A New Accent Is Developing in Southwest Kansas | Hacker News Reader

A New Accent Is Developing in Southwest Kansas

atlasobscura.com

169 pointsDoreenMichele147 comments

Whoa, I never thought an article about Liberal would be on HN. I'm a Liberal, KS resident since about 2005, and now that I think about it...people here do have a kind of unique accent, but I don't know if it's really as striking as the article makes it out to be. I don't know, maybe I've just gotten used to it.

I was shocked when

fwiw, I grew up in Miami, and I 100% thought that me and my friends did not have an accent of any kind whatsoever ... because for whatever reason, there weren't really a lot of people born and raised in miami in popular media (at least that I was aware of, days before Pitbull, etc).

Well, I moved away to central florida (very different demographics) at 17 ... and it wasn't until a few years later when I went back to visit, that I realized just how distinct (to my ears at least) my friends sounded. Nowadays, I can hear someone start to speak, and within a few minutes of listening can tell that they were raised in Miami. It's a few subtle clues that thus far have almost always been right

> and I 100% thought that me and my friends did not have an accent of any kind whatsoever

I suspect everyone thinks that. It's all those people from other parts of the world/country that have accents. :)

I'm 37 and I'm still perplexed that it rains some places in the summer.

Here I am from Michigan thinking "When else would it rain?!?!"

Ha! ya, first time I realized this I was like 14 and we went to the Midwest during the summer and there was a big storm. Before that, I always thought summer = dry and hot everywhere.

It rains in the tropics, like in those tropical rainforests.

How about Maui: '"Big Bog," a spot on the edge of Haleakala National Park overlooking Hana at about 5,400 feet elevation had an estimated mean annual rainfall of 404.4 inches over the 30-year period of 1978 to 2007' (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maui#Rainfall)

It's funny you mention this, I'm 37 and just visited Las Vegas for the first time recently ... as a Floridian, I never fathomed that air could be _that dry_.

In in California and I'm perplexed that it even rains here anymore...

Listening to the audio, it's subtle but it definitely sounds unique to my ear. :)

Really? That's interesting. If you don't mind me asking, where are you from?

I live in the Pacific Northwest.

What do you do there? Why'd you move there in 05?

I'm a sysadmin.

Well, I moved up here because my parents decided to, and I was a child at the time. :)

Ah, an article about my home state. It's worth pointing out how isolated this town is... Interstate doesn't even run through that part of the state, and the nearest 'big city' is hours away.

Isolation is probably an important factor for the development of an accent

I grew up in a small fishing village in the north of Scotland - an area notorious for its very strong accents (to the point of some documentaries filmed locally having to be subtitled in English!).

However, people who lived on farms spoke with a noticeably different accent (at least to the ears of locals) - even though they might be physically on a kilometer or two from the nearest village.

NB This was in the 70s - I suspect none of these communities are quite as insular as they used to be.

The movie "Hot Fuzz" played up variations in regional accents in England. There's a scene (1) where the London cop (Simon Pegg) has to use two rural cops in order to interpret the dialect of an old farmer.

1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cun-LZvOTdw

That scene is only a slight exaggeration. Rural West Country accents can be almost totally unintelligible to users of standard English.

https://youtu.be/WjTIFkWJctY?t=40s

Wow. There's a linked video of farmers from Kerry, Ireland as well. I can't understand the first one, the second just barely.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jsUvcjk8J5c

Haha, I ran into a couple of Irish lads in a club in the weekend.

I know it sounds like a stereotype, but with a few pints down them I swear I couldn't understand a thing they said when they were talking to each other. I had to check they weren't speaking Gaelic or something.

You definitely get used to accents quickly though. After a couple of weeks of hanging out with a bunch of Scottish people, I could understand Glasgow patter like it was normal English.

and Robert Newton can be thanked for turning it into the pirate voice.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Newton

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Country_English#Social_st...

Its amazing how diverse the accent can be in such a tiny part of the world. Its extremely easy to tell if someone is from Bristol, Gloucester, Swindon or Salisbury immediately.

Yeah I've always wondered why that has happened in Britain but not so much in the US in that people on different ends of the country can often sound not too dissimilar,

This is a hypothesis about how variation relates to the period of time in which a language has been in an area. Simply put, the more diversity within a region, the more likely that place is the origin [1].

So in this case, England will have the most linguistic diversity within English since it originated there.

This hypothesis has an analogue within population genetics, e.g. Africa has the most genetic diversity compared to other regions.

