This past week....a number of noted Germans (people with status, to include writers, intellectuals, and comedians) stood up and wrote a letter to the general public.
The topic? A blunt 'no' to the cultural war going on, “ridiculous linguistic constructions” which centers on gender discussions. Yes, the agenda to make German absolutely gender-neutral.
Who published the letter? The German Language Association.
The real problem? You come down to three central issues.
1. The German 'the' (der, die, or das) and how each has a set of rules to define their use in the world, and reflet heavily upon the pronoun situation.
2. The German ways of differing between a male engineer or a female engineer, or the thousand occupational divisions. To suggest that you'd add 54 other genders into the equation, and that would create 54 additional nouns and pronoun words to fit each occupation? No, it's just not going to happen.
3. Then to identify the 54 'other' genders without getting personal (remember, Germans having a dividing line between 'du' and 'sie' which means 'you' but in a non-formal or formal way. You'd have to cross the line, and determine is this guy a 'gender-46', or a 'gender-21'? Once they lay out this additional piece of information about their gender, have you crossed the line between sie and du? Do you even want to cross that line?
If I had to pick a country where this gender discussion will never get anywhere.....Germany is number one on the list. You'd have to uproot the whole language, and spend a decade teaching people 54 additional pronouns, and how they'd reflect upon 'you' or 'the'. I just don't think it'll happen.
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