France bans schools from teaching gender neutral words with full stops in the middle because they are a threat to the language
Academie Francais, which guards the French language, has told school teachers to stop using gender neutral word spellings in classrooms
New spellings use full stops to break up words and include both male and female endings in an effort to make language more inclusive
For example, word amis meaning friends , would be spelled ami.e.s to include the female e ending - though it would be pronounced as usual
Academie says changing the rules represents a threat to the French language
France Bans Gender-Neutral Language in Schools, Citing Harm to Learning
On 5/10/21 at 11:13 AM EDT
France has banned the use of gender-neutral language in schools, citing harm to the learning of the French language.
In a decree sent to schools across France, the country s education ministry aimed to end the use of midpoints that designate both masculine and feminine endings to words. As the
Telegraph reported, in the French language, nouns reflect the gender of the object they are referring to and the masculine ending is usually dominant.
For example, a group of friends including five women and one man would be written as amis but a midpoint would change the spelling of the word to ami.e.s.
The fight to make the French language kinder to women took steps forward, and back, this week. Warning that the well-being of France and its future are at stake, the government banned the use in schools of a method increasingly used by some French speakers to make the language more inclusive by feminizing some words.…