I don't know if this effect has been given a name yet, but it would seem to apply to any system where 1) mutations accumulate over time 2) populations tend to be stable but 3) groups occasionally move about very large distances.

[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/AskAnthropology/comments/3dq1ko/why...

[2] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S096098220...

The west coast was settled barely 200 years ago, and at that time they would have spoken essentially the same mix of accents as those on the east cost. That's not a lot of time to differentiate. In addition, there's a lower population density in th US and people need to move larger distances, e.g. to shop at the nearest town, so the areas of mostly similar pronunciation should be expected to be larger.

Then there are travel and long-distance communication, which cause linguistic convergence in essentially every country, so there dialects in the US are never going to be as fractured as they used to be in Europe.

It used to be that way in the US, too, up until radio and TV began exposing everyone to the accents from the Northeast (politicians) and California (Hollywood).

The accent of Hollywood wasn't actually the accent of California: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mid-Atlantic_accent

I would guess that parts of the UK haven't had any serious external influences in terms of culture or population for a very long time indeed - at least until fairly recently.

e.g. In my mouth I remember my parents joking that anyone whose family hadn't been in the village for at least three generations were still regarded as "incomers".

I went to BYU which has mormons from all over the US, it was really rare for me to be able to tell where someone was from (and even noticing someone having a non-standard but still American accent was fairly uncommon).

Communication technology has undoubtedly had an effect on the Scots language, but I think that education is a far bigger factor. For generations, children have been taught exclusively in English and chastised for using Scots. Like Welsh and Cornish, Scots was a victim of linguistic imperialism.

I think at times it’s difficult to separate imperialism from economic dominance. Sometimes these things are due to economic might (for example Brazilian Portuguese is more influential than peninsular Portuguese, however, Brazil is hardly the imperialist in this scenario)

Is it imperialism or economic influence which might make an edinburger accent more prevalent in Scotland?

I think the point on linguistic imperialism was referring to things like the Welsh Not: dia.org/wiki/Welsh_Not" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welsh_Not

I can remember a girl in a class when I was at school in the late 70s being asked a question by a teacher and she clearly had been day dreaming a bit so replied "fit?" (i.e. "what?"). angry and threw a wooden blackboard cleaner at her head which just missed by a few cm.

I can also remember some kids getting far worse treatment in primary school for slipping into dialect (e.g. one chap who mispronounced something was told by the teacher to look at the blackboard more carefully so he went right up to it and the teacher went behind him and slammed his head into the blackboard).

[Edit: I should have said "loonie" rather than "chap" - a "loon" being a boy, a "loonie" a young boy - similarly "quine" and "quinie" for girls and young girls - aye it's a sair fecht ;-)]

Another small, fishing town in the north of Scotland alumni here - Wick, Caithness, this I suspect is "much" further north than arethuza. He lived near the Big City of Aberdeen ;)

Just to give you a sense of how local accents can be. The Caithness accent (mostly Norse origin with a little bit of Gaelic thrown in) is often confused for Irish - even by people who live within 50km of the county. (Personal experience, no references).

I'm from Portknockie (an interesting name in itself) not sure I would describe that as "near" Aberdeen.... ;-)

Should have said North East rather than North!

Even in populated areas there can be professional differences, my favorite being Pitmatic, a variation on the dialects of Northeast England that derives from coal miners. It is indeed disappearing, if not disappeared (along with most of the coal miners)

Definitely. I live in Atlantic Canada we're quite isolated from Canada plus geographically it's difficult to move between the provinces.

On top of that my province is an island, rural, small population, lots of isolated towns, farms and fishing towns. For an island of only 150,000 and 170km long I can easily spot dialects from other parts of the island.

Broadly speaking west is more French and east is more English. Add in Irish, Scottish, Dutch, Lebanese, First Nations and now more recently Chinese.

At least 50% of the population lives in the capital city region so the remaining rural areas are quite small in population and isolated. Cars have changed a lot of that but in the olden days horse and buggy meant a few days between towns, add more time in the winter.

We have the inhale yes sound which is fairly rare. I'm not sure what other unique terms or patterns are here but out isolation certainly has made this area of Canada unique language-wise.

This is true, and not just in language - Africa has some of the highest genetic diversity found in relative short distances because of isolated villages. I can imagine local accents and by extension languages form even faster than detectable genetic traits.

I'm sure it may be, but physical isolation is certainly not a necessity. E.g. London has several separate recognisable accents ignoring the ones tied to specific ethnic groups. What physical isolation tends to give is much clearer lines - the London accents blur into each other a lot, and people moving around a lot makes it more a game of averages.

