Making the German language gender-neutral is easier said than done. For instance, all nouns describing people or professions in German are either male or female, even in the plural. New word forms are therefore having to be invented to accommodate these demands.
Unsurprisingly, some linguists have slammed Cambridge for promoting these crimes against grammar. Oliver Baer, a member of the German Language Association, said that ‘if a non-native speaker came and tried to use gender-neutral German while on holiday here I think they would stand a good chance of making a fool of themselves’.
Take the city of Hanover, for example. Gender-neutral language has been used
for all official communications since 2019, with many other local governments following suit. Or take the first female chief of the Berlin police, Barbara Slowik. In 2019, she announced that she would no longer be referred to as the ‘police chief’ (
der Polizeipräsident), as the term is masculine. But instead of opting for the feminine form of the same title (
die Polizeipräsidentin), she decided on the gender-neutral
‘Polizei Berlin’ – meaning literally ‘the Berlin police’. Which is as nonsensical as it sounds.
The truth is that Germany is not having wokeness imposed on it from abroad – neither by right-on academics in the UK, nor by American racial identitarians. On the contrary, its own elites are willingly embracing and promoting it. And in the case of trans lunacy, Germany is arguably leading the way. It is fast becoming the wokest country in Europe.
German elites are in thrall to gender ideology and BLM-syle identity politics.
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