I'll try to clarify as well as I can, as I am neither a linguist nor a teacher.

1) articles

The reason they put der * die is as follows. English has but one definitive article, being "the", and one indefinite article, being "a". The man, the woman, the child, the houses. A man, a woman, a child. They need to specify, in that text, in German, that der AND die are applicable. In German you have der Mann, die Frau, das Kind, die Häuser. Ein Mann, eine Frau, ein Kind. You cannot just say der Mann / Frau, because der in front of a feminine substantive signifies possession. Same as in Dutch, mind, as far as genitive cases go. Der Frau means "of the woman" (as in Italian della is de + la). In Dutch, there are still two definitive articles: De man, de vrouw, het kind, de huizen (masculine and feminine are identical in Dutch as far as articles go). Een man, een vrouw, een kind. Dutch only has one indefinite article. Look at Afrikaans, which grew from Dutch, there everything is "Die". So, they must say der Mann / die Frau in German.

2) substantives

This I will illustrate using a simple sentence, between English and Dutch (rules in Dutch are the same as in German for the most part).

"The writer writes a book." Here you cannot tell if the writer is a man or a woman. A writer is a writer. There is to my knowledge not a word like "writeress" or something.
In Dutch, however:
"De schrijver schrijft een boek." -> masculine, though it is true that it is used as "generic" in a way, but if possible, that is to be avoided in that use, because when we hear "schrijver", we think of a man, when we hear "schrijfster" we think of a woman.
"De schrijfster schrijft een boek." -> feminine

Let's now suppose we organise a writing contest, but we want to emphasise everybody is allowed to enter:
"The competition is open to all writers aged eighteen and up." (for example) Once again, writer is, well, writer. You can't say if it is male or female writers so it's a catch-all for both genders.
In Dutch you could also say: "Schrijvers van achttien jaar en ouder kunnen deelnemen aan de wedstrijd." Where "schrijvers" (writers) is a catch-all for both genders.
However, you could also say, and no-one will lift a brow if you do: "Schrijvers / schrijfsters van achttien jaar en ouder kunnen deelnemen aan de wedstrijd." Where you specify both genders can participate.

I know for someone who has but one word for most professions, this may come about as strange or pandering, but I really think, see my other comment, that this is a choice made for readability.

I'm not American, and have spent less than 24 hours in my entire life inside American borders.

It's the same shit outside America too.

The tabletop game market is very niche and very monopolistic. This means it is very easy for the market leaders to be subverted by outside interests, leaving nothing else to replace them. You see a similar problem in Hollywood due to its monopolistic structure.

D&D, Star Trek, Star Wars, Marvel, etc have all been driven into the ground and there's really no other options to replace them.

I suppose there's no shortage of other fantasy ttrpgs, but none of them have comparable communities. I guess there's a generic fantasy genre community, but good luck trying to get them to agree what should replace D&D.

I've been trying to write some replacement settings myself (e.g. space opera, cyberpunk, alternate history urban fantasy...) and releasing them into public domain so nobody owns them, but for whatever reason it's very hard to get people interested. I probably need to hire artists or something to make cool-looking cover art. If anyone knows any artists who have open commission slots, then let me know.

Quote from: migo on October 25, 2023, 08:55:05 AM

It's the same shit outside America too.

No.

Quote from: Kerstmanneke82 on October 25, 2023, 08:53:19 AM
I know for someone who has but one word for most professions, this may come about as strange or pandering, but I really think, see my other comment, that this is a choice made for readability.

Gotcha. I was perplexed by the choice because in Italy there's been some rather ham-fisted attempts to "fix" inexistent linguistic problems by using a similar strategy (* and other symbols added to words to indicate "inclusiveness"), and not knowing German I assumed it was the same.

I have learned Italian a year in night school (NOT a good idea if you already have a basic knowledge of Spanish) and am interested if you would give me some examples?

Well, for example things like "tutti" and "tutte" have started to be written tutt*. Now, apart from the obvious pronunciation problem (how the fuck do I pronounce * ?), this is also grammatically moronic in the extreme. For non speakers: "Tutti" means "everyone", but it's in masculine form; it could either mean "every male" or "every member of a mixed group" (as I said, the masculine grammatical gender in Italian is also the "catch all" gender, the one you use when you can't or don't need to be specific), while "tutte" is the feminine form (meaning "every member of an all female group" or "every female of a mixed group"). Writing Tutt* to indicate "everyone, but really everyone in a mixed group" is useless: that's what "tutti" means.

And of course the same thing is applied to pretty much every possible word (like German, Italian usually has gendered forms for generic terms like professions), needlessly complicating a "problem" that's already been fixed since...pretty much Italian has been adopted as a common language.