I agree. I live in Rhode Island, the smallest state I the US and we have multiple distinct accents that are clear to those who grow up here. Even from adjacent towns!

Many people in RI down even travel within the state very far.

I've spent a lot of time in RI myself. Can you say more about the differences you have in mind?

All I can think of is Cranston vs. elsewhere.

Well I’ve noticed the accents mostly with people who’s family have been here for at least a few generations. Cranston acccent is quite different than providence even though they are adjacent. Johnston also has a similar accent to Cranston but a little different still to an acute ear. I don’t know how to really describe them in words.

I’ve also noticed quite bit of difference in accent by age group. For example, my grandmother is from providence and is 92. She pronounces “bottle” as “baw’ull”. Many of her friends around her age speak similarly.

My wife’s family is from south shore MA, about 30 minutes from providence. Their accent is way different too (and different from Boston). They pronounce “bath” as “bawth” (almost British) but Boston says “Baath”.

Thanks. I spend most of my time in South County, so I'm not exposed to a lot of the accents you're talking about.

Yes I haven’t heard much variation in south county accents. I wouldn’t be surprised if Cranston and Johnston and providence accents sound the same to many south county residents.

I find it amazing that there is so much difference in so small a distance.

Also a factor in retaining the accent while the rest of the world moves on ( e.g. Canadian French )

I would add that isolation is a fundamental factor in the theory of evolution.

I was playing around with PostGIS recently and figured out the most remote city/zip in each state. I was looking at the distance to the nearest city with at least 100k people. For Kansas I came up with Rexford(north west KS) is closest to Aurora (pop 345k, 219Mi away), there are 23k people within 50 miles of Rexford. Rexford does have I70 running through it.

  zip  | state |  primary_city   | substring  |  cls_st  |    cls_city     | population | pop_50_m  | dist_100k | Thomas Cou | Colorado | Aurora          |    345,803 |    23,108 |   219.145

Here is the full list

    zip  | state |  primary_city   | substring  |  cls_st  |    cls_city     | population | pop_50_m  | dist_100k ---------+------------+----------+-----------------+------------+-----------+----------- | Lake and P | Alaska   | Anchorage       |    300,950 |       362 |    494.97 | Aroostook  | New Hamp | Manchester      |    110,378 |    40,131 |    338.27 | Divide Cou | Montana  | Billings        |    109,059 |    10,279 |    326.29 | Sheridan C | Montana  | Billings        |    109,059 |     7,897 |    293.05 | Meade Coun | South Da | Sioux Falls     |    164,676 |    21,484 |    292.24 | Cook Count | Minnesot | St. Paul        |    294,873 |     4,970 |    253.32 | Cherry Cou | Colorado | Fort Collins    |    152,061 |    21,014 |    237.82 | Weston Cou | Montana  | Billings        |    109,059 |    40,979 |    235.88 | Navajo Cou | Arizona  | Scottsdale      |    226,918 |    27,280 |    234.40 | San Juan C | Utah     | Provo           |    116,288 |    17,384 |    231.58 | Drummond Island | Chippewa C | Michigan | Lansing         |    113,972 |    47,370 |    229.87 | Hawaii Cou | Hawaii   | Honolulu        |    347,884 |    84,259 |    226.86 | Dolores Co | New Mexi | Albuquerque     |    556,495 |    33,708 |    224.43 | Thomas Cou | Colorado | Aurora          |    345,803 |    23,108 |    219.14 | Madison Co | Montana  | Billings        |    109,059 |   198,532 |    210.65 | Elko Count | Idaho    | Boise City      |    214,237 |    43,431 |    199.50 | Humboldt C | Californ | Santa Rosa      |    171,990 |   115,424 |    197.74 | Presidio C | Texas    | Odessa          |    110,720 |     7,624 |    197.55 | Lake Count | Oregon   | Eugene          |    159,190 |     4,994 |    195.88 | Clinton Co | New Hamp | Manchester      |    110,378 |   296,192 |    175.55 | Ashland Co | Minnesot | St. Paul        |    294,873 |    47,897 |    173.07 | Grand Isle | New Hamp | Manchester      |    110,378 |   309,780 |    164.47 | Catron Cou | Arizona  | Tucson          |    526,116 |    11,931 |    158.60 | Nicholas C | North Ca | Winston-Salem   |    236,441 |   390,424 |    156.14 | Beaver Cou | Texas    | Amarillo        |    196,429 |    37,309 |    150.19 | Coos Count | New Hamp | Manchester      |    110,378 |    64,128 |    141.90 | Pike Count | North Ca | Winston-Salem   |    236,441 |   379,232 |    139.28 | Benton Cou | Washingt | Spokane         |    210,721 |   462,388 |    138.35 | Bath Count | Virginia | Richmond        |    214,114 |   245,751 |    135.13 | Monroe Cou | Florida  | Miami           |    417,650 |    52,522 |    129.85 | Carter Cou | Tennesse | Memphis         |    653,450 |   141,032 |    123.03 | Clinton Co | Pennsylv | Allentown       |    118,577 |   425,630 |    122.99 | Polk Count | Arkansas | Little Rock     |    197,357 |   123,016 |    122.29 | Hyde Count | Virginia | Chesapeake      |    230,571 |    50,131 |    118.21 | Clay Count | Tennesse | Memphis         |    653,450 |   336,694 |    117.74 | Telfair Co | Georgia  | Savannah        |    142,772 |   332,356 |    115.16 | Palo Alto  | Iowa     | Des Moines      |    207,510 |   183,717 |    113.55 | Sumter Cou | Mississi | Jackson         |    172,638 |   167,110 |    111.57 | Worcester  | Maryland | Baltimore       |    622,104 |   432,125 |    105.97 | Alexander  | Tennesse | Clarksville     |    142,357 |   393,289 |    105.36 | Sullivan C | Tennesse | Knoxville       |    183,270 |   682,247 |    105.13 | Catahoula  | Mississi | Jackson         |    172,638 |   312,814 |    103.36 | Sussex Cou | Maryland | Baltimore       |    622,104 |   471,227 |    101.88 | Lawrence C | Ohio     | Columbus        |    822,553 |   588,476 |    100.31 | Greenville | Georgia  | Athens-Clarke C |    119,980 | 1,614,587 |    89.313 | Benton Cou | Illinois | Joliet          |    147,806 |   529,417 |    79.080 | Barnstable | Massachu | Boston          |    645,966 |   427,615 |    73.955 | Cape May C | Pennsylv | Philadelphia    |  1,553,165 |   908,283 |    71.409 | Washington | Rhode Is | Providence      |    177,994 | 1,364,062 |    46.646 | New London | Connecti | Hartford        |    125,017 | 2,541,406 |    44.221 | District o | District | Washington      |    646,449 | 7,777,258 |    5.3558

