I like plants

and inclusive language

• Do you happen live in a flat, with no garden and no balcony? Would you like to have a bit of wilderness in your life?

• Then, a houseplant might be perfect for you!

• 

• Here's one.

• Plants come in every size and shape. Throughout their long evolution on our planet, they changed a lot and developed many different ways to adapt to their environment.

  
  

• This one is called Monstera adansonii. It developed holes on the leaves so that the sunlight could reach the lower leaves more easily. Pretty smart, huh?

  
  

• And you know what else changes and adapts constantly? Languages!

• It's a superpower! 😎

• For example, new words are born constantly and some of them even make it to the dictionaries!


How do they do that?!


• And, much like plants, languages can adapt to new situations and environments.

  Nowadays, many speakers are trying to make languages more inclusive.
  How?

  

• Here's a Tradescantia albiflora for you. Make sure the soil stays moist but not too wet!

• In heavily gendered languages for example, like Italian and French, many efforts are being made to introduce more inclusive terms which do not take the grammatical masculine as a default and make it possible to go beyond the gender binary.



• Hold on a sec...gendered languages?!



• Take for example the Italian word for "friend": "amica" is a female friend and "amico" is a male friend; the plural forms are "amiche" and "amici". Traditionally, the masculine form is used when addressing a mixed audience. Not to mention that the grammatical gender binary leaves non-binary people out.
  
  Here are some of the possible different word-endings which can be used in Italian instead of the traditional masculine form:

  • -* ("amic*")
  • -u ("amicu ")
  • -y ("amicy")
  • -ə ("amicə")
  • And there are more!
  Sounds interesting?
  
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  Coded with 💚 by Valentina Burrafato
  

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