How do Germans refer to people without caring about the gender

Question

In German, a noun always has its own gender. However, there is a case I don't know.

Suppose that there is a class with many students, both males and females, and then when I want to refer to all students in that class, which word should I use when there are both, males and females and I want to include all of them in only one word, not only plural of "der Student" or the plural of "die Studentin"? Or when I see a name in a student list but I don't know the gender of that student. What should I say or write?

Answer 1

You are falling into the trap laid out carefully by German Gender Mainstreaming throughout the years.

No, in German a noun does not have a gender. It has a genus. This genus is a purely grammatical property defined by tradition. By default, it has nothing to do with biological sex or sociological gender.

The word der Student is a masculine noun describing people who study regardless of their sex or gender. A group of these people is described by the plural form die Studenten regardless of their sexual or gender composition.

Use these!

Another example for the same effect:

die Katze (gr. neuter): a cat, bio. male or female
der Kater (gr. male): a bio. male cat

Answer 2

If you know the name, use the name. That’s the easy part.

You can often still get away with ‘generisches Maskulinum’, i.e. Studenten, but in a university setting, i.e. where you’d actually use Student and Studentin to refer to students (instead of Schüler and Schülerin ‘pupil’ in a school or most other courses), it’s becoming rather common to use Studierende.

Since that participle is a verb form used as a noun, it inflects just like an adjective (i.e. also by gender), which works well in definite singular der Studierende and die Studierende, but fails for indefinite singular ein Studierender and eine Studierende. The plural is always fine.

Please note that such words – although used like nouns – do not bear inherent gender. That’s restricted to proper names and proper noun stems, which can be overruled by derivative morphemes (e.g. die …+keit/+heit, der …+ling, das …+chen).

In non-formal contexts, e.g. amongst students, short forms can be used – Studi in this case, plural Studis, which could come from either Studenten/-innen or Studierende. Alas, such -i words are not perfect either, because they have a slight tendency to distinguish gender, too, but with +ne instead of common +in: ?Studine isn’t frequent (yet), but Hiwine (to Hiwi) you hear a lot already.

PS: Studierende is one of the red flags that reliably spawn an emotional discussion of the merits of exactly the thing you want to do, i.e. gender-neutral or gender-aware language which results in conscious word and grammar choices that may feel unusual.

Answer 3

The noun has its own Genus. For "Student" it's masculinum, so you should use masculinum.

• Der Student is "the student" - both male and female
• Die Studentin is "the female student" - only female

In Indoeuropean languages, genus is the property of the noun, and there is only one "correct" grammar gender to refer to that noun.

English is a special case, where that concept is reduced. The nouns has no genus, a dog, for example, can be "he", "she" or "it". There are some exceptions, like "waitress" or "actress", but they are not commonly used nowadays.

There are artificial attempts in German to introduce pseudo-gender-neutral nouns like "Studierenden" but they are only pseudo-gender-neutral. In Singular, you have "der Studierende" or "die Studierende". Another problem is, that semantically, they have similar role to adjectives, so the constructs like "ehemalige Studierenden" makes not much sense. People also don't like when someone regulates what words should be used.

Answer 4

Edit: being a bit older than 10 years ago, and hopefully not quite as dumb as I was 10 years ago, I have to revise that question. The old dumb version can still be found in the edit history.

Lets start with a bit of language history.

In old German, the grammatic gender was symmetrical. Words ending in -o were male, -a was female and if the ending was left out, it was neutral.

But then a vowel shift occurred that turned both -o and -a into -e, which then turned into -er. So there was basically no gender in the language anymore. The -er at the end of a word did not denote any gender.

So to be able to differentiate, the -in form was introduced, which allowed to specify that someone was female. But there is, to this day, no real male form in the German language.

If you are talking about a group of students who are all female, you can just say "die Studentinnen", but if you want to do the same for a male-only group, saying "die Studenten" is not enough, because it could still include women. Instead you have to workaround and say something like "die männlichen Studenten".

This concept is called "the generic masculinum" and it denotes that the generic form is at the same time the male form.

There are quite a few people who are unhappy with this form, since they feel that it's weird to call women by the male form.

So they try to split the generic form from the male form, by introducing different forms of gendering.

There are for example the Binnen-I (StudentInnen), the gender gap (Student_innen) or the gender asterisk (Student*innen).