It might change your results if this were done based on drive times instead. I noticed because Chatham seems to be furthest from Boston radially, but Provincetown is definitely further by car.

Agree. I was just playing with distances and populations. Also I limited the max distance to 500 mi. Alaska certainly has further zipcodes. It was a fun exercise.

500miles is the distance from Kansas City to Denver, I would definitely double that to 1000!

And nice work, that's incredible!

It is worth pointing out. I'm a Liberal resident and the geographical isolation can be a pain. It's getting better as the town grows, but at the end of the day we're still very alone out here.

Interesting. The "spanish influenced" accent described in the video sounds like standard English in southern california.

Yeah, I get the feeling they make a big fuzz out of it. In the video she’s mentioning the different ways an “a” is pronounced. If you look at England, every other towns has a different accent (that’s what I’ve heard)

https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/explore/what-is-the-differ...

I'd say the rate at which accents change here as you move is probably higher than the US due to the smaller size of the British Isles. You can see a few videos like this that demonstrate it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-8mzWkuOxz8

Agreed. The samples sound identical to how many of my friends in Southern California speak. Some with hispanic heritage, some without. A slightly more open 'a' vowel, and a slightly different stressings on some syllables. I wouldn't say this is a new accent at all. The only thing peculiar is that it's Kansas, where you might not expect that same latin influence.

Yeah, I would have guessed the speaker was from SOCAL. Every region in the US has it's own variation subtle as it maybe: speed, intonation, word choice etc...

Same as in Miami.

As someone who grew up in Southern California and the "surfer" and "valley girl" cultures and dialects, I was hoping this article would provide some insight into the formation of such things. However, the biggest takeaway seemed to be the surprise that this was happening in the middle of Kansas. It was interesting that the Hispanic population quadrupled there recently, but no conclusions were drawn by the author.

Strange-the pronunciation changes that she demonstrates with "hand" seem to be bringing the accent closer to RP English!

Yeah even among US accents I felt in the video she was really exaggerating Midwestern US accents when saying the "normal" version of "hand". On the coasts this "strange" pronunciation is not so uncommon.

Yes, I noticed the sounds in hat and hand still weren't identical but perhaps she's exaggerating an 'RP-like' sound to emphasize the distinction with general nasalized American English.

