Ereghor the Enigmatic:

Originally posted by Pyromania™:

It isn't disrespectful to any culture to point out that their language does not accommodate for the existence of an entire demographic and it's utterly bizarre that you think it is. Why do non-binary people deserve to have their entire existence ignored? To preserve some ridiculous and antique grammar rules? You realize that languages (and cultures for that matter) are supposed to change and evolve over time, and that this is what prevents them from dying? Or that they often require foreign influences to do so?

Probably because if you ignore bullies and attention seekers, they eventually go away? Sadly, too much attention is being given to them both by "support" (more like enabling behaviour worsening their already difficult condition) and hatred.

Instead of figuring out as to why there's such an epidemic of people refusing to identify with their gender for whatever reason and seeing to fixing the root of the problem, it's spreading out of English-speaking countries into the rest of the world where impressionate teens and troubled adults are picking the new hot trend and trying to out-pronoun one another because apparently slapping a label on yourself is a suitable replacement for a personality or some tangible accomplishments in life that actually make you "special"(tm).

First world problems should be the least of an average person's worries.

So I was right: it's just hate masquerading as something more benign.

Good to know your opinion is ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ and not worth listening to.

[Crypt]

Originally posted by Pyromania™:

Originally posted by Ereghor the Enigmatic:

Probably because if you ignore bullies and attention seekers, they eventually go away? Sadly, too much attention is being given to them both by "support" (more like enabling behaviour worsening their already difficult condition) and hatred.

Instead of figuring out as to why there's such an epidemic of people refusing to identify with their gender for whatever reason and seeing to fixing the root of the problem, it's spreading out of English-speaking countries into the rest of the world where impressionate teens and troubled adults are picking the new hot trend and trying to out-pronoun one another because apparently slapping a label on yourself is a suitable replacement for a personality or some tangible accomplishments in life that actually make you "special"(tm).

First world problems should be the least of an average person's worries.

So I was right: it's just hate masquerading as something more benign.

Good to know your opinion is ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ and not worth listening to.

Listen bud, it seems like you sure have a lot of opinions about many many things and I'm certain your nanny loves listening to them, but as much as I would love to waste hours of my life debating your opinions with basic facts, it is not the purpose of this topic.

It is about asking for correct subs for the customers regardless of your personnal beliefs. It is funny you indeed tried to derail the conversation into some sort of racist nazi thing though.

Would langage inclusif be correct, taught in school and commonly understood by the population, this topic would not exist.

Regarding puerto rico, you don't need a translation. Were you not suffocating into your ideology you would have noticed that I'm sarcastically pointing out a correlation between the emergence of the term latinx with the fact that it came from a territory in the direct sphere of american influence.
To my very poor understanding of spanish, the spanish language is regulated by an organisation akin to the Academie Française in Spain, not by puerto rican activists. And the "standard" spanish is the one taught in school to foreign learners and pupils around the world. It would absolutely make sense to have subs reflecting the differences in a piece of entertainment in vocabulary, culture and language if the context allows for it but we both know that what you are arguing for is not culture representation but ideology.

Anyway, prop up to the guy who took the time to reply to his magma, what a madlad.