These forms try to unite the male and female form in this new form. While the Binnen-I form is by now mostly accepted in the written form, both the gap and the asterisk are mostly used by people who see the Binnen-I as too weak/uninclusive towards non-binary people.

An issue with all of these forms is that it's rather hard to pronounce them in spoken language.

Older and widely accepted forms of gendering are "Studentinnen und Studenten" or "Bäcker/-innen". The last form only works in written language and only for words, where the female form is actually the male/generic form plus -innen.

So it wouldn't work for "Student/-innen", because the male/generic form is "Studenten" and not "Student".

A newer and widely acceptable form is to use a form of the word that is inherently gender neutral, e.g. "Studierende", which is identical in it's male and female form.

This topic is a politically charged one.

Many people on the left do gender, some don't, but generally, for the left this is a topic that was dealt with.

People on the right on the other hand are quite obsessed with dictating how other people are supposed to speak and many even go as far as boycotting media that uses gendering or even want to legally ban people from gendering.

If you want to be sure that nobody objects to what you are doing, use "Studentinnen und Studenten" (female form always comes first).

You can also use the Binnen-I or the "Studierende" form and only far right people might be offended by that, but most sane people will be fine with it.

If you want to make a political statement, use the gap or asterisk, but that could annoy a few more people.

All in all, I'd really wish they would have left the current generic/male version generic and split of the male version into a new non-generic male version.

Answer 5

In German we often use the male form of the job titles although we don't mean explicitely one gender (ein Student). In plural this is used really often (Studenten). But both uses depend on the context. You can use it this way if it's a general statement. If you refer to certain people then use exact expressions. In the ages of feminism there came a few alternatives to this. You will find "Student/Studentin", "Student/in" or "StudentInnen" (the upper I shows that you mean both genders, but this is the feminism Version). There are also examples where we use the female version although it could include male persons too (e.g. Putzfrau). Here you'll find more to that topic.

Answer 6

Often for large groups of people of unknown or mixed gender the plural of the masculine form is used: "die Studenten" etc. This is known as the "Generisches Maskulinum". Of course, just using the masculine form is problematic as it ignores the women and there is an ongoing discussion about what a better alternative should be.

Also often used, especially when talking to them directly is using both, the plural of the masculine and feminine form: "Liebe Studenten und Studentinnen, ..." But always referring to both forms makes some kinds of texts hard to read (e.g. a legal texts): "Dem Studenten / der Studentin wird für die Prüfung ein Prüfer / eine Prüferin zugewiesen, der/die den Studenten / die Studentin über das Fach prüft." There are alternatives to shorten this, one for example is the "Binnen-I": "Dem/der StudentIn wird für die Prüfung ein/eine PrüferIn zugewiesen, der/die den/die StudentIn..." "Liebe StudentInnen" etc. Other possible forms are the "Gender Gap" (yes, the english term is used in german, that's why it has the capital G, see http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_Gap_(Linguistik) ): "Student_in" or even combined: "Student_In".

There is not one standard way to use now as there are many arguments pro and con each way (see for example the arguments on the Binnen-I wikipedia page: http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binnen-I ).

There are even more options than the ones described: Other, but very rare suggestions include just using the feminine form or switching between pure feminine and pure masculine forms between paragraphs.

So sadly, there is not one way to go but multiple alternatives to choose from and you will always find some people who don't like the way you have chosen... Trying to include everyone and not using the generic masculine is the best way to go as long as the text stays readable.

Most of this is also true when referring to one specific individual but when you address him or her directly (e.g. in a eMail), you should probably try to not use any pronouns and go by the name "Hallo Robin Meyer..." instead of "Liebe Robin Meyer" or "Lieber Robin Meyer" (Robin is a male name most of the time in germany, but you might expect a woman as you would think of Robin Scherbatsky from HIMYM...).

Answer 7

Why the fuss? The OP LITERALLY asked "how do Germans refer to people without caring about the gender?" and everybody is breaking out into philosophy/linguistics/emancipation...

Just say

Hi Leute! (hi people / hi guys)

If you want to say something about a person whose sex you don't know (for example they've sent you an email), just say

Er oder sie hat mir 'ne Email geschrieben. Sorry, ich weiß nicht ob das ein männlicher oder weiblicher name ist.