It's not general. It's purely a midwestern phenomenon.

Dialects are interesting. While it's still mutually intelligible, it's an accent. I wonder whether the Liberal accent will develop into a separate language like Louisiana Creole?

I made some graphs about the status of languages in Windows/macOS/Ubuntu/Google Translate/Facebook/Wikipedia/IB, and included a section about dialects of Chinese.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17344466

The visual style of this map is overwhelming, but it's a great map of US dialects with links to native speakers: http://aschmann.net/AmEng/

Is there any audio of people speaking with the accent available somewhere?

Linked in the body of the article, it's a very subtle variation

> “But we would find them not only among the Latinx youth but also among many of the white youth as well. It seems like these variants—because Liberal is now a Latinx-majority community—are just becoming the way this community sounds.”

People actually use "Latinx"? Up until now I'd only seen that in discussions about it.

I was surprised to see that as well. I thought it was for particular group, not as a replacement for 'Latinos'.

Similar to people getting upset at using "guys" which the dictionary defines as referencing all genders, and only male when used as "guy". Latinos makes perfect common sense in the same way.

This seems like a bit of activism by the author rather than entirely necessary, especially considering it links to an article about "Gender Inclusivity" from within an article about Kansas accents... Unless I missed the notice that using "Latino-majority community" is no longer correct?

Is using "guys" not plainly kind of dumb though? Once someone pointed it out to me, I can't help but feel foolish using it to describe a group of women.

Conversely, if you call a group of men "ladies" you're being playfully derisive...

In romance languages (French, Spanish, Italian...) it's considered standard for a collective group of males and females to be referred to by the male pronoun. A group of exclusively females gets referred to with a female pronoun.

I guess the same applies to "guys".

Is it an old wives' tale that east coast news stations send reporters with heavy accents to midwest stations to unlearn them?

Does anyone else find the whole 'Latinx' thing nonsensical?

I understand the reasoning, it's about being gender neutral. But why don't they just knock the vowel off the end and just say 'Latin'?

Try googling "why latinx" and reading up on it. It's deeper than just gender-neutrality, and it's not just about being "sensical". Some here will dismiss it because there are political aspects to the choice. But I assume most people who comment on Hacker News under self-determined pseudonyms can respect the desire and the right of people to come up with labels for referring to themselves that make sense to them, whatever the reason is.

I read a few articles, and I can understand the viewpoint about how using latino and latina can be seen as problematic. I understood that before.

But I don't understand why we don't just drop the o/a at the end and use "Latin". No article seems to explain this, and nobody here in HN has explained it either.

I'm not trying to be argumentative for the sake of it, I genuinely don't understand what's wrong with simply using "Latin", which would be linguistically more correct in English, and also a contraction of "Latin American".

Maybe there's some cultural nuance I'm missing, as I'm not American. All the Latin American people I know identify as being from their home country (mostly Argentina and Chile), rather than Latin American anyway. The whole Latino/Latina/Latinx thing seems to be some Pan-Latin American thing for US residents, trying to amalgamate a whole continent into a single cultural identity.

As another non-American, the ‘Latin America’ thing stinks of the ‘Oriental’ label that used to be applied to anyone from Far East Asia in the UK. I don’t understand why they aren’t just ‘South Americans’ or are addressed by their national identity, as they are in the UK.

(Of course, if the south/Central Americans want a shared ‘Latinx’ identity then good for them, this comment is more about how Americans (the ones from the USA) refer to them.)

I've read the first two results on google and it appears it's strictly related to gender-neutrality. As far as respecting the desires and rights of people who come up with labels for (more than) themselves... I can't.

Someone demanding me to blanket treat an entire culture is dehumanizing every interaction with a person from that culture (and it makes each interaction tainted with ideology). I also can't respect someone who thinks they have the right to speak for an "identity" that crosses many cultures and national boarders, or contains millions of people. [1]

Let's reverse the roles. Would you feel comfortable if a white activist (assuming you are white) you do not know, who has never spoken to you before, and comes from a different country or background than you, is demanding the country/world to treat or label you a specific way? What if it was a male? Or female? Or Catholic or atheist? Democratic or republican? Blue collared or white collared? Has children, or doesn't? [1]

[1][1] A single word can be heavily loaded from a political or justice oriented ideology, and cause people to subconsciously distance themselves from people they interact with due to subconsciously projecting that ideology.

/rant.

> Someone demanding me to blanket treat an entire culture is dehumanizing every interaction with a person from that culture (and it makes each interaction tainted with ideology).

