From 202823f6ed13ebfdf7a08f5f6a7bd7e275c78978 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Avris Date: Thu, 25 Nov 2021 18:08:44 +0100 Subject: [PATCH] [en][blog] history of the collective, why the name --- locale/en/blog/project-history.md | 67 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ locale/en/blog/why-the-name.md | 29 +++++++++++++ locale/en/translations.suml | 3 ++ 3 files changed, 99 insertions(+) create mode 100644 locale/en/blog/project-history.md create mode 100644 locale/en/blog/why-the-name.md diff --git a/locale/en/blog/project-history.md b/locale/en/blog/project-history.md new file mode 100644 index 00000000..d3a3ef4f --- /dev/null +++ b/locale/en/blog/project-history.md @@ -0,0 +1,67 @@ +# Short history of the project + +2021-11-25 | [@andrea](/@andrea) + +![Logo of zaimki.pl](https://zaimki.pl/api/banner/zaimki.png) + +We get asked that question more often recently, so I've decided to put an answer in writing 😉 +How did pronouns.page start? + +Well, it started circa two years ago, and in quite a different linguistic reality than English. +You see, while in English referring to a person in a way that doesn't force them into a gender binary +is basically a question of replacing a personal pronoun in its five forms (eg. they/them/their/theirs/themselves) +and a few gendered nouns (eg. boy/girl to kid or enby), in Polish it's way more complicated. +Even a sentence as simple as “I did” or “I'm hungry” requires a person to disclose their gender. +Almost every person-describing noun is gendered too, and for many of them the masculine version is treated as the “default”, +with women being shamed for using those “strange” feminine versions. +Not only is it all complicated, but also unpopular and new. Trying to un-gender Polish is quite a linguistic revolution. +(If you're interested in an overview (in English) of how the solutions look like, check out [zaimki.pl/english](https://zaimki.pl/english)). + +In November 2019 I stumbled upon [a blog post](https://www.przemyslenia-maniaka.pl/2019/11/maniak-marudzi-27-niebinarne-tumaczenia.html) +in which the author criticised the Polish translation of She-Ra for ciswashing and erasing the gender of a character called Double Trouble. +It was a constructive criticism, it included a list of ideas on how to translate a character that uses they/them into Polish +without arbitrarily assigning them a binary gender. My brain, having always been fed with the assumption that such a thing is impossible, +now almost exploded with joy! It's a very analytical brain, though, so it wanted to have a more structured collection +of those ideas. To put them into grammar table, to test every word, to consider every grammatical form, to fill in every gap. + +So I wrote [a blog post of my own](https://avris.it/blog/genderneutralizacja-polszczyzny), in which I attempted to do just that. +But I wasn't really happy with the result. My own conclusions back then were that I don't see any bright future +for the nonbinary forms in Polish that wouldn't sound unnatural or be doomed to be wildly unpopular. Oh, how wrong I was! + +Enter [@Ausir](/@Ausir), a translator whom I've followed on Twitter and who's fascinated with how nonbinary forms get translated +into different languages, mainly Polish. He was gathering examples from literature and publishing them in a Google Docs document +– and they confirmed that indeed it is possible to do it in an elegant way that doesn't erase nonbinary identities. + +Around the same time [@Sybil](/@Sybil) was coming up with a solution to a similar, yet separate problem +– how to extend the person-describing nouns into a system that also includes the grammatical neuter. +They wanted to describe their nonbinary partner in a way that doesn't impose a binary gender on them +– but in Polish they had no other option than to expand the dictionaries in the name of love! +They created [a funpage on Facebook](https://www.facebook.com/neutratywy) where they shared their proposals. + +And the three of us have joined our forces to create one bigger project: [zaimki.pl](https://zaimki.pl) +– a website that [started very humbly](https://web.archive.org/web/20200725174439/https://zaimki.pl/), +basically as a Polish version of [pronoun.is](https://pronoun.is/), to be extended with +[a text corpus](https://zaimki.pl/korpus) and [a dictionary of nouns](https://zaimki.pl/neutratywy). + +I [announced it on Twitter](https://twitter.com/AvrisIT/status/1286400337465802752) on June 23rd, 2020 +and was absolutely astounded by the overwhelmingly positive response. +The project almost immediately [attracted attention of queer