If you smile apologetically and make it obvious that you're not maliciously trying to challenge anybody's gender identity or whatever you will never run into serious problems.

Just, you know, relax :) It's natural language. It's not like talking to a computer, where forgetting a semicolon will result in carnage.

Answer 8

Neutral and modern: 'Sehr geehrte Studierende'

Answer 9

Proper german makes a difference between sexus and genus - the biological and the grammatical gender of things. They have very little in common and the grammatical gender is not an indication of biological gender.

For example: Der Manager (male) and Die Führungskraft (female) are both gender-neutral descriptions of the same person (your boss).

However, there is a political movement that doesn't understand this and is very strong, especially around academia. It insinuates that these two unrelated things actually are related and the generisches masculinum (generic male form) is oppressive male chauvinism (ignoring the question what the generic female and neutral forms are, which also exist).

If you converse with those circles, as seems the case, you can research the artificial forms they have developed, which usually tack an "In" (a common, but not universal indicator of the female form) unto a generic male (and sometimes other) word. For example, "Student" becomes "StudentIn". Unfortunately, there is no common way in which to tack on this suffix, because just adding it in proper german writing would simply turn the male "Student" into the female "Studentin". One form is the one I gave: The "Binnen-I" - a capital I inside the word. Others are "Student/in" or "Student*in" and I'm sure there are yet more. All of them will be marked as wrong in your spellchecker, but here we are.

Note that if you add an article, it becomes "der/die Student/in". Or whatever butchered sentence someone feels correctly expresses their gender-political position.

For some common words, new words have been created, for example "die Studierenden" (plural form of students, literally meaning "those who are studying".

For plural, pick whichever you like best:

• Studenten (correct German, but it could be gender-political suicide)
• Studenten and Studentinnen (explicitly naming both genders)
• Studierende
• StudentInnen
• Student/innen
• Student*innen

Yes, it makes an already difficult language even more so. I don't recommend you express your thanks publicly in a university unless you want to not work there anymore.

Answer 10

German is a mess right now with regards to "gender" or "sex."

The roots are in the supposedly "Frauenfeindliche Sprache" where so many nouns that refer to professions are masculine gendered words. (But not all, siehe die Lehrkraft).

But the "corrective" action that is being taken, aside corrupting the original language, is going in the wrong direction: it is emphasizing and recommending a MORE BINARY approach, which is not actually more inclusive at all, instead reads rather hetero-normative. Ask any LGBTQ+ person.

I propose the solution is to dial back and start using the words traditionally again, where a masculine gendered word is understood to refer to both sexes (or any sex, or no sex at all, I nod to the LGBTQ+ community).

Finally, I thought that the plural forms of German nouns have no gender at all (even in grammatical constructions), so I don't understand the trouble to which public speakers go, to address both sexes with separate plural words. It does make for some very cumbersome speech.

Below I add a few words where I ask, what is the "feminine" form? I've not heard it yet (as of Sept. 14, 2021):

• Der Gast, die Gästin?

And derivatives:

• Fahrgast
• Reisegäste
• Hausgäste
• etc.

Der Mensch Der Suchende (e.g. Schutzsuchende) Die Einsatzkraft Die Lehrkraft (instead of der Lehrer!) Can men not be referred to as "die Lehrkraft?" (NO! They would feel so emasculated!) Der Unternehmer (in recent TV "Trielle" Amin laschet failed to address Unternehmerinnen!)

For a moment I theorized that only nouns ending in "er" are victims of the linguistic gender war (i.e. Lehrerin, Bürgerin, ...), but on dradio.de have noticed Hörer used without a corresponding feminine gender (they do not acknowledge the existence of any Hörerinnen). Or what about Fahrer, like "Busfahrer"? Is there a feminine ever used (Busfahrerin)?

Also, I notice that when such a "personal noun" is part of a compound noun, the effort to include the feminine is abandoned. For example:

Korrespondentennetzwerk. (What of Korrespondentinnennetzwerk?) I suppose the female(s) cannot be included because the actual noun is "Netzwerk" - which has no female version... but then it also implies there are no female members as part of the "Netzwerk" - how can one reconcile this "sexist" output?

In sum: a mess.

I don't know the solution.

Answer 11

This is actually a pretty easy thing. But people are overstating both the degree to which grammatical gender and biological gender are separated in German and also how hotly political it is.