Sure, but doesn't that apply to every such label? Latinx is the "controversial" term and Latino/a are the "accepted" ones, but that's just because we're having this discussion now; surely further back in history Latino/a were just as unfamiliar as Latinx is today.

Put another way: what label is not arbitrarily decided by pleas from some subset of that group and/or popular usage?

Could you provide the link? I'm willing to google it but I'd like to get the best article and it sounds like you're knowledgeable about this subject.

I agree it is nonsensical, but I'd rather it stay as it used to be.

Through the usual meme grapevine I saw a tumblr post on reddit about this. Being gender neutral/genderless in this case is also actively ignoring Spanish linguistics (and arguably culture). Spanish is a gendered language like many others. It's not some patriarchal conspiracy to say Latino instead of Latina or vice versa, it's just how the language works. If I remember correctly as well, the gender neutral form would still be Latino.

Granted, they're being referred to through English here, which one could argue could benefit from just being 'Latin' (confusion between actual Latin aside). I'm of the opinion to keep loan words as close to the original as possible. Language changes over time but some words are still explicitly from elsewhere. So, keep it as Latino/Latina.

> Being gender neutral/genderless in this case is also actively ignoring Spanish linguistics (and arguably culture).

That argument that conflates the Spanish language and Latin American culture (which is not homogenous). Portuguese actually edges out Spanish in terms of European languages in South America, and there are hundreds of indigenous languages spoken there [1]. It's an appeal to the purity of a culture that is itself a product of colonialism.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_South_America

> Portuguese actually edges out Spanish in terms of European languages in South America

We're not in South America, though. In the context of this article, we're talking about a town in the USA with a large number of immigrants from Latin America as a whole, most of whom are Hispanic and comparatively few of whom are Brazilian.

This subthread is an aside on the term "Latinx" in general, outside the context of this article. I'm specifically responding to the meme described by the GP, which ostensibly was not created in response to this article but to address general usage of the term "Latinx".

> but to address general usage of the term "Latinx"

Which, again, in English, is usually used when discussing immigrants, most of whom are Hispanic.

It sometimes refers to people who happen to be immigrants, but it's not often used in the context of a discussion involving immigration. Broadly, it refers to people and culture originating in Latin America. Many people use it to self-identify.

Actually I see a lot of people write x or @ instead of o. The x is the variety most sprayed on walls in political statements, the @ is used for stuff like birthday invites. Some people I know do it.

To use x in an English text comes across to me as political activism.

To clarify, you mean in written Spanish, right?

Yes written Spanish. Not sure how people fix it when they speak? I hear people say "muchachas y muchachos" a lot on political rallies.

There is still a push for using X, at least in Spain. The argument is that of course "La Ministro" is a patriarchal, so we should use "La Ministra", or "Consejo de Ministros y Ministras" etc etc

Isn't the adjective for the Roman "Latin" in Spanish also "Latino"? Do they get confused by this?

Yeah, I don't think that's the part that's confusing them.

And it shouldn’t confuse us either, as far as I can tell.

The tension between "all non-Anglo culture is unconditionally progressive" versus "we have to pretend linguistic gender is political" is amusing. The meme that the standard English "he", used in the context of referring to a gender unspecified person, is oppressive can't be older than the 60's; it's probably possible to document its exact source and rate of spread. The meme doesn't even make sense for its own purposes because it disallows an English speaker to refer to a person in a gender unspecified way.

> it disallows an English speaker to refer to a person in a gender unspecified way

it's really not that hard to use singular "they". we already do it naturally in instances like "someone left their coat here. i hope they don't need it today." it only gets confusing when you try to talk about a gender unspecified member of a group and the group at the same time.

you can certainly debate whether you should have to adjust the way you speak, but it's not like what people are requesting with pronouns is actually hard.

Singular "they" sometimes gets a bad rap (less so in the last couple years) but it's been part of the English language since the time thorn (Þ) was an English letter. It's appeared in well known written works by respected authors, such as this usage by Shakespeare:

"There's not a man I meet but doth salute me as if I were their well-acquainted friend" - A Comedy of Errors, Act IV, Scene 3

As you point out, even people who criticize it use it, because it's natural in most situations. There would be very few people who would naturally say "each of the children called his parents" over "each of the children called their parents."

https://www.npr.org/2016/01/13/462906419/everyone-uses-singu...