media](https://queer.pl/artykul/204685/zaimkipl-strona-jezyk-polski-niebinarnosc). +More people were helping out with creating it – and [on November 22nd, 2020 we gathered](https://twitter.com/neutratywy/status/1332403345542221827) +together online to discuss how would such a cooperation work. We came up with [the name of the collective](/blog/why-the-name) +of the collective and agreed on a non-hierarchical, anarcha-queer structure. + +Thanks to their hard work new features and language forms were getting developed. +Arguably the biggest one of them being the ability to create an account and an easily sharable card +with one's names, pronouns and liked/disliked words. +This feature was met with enthusiasm and prompted new feature requests: can we also have such a card in English? + +So [@Ausir](/@Ausir), [@Szymon](/@Szymon) and [I](/@andrea) translated the website to English, +researched the most popular neopronouns, looked up literature that uses it – +and on December 5th, 2020 [we announced the start of an English version](https://twitter.com/PronounsPage/status/1335322304931393536). +It's the only one initially created by people who use the given language as their additional one (although later it was proof-read by native-speakers too). +For all the others we were contacted by their native-speakers who offered help preparing the content, +while we provided the technical tools and support. + +Today, the project covers 9 languages 🤯, has almost 300 000 users 🤯, and the Polish team regularly gets invited by the media, including those mainstream 🤯. +And that's despite it being only two years old and having been created entirely by a non-profit, non-hierarchical group of volunteer activists. +I'm in awe in how far we've all come, and I'm eternally grateful to all the people who keep making it happen! ❤️ diff --git a/locale/en/blog/why-the-name.md b/locale/en/blog/why-the-name.md new file mode 100644 index 00000000..ee699a88 --- /dev/null +++ b/locale/en/blog/why-the-name.md @@ -0,0 +1,29 @@ +# Why the name “Neutral Language Council”? + +2021-11-25 | [@andrea](/@andrea) + +![Logo of the collective](/img-local/logo/logo-full.png) + +For Polish speakers the name of our collective is a very clear reference – but not necessarily to anyone else. +So here's a short explanation, if you're interested: + +_(Polish, more nuanced version, is available [here](https://zaimki.pl/blog/sk%C4%85d-nazwa-kolektywu))_ + +There’s an “official language regulating organ” in Poland, and it's called [“Polish Language Council”](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish_Language_Council). +It was founded by an act of parliament and its members are some of the most well respected linguists and other experts in the country. +And although its role is _technically_ purely advisory, it’s often being treated by the society as having a decisive role in what’s _allowed_ in Polish and what’s not. + +As much as using “singular they” might still raise some eyebrows, +English nonbinary and gender neutral language could be called pretty well established when seen in comparison to Polish. +Trying to come up with, assemble, structure and promote ways for enbies to express themselves in Polish without being forced into a binary +is quite a linguistic revolution. + +A common criticism of our activism is that “people _can’t_ talk like that, because PLC didn't _allow_ it!”. +Which is quite a misunderstanding of both what the PLC is _supposed_ to be +and of how sympathetic towards the nonbinary community some of its members are _in practice_. +And also of how the process of language evolution works in general 😅 + +So… we called ourselves a “language council” too! +To bring attention to the fact that language is constantly being created and developed by its users. +To the fact that the changes in a language can, are, and since the dawn of humanity have been happening from the bottom up. +We're nonbinary users of languages – and we have every right to use our languages to express our nonbinary-ness ✊ diff --git a/locale/en/translations.suml b/locale/en/translations.suml index a18259c7..ed5374b1 100644 --- a/locale/en/translations.suml +++ b/locale/en/translations.suml @@ -427,6 +427,9 @@ contact: We are a queer collective dedicated to assembling, researching, shaping and promoting gender neutral and nonbinary language. We also support actions towards equality and social justice. + extra: + - '{/blog/project-history=Short history of the project}' + - '{/blog/why-the-name=Why the name?}' logo: 'Logo of the collective is a combination of the transgender symbol and a speech bubble that symbolises language.' members: 'Current members' member: 'Member of the collective'