Hi, do we have other German speakers in here? I’m currently working on the German translation for the PieFed user interface. I’d like to have a discussion on gender neutrality in the German PieFed translation.
The current form
Right now it uses the male form. I think it’s desirable to make it neutral. To quote rimu:
I prefer gender neutral. It’s 2025 now, not 1950.
The challenges
It’s difficult to translate UIs to gender neutral German because it creates long words that might not fit on buttons etc. and some of the forms aren’t well suited for screen readers, hence worsen accessibility. But I think we can do it, we just have to find the best form that’s shortest, neutral and clear.
Some words aren’t translated in the context of Lemmy/PieFed. e.g. Community would be Gemeinschaft in German, but we keep it English to avoid confusion. So we have the option of not translating individual words.
The options
Let’s use the word Users as an example. I’ll try to list all possible options. If I’m missing any, feel free to add them in the comments.
- Benutzer (male form) ❌
- current form, not neutral
- Benutzerinnen (female form) ❌
- not neutral
- BenutzerInnen (neutral) ❌
- bad for screen readers, long
- Benutzer*innen (neutral) ⚠️
- okay for screen readers, long
- Benutzer:innen (neutral) ❌
- bad for screen readers, long
- Benutzer_innen (neutral) ⚠️
- not widely used, don’t know about screen readers, long
- Benutzende / Nutzende (neutral) ✅
- recommendation of geschicktgendern.de
- Benutzys / Nutzys (neutral) ✅
- not widely used, more about this form
- User (not neutral when used in German) ❌
- according to dict.cc User is a correct german plural form of the english word Users
- but it isn’t neutral when used in German
This is where I’m stuck. Nutzende is my preferred plural form. But I haven’t found a fitting singular form for it. There is more, but I’m just using this as an example of the challenges.
What we should try to achieve
- Find the best gender neutral form and apply it to the German PieFed translation
- Represent this form in the glossary as a standard for the German PieFed translation to guide translators
Feel free to leave a comment here or join the translation chat to discuss things further.
I feel like at least for central navigation elements like single word buttons, forms like “benutzys” are not so suitable. Because there will already be a usability trade-offs in using less established terms. People will understand a bit less clearly what is going on and how to navigate things. So things like “Nutzende” which can still be derived from the more commonly used gendered terms by using the regular rules of language will be much more legible and provide less of a riddle than a term like “nutzy” which basically invents new grammar. (in general I do actually like the “invent new grammar” approach to gender neutral language because I think it’s the most thorough and elegant approach overall. But it can also be a bit much/hard to comprehend if you’re not familiar).
Fully agree. I personally like the Benutzy form aka. Entgendern nach Phettberg the most. But I don’t see it being used by the general public.