>A lot of people tell you it sets their teeth on edge, but my guess is that they're not listening to themselves very attentively. Everyone uses singular "they," whether they realize it or not. In an engaging recent book called Between You & Me, the New Yorker's self-designated comma queen Mary Norris says that that use of "they" is "just wrong." But flip back a few pages and you find her writing "Nobody wanted to think they were not essential." If that sentence got by a New Yorker copy editor in her own book on grammar, what hope is there for anybody else? If you insist on coming down on singular "they," it's best to be a bit ironic about it, since you're almost certainly going to be making a hypocrite of yourself before the day is out.

Thanks for sharing this! I really felt like it must be older and more common than critics claim.

The oldest use of singular they I can find is a Middle English bible translation from 1382 (Wycliffe's Bible)

"Eche on in þer craft ys wijs"

(Each one in their craft is wise)

I find the usage of the word "latin" in the U.S. rather amusing, because they awkwardly use it to refer to people of non-european heritage... as an european, for me it is synonymous with "ancient roman".

Everything south of the United States except for the French/Dutch settled area of South America is referred to as 'Latin America'

If we're going to be political about gender, shouldn't we be political about the invasion and oppression of the native people by Europeans and Latin culture?

Absolutely. Intersectionality is very important for any social justice effort. Most native social justice advocates I see are also LGBTQ+ advocates. Not as much the other way around, but I do see it.

LOL, but why aren't french-speakers from Quebec called "latinos" also? It makes no sense.

Language and nomenclature does not develop rationally. It's fair to point out that you find it jarring, but it's so embedded in the western hemisphere that your appeals to sense aren't going to change anything.

> It's fair to point out that you find it jarring, but it's so embedded in the western hemisphere that your appeals to sense aren't going to change anything.

I am in the "western hemisphere" (by any possible definition), and this nomenclature is not by any means embedded in my culture. In high school, we learned latin as the language of our ancestors, we studied latin civilization and latin culture as part of the ancient Roman empire, etc. I remember being taught about our latin culture of southern europe of romance-speaking peoples, and they compared with the germanic culture of the north. At home, my father pushed into me the (of course, ridiculous) stereotypes of the serious, hard-working germanic peoples of the north, which are probably more intelligent but they have less creativity than us latins. I can call myself a "proud latin".

It does not seem that this usage of "latin" that you mention is particular to the western hemisphere, but rather to the U.S.. Moreover, the term "latin america" was precisely introduced to refer to the french-speaking colonizers of the continent.

Until recently, it was "so embedded" in the anglophone (and all Latin languages) to use the male gender when unspecified (AND plurals in Latin languages), and yet enough people appeals to sense did make a difference.

Why is it cool to change the language about gender, but not about culture?

An American would refer to them as Canadian, French-Canadian, or Québécois if you're feeling fancy.

We also have the term Hispanic to refer to folks from Latin America though I'm not quite sure what the underlying difference is.

Hispanic means "of Spain," it refers to the people/cultures that have their roots in the cultural influence/imperialism of Spain.

Latino/Latina means "of Latin America" (actually I think it's an abbreviation of the Spanish or Portuguese translation of "Latin American") and refers to people whose ancestors are from Latin America.

So an American whose ancestors came from Spain would be Hispanic but not Latina and an American whose ancestors came from Brazil would be Latina but not Hispanic. Someone whose ancestors came from Mexico would be both Hispanic and Latina.

Like most broad, potentially emotionally charged, cultural labels many people don't agree with this labeling and/or may self identify differently. Especially those who don't have a strong cultural or linguistical ties to where their ancestors are from.

Hispanic is 'from Spain', so Spanish, Cuban, Puerto Rico...however it's often used interchangeably with Latino.

There's also Chicano which means from Mexico.

> We also have the term Hispanic to refer to folks from Latin America

Not quite. Brazil is in Latin America, but Brazilians are not Hispanic.

Thank you for the correction! I had always thought Hispanic / Latino / Latina were interchangeable. This whole time I thought the Latin* descriptors just meant something along the lines of "native Spanish speaker of the Western Hemisphere."

As a side note, most of Spain itself is in the Western Hemisphere.

Hispanic refers to Spanish-influenced cultures, not all of South America: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hispanic_America

I think that's why it's largely considered Latin America instead of Hispanic America.

And indeed that in my opinion is an issue.

People in Quebec are french-speaking or francophone, but calling them "French" is dismissing everybody in Quebec who is not of "pure" French descent.

That's a very good point, though I always took "French-Canadian" to mean "French-Speaking Canadian" instead of specifying origin and location, similar to how we have the term "African-American" which is a euphemism for skin-color as opposed to specifying origin and location.