Ah, I see what you mean. The * is a replacement for a gender suffix of a word, am I right? Sort of like they are trying to do Latinx instead of Latino / Latina?

In the example text, the * was only used to substitute the part of the word that is the same anyway.

Exactly.
I'm everything but opposed to equality battles, but this specific strategy when applied to the Italian (as in "Italian state") situation is so stupid and pointless to be nearly unbelievable.

Over here it's the same. My vision is: let everybody be what or who they want to be. But accept that change does not go over smoothly. For example, the whole gender-neutral pronouns. It feels... odd. I don't mean the phenomenon of gender neutrality in and of itself - they do whatever they want to do, it's no skin off my nose - but the urge to change the language grinds my gears. E.g. personal pronouns.

English: He, Him masculine / She, Her feminine / It, its neuter / apparently a singular they next to a plural they.
Dutch: Hij, Hem masculine (did I tell you already the two are related?) / Zij, haar feminine / Het (no possessive singular neuter in Dutch) / Zij, hun (plural, only one gender in plural in Dutch)

In short, our "they" can only refer to a plural, never to one person. With the advent of gender neutrality (non-binary and such) they think of "inventing" a word to describe that. So Dutch has, according to them, a singular they (which it in fact does not).

Dutch is directed by an organisation much like any other language which says this or that is official language. Singular they is not official (as of yet). And still, at work I have been given the remark that I must apply it even if it is not approved yet. The person saying so, not coincidentally non-binary himself or herself said to me that the ANS (organisation for the Dutch language) is not the accurate form to follow, even though it is the OFFICIAL organisation (that is, as official as it goes), because safe spaces and so on. That is something I don't want to do. I don't want to butcher my beloved language.

Quote from: Kerstmanneke82 on October 25, 2023, 08:53:19 AM
I'll try to clarify as well as I can, as I am neither a linguist nor a teacher.

1) articles
...

I guess there seems to be a significant difference between Dutch and German.
Many things you write are correct.

Nevertheless there are certain ways to include both male and the female form. Usually we still use the generic masculin.
The most obvious is to name both. The classic is "Ladies and gentlemen".
Then there are neutral terms which can be used. Some sound good and some sound silly.

Using the * or : is something different. That is very political. Especially * is often used to include all genders and it is often claimed that using it was proposed by the queer community.
The : has the same function.

Both are unofficial and not part of the official German language and grammar rules.

Quote from: Coffeecup on October 25, 2023, 10:45:45 AM

Quote from: Kerstmanneke82 on October 25, 2023, 08:53:19 AM
I'll try to clarify as well as I can, as I am neither a linguist nor a teacher.

1) articles
...

Using the * or : is something different. That is very political. Especially * is often used to include all genders and it is often claimed that using it was proposed by the queer community.
The : has the same function.

Both are unofficial and not part of the official German language and grammar rules.

I really think that the * is just used to make it readable. Of course they could use just the standard (masculine) word, but I *get* why they do it. Not saying I approve, per se, but I get it.

As for differences between Dutch and German... German is much more complicated (West-Flemish, an old dialect of Dutch, actually still has different articles for different genders, like German: der Mann, Die Frau, Das Kind in German, De man, De vrouw, Het kind in Dutch, but in West-Flemish it still is: Den vint, De vrouwe, Et kind).

Genitive cases are still used in Dutch but not that much anymore. Genitives in Dutch, when used, are EXACTLY the same as in German: des, der, des, der. Bv "the man of the house" is translated in modern Dutch as "de heer des huizes".

Fascinating topic, this is, but I'm afraid that in the end it all will change, if by then we don't all speak English. Without exaggerating, I believe my generation (40 somethings) is the last to actually still speak West-Flemish and then it goes the way of the dodo.

EDIT

For clarification, I am not in favour of using things which, as you say, are not official grammar (see above ). I still believe it is just to make the text readable and not to pander to this or that community. Same discussion in Dutch. In German, I believe, there is Er, Sie, Es (He, she, it) but no singular gender neutral pronoun for non-binary people. Same as in Dutch: Hij, zij, het. The real "fight" if you will is to stop them butchering our language to jam another pronoun in.

never mind, computer acts strange

Genderspecial ideology has an easier time infiltrating some languages over others. E.g. Hungarian doesn't have distinct pronouns for men and women. Of course, genderspecials have turned this around to say Hungarian is the most "progressive". As if language development was a linear process going from worse to better, rather than a wholly arbitrary symbol system compensating for our lack of telepathy.

The idea is to use the * to include everyone. It is not about making the text more readable. Regarding Lex Arcana I even heard that it was used on purpose so that readers are annoyed by it so that they get aware of the topic.

In fact the * is doing quite the opposite and more than 2/3rds of German (including far more than half of young people) don't use it or want to use it.