I wonder what the argument of the people who downvoted you would be?

Saying "LOL... it makes no sense" about the label self-applied by people in a culture you aren't familiar with doesn't add anything to the conversation, and it comes across as rude and dismissive. You don't need to type everything that comes into your head into Hacker News.

We are not talking about self-applied labels, since parent explicitly says "are referred to as".

So I think it is a very valid point to wonder why some regions came to be referred to (in american english) as latin america, where others that would in principle fit the logical criteria didn't.

I agree it could be put in a more constructive way, but yourself assuming they are not familiar with a particular culture just because you don't like their comment is what actually comes across as rude and dismissive to me.

It is nonsensical to me.

Latino is a Spanish short cut for Latinoamericano or Latinoamericana. The anglicized version would be Latinamerican or just Latin. So they add the gender, Latino or Latina, and then renege it using Latinx. Why adding the gender in the first place?

Because 'sense' and 'language' don't often overlap.

Long ago, 'woman' was 'wifman' which meant something like 'one's wife'. And 'wif' meant 'spouse', gender neutral.

Now try to convince anybody today, that 'woman' can mean either partner in a marriage. Its not used, today, anywhere close to that meaning. Nobody will be on board.

We've got to move ahead from where we are, not where we're 'supposed to be' by anybody's rules.

The Swedish letter Å would be useful here:

"Latinå"

Too hard to type on physical keyboards though.

I love the elegance of this, unfortunately I can imagine an attempt to use it devolving into the "more than two genders" argument.

The solution could be that anyone is free to use whatever Scandinavian vowel they prefer. Latinå, Latinæ, Latinä, Latinø...

"Latin@" is also sometimes used to avoid denoting male or female, but many people prefer "Latinx" for exactly the reason you mentioned.

How's it meant to be pronounced? Latinks?

According to a youtube video on the subject, Latin-ecks.

Lateenex

The same reason you use they, them, and their instead of dropping pronouns entirely. It's easier to make language gender-neutral than it is to remove the slot gender occupies entirely.

There are probably other reasons.

Probably because people don’t use “Latin” to describe themselves; people use “Latinx”.

> Ironically, he adds, it’s a bit of an exclusive phrase itself: “It’s very rarely that I find someone from outside of Liberal using TFTI.”

What? A simple web search will show this is quite common.

I think he means used in spoken communications.

It's common in spoken communications among my friends here in California (both NorCal and SoCal), with the same meaning and connotation as cited in the article.

It seems to me that everything in the article probably is. I suspected the author of provinciality, but according to her bio, she is very well-traveled.

Everyone and their mother uses TFTI. This is satire right?

I've been on the internet for 6+ hours a day for the past 15 years and I have literally never seen it.

As a test, I did a search through 20 MB of logs I have for a locale-specific San Diego IRC channel. I found 111 uses of "tfti". The earliest I have on file dates back to February 2016.

Maybe it's not ubiquitous, but it's certainly not a unique feature of Liberal, Kansas.

First I've heard of it too. The article says "thanks for the invite" but I googled it and the top Google result says "thanks for the info", so it doesn't seem like people agree on what it means.

Are we sure people in Liberal aren't saying it ironically? Most people who pronounce Internet slang acronyms IRL are doing it ironically and the fad wears off quickly.

I'm from Liberal. I've never heard a person here (or anywhere) use the pronunciation "tifty" in any context, but I imagine you're right -- I'm sure plenty use the phrase ironically.

I've seen the initialism TFTI used in earnest, but I would consider the usage that the article refers to as uncommon at best.

yup, and 19 years here.

I can disprove your theory in two ways: I do not use this acronym. And, neither does my mother. That’s two people to discredit your hypothesis. And both myself, and my mother, belong to the group called “everyone“.

I've never heard or seen it until this moment.

I've not heard "tifty" but I've definitely heard the phrase, it's pretty widely used among people under 25 in the midwest.

The phrase 'thanks for the invite', of course. The acronym TFTI, no, and pronouncing it as 'tifty' or verbalizing the term at all, no.

Of course, all this means is that TFTI is an acronym, which are added to language all the time.

Welcome to the edge of your bubble.

Online, perhaps. Not so much in spoken language.

It's also a case of youth driving language changes. People in their 40s and older likely wouldn't use Internet-born acronyms as spoken words, but younger folks might (and frequently do in my experience).

Nope. While TFTI as a word may be common in your community, TFTI is not used by everyone.

I'll assume that you meant it sarcastically, though :) Kind of like when you don't get the invite and say TFTI.

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