So here is an actually practical answer that actually answers the question how it was likely intended, minus prescriptive grammar and political polemics.

I will start with some context because of the rest of the answers, but if you don't care, just skip to the bold "BUT", below, and then read only until you get bored.

There is ambiguity. Grammatical gender in German is only partially distinct from biological gender, in that in mainstream use people often both use the grammatical gender to imply a biological gender or understand it as an intention of the speaker to denote a gender. Since language is an inherently cooperative activity, this cannot be ignored if one wishes to understand or be understood correctly. While it is true that the grammatical gender usually does not technically specify a biological gender, that ignores how the language is used by the vast majority of people everyday.

Fact is in the lived experience of a non native speaker: if there are multiple gendered words, the majority of people will correct you if you use the one that doesn't correspond to the gender of the person or thing you are referring to even if it isn't linguistically necessary. This demonstrates that at the very least, grammatically gendered words carry a connotation of biological gender both historically and in mainstream practice.

There are multiple ways of dealing with this that have not really achieved consensus, and new ways being invented all the time. Some of this is slightly politically charged, but not to the "culture war" levels that some of the answers seem to suggest.

BUT the everyday reality is that there are only really three (broad) ways to do this:

• List both gendered words explicitly (with or without some form of abbreviation)
• Use only one word (and either explicitly mention you mean both, or ignore the problem and potentially be misunderstood in a way that you might not have intended)
• Use an adjectival noun derived from a verb for gender neutral plurals

In the real world (almost exclusively):

Academic works usually follow the second approach, and often include a disclaimer once at the beginning that no gender implication is intended. (i.e. Student)

Job postings use all approaches. If the second approach is used it is almost always accompanied by a parenthetical (m/w) or something similar. (i.e. Student (m/w), Student/-in)

Every day usage is almost 100% the first approach or the third approach. (Studenten und Studentinnen, or Studierende)

There is almost never a practical need for a gender neutral singular. It just doesn't really come up that often, but the easiest default is the first approach (Student oder Studentin), since unambiguous use of the second approach is context/audience dependent and you have to be able to read the room to know if doing that without explicitly mentioning is a problem or not.

I know for example, that if I personally ask my boss about internship applications from "Studenten", that they know I mean all applicants. In other contexts (especially if I don't personally know the person) I might choose to explicitly mention both alternatives, because communication with strangers is inherently more ambiguous if you haven't yet established a rapport. Like anything in language, context is important. If you are in a situation where you are confused as to the appropriate word to use, usually the best course of action is to actually express that confusion explicitly.

If I had to guess, the reason for the high insistance that this is extremely political comes from people who alternatively:

• can't read the room
• have very prescriptive notions of language
• or think the various abbreviations look stupid or are cumbersome

Yes if you fall into one of those categories, you are going to have a hard time.

And generally unless you fall into one of those categories yourself, whatever you decide to do will be fine with 95% of the German speaking population, and the people you do piss off will likely be in one of those categories.

And if you do actually step into a Fettnäpfchen, people tend to be forgiving as long as it isn't on social media. Even then, most of the time backlash is based on how people respond to being "called-out" and not to the original (perceived) offense. If you respond to criticism like a tone-deaf idiot, people are likely to assume you are a tone-deaf idiot.

For context, I have lived for over 10 years in the German speaking world and over 20 years before that in America without ever even once attempting to be explicitly "politically correct", and literally never once had a problem. If you act like a nice, respectful person people will generally treat you like one.

Answer 12

Students (and of course all sexually reproducing creatures) don't have genders, they have sexes (male and female are different sexes; masculine and feminine nouns are different genders). The word you want is Studenten, which refers to both sexes, male and female, collectively. It is the plural form of both die Studentin and der Student. Otherwise, when referring to a single student, you have to use der Student if you don't know the sex of the student, and die Studentin if you do know that the student is female.

Answer 13

Correct German has a single plural form, which is "die Studenten".

Sadly, there exist some political groups which want political speech such as "Neusprech" in George Orwell's 1984, however, their German is not correct German, and their attitude stems from a complete misunderstanding of language in general and German language in particular.

"Die Studenten" is the correct plural form including everything and everybody!

Answer 14

The correct term would probably be "das Student" (genderneutral) .. but german tradition forbids you to use it. Would be nice to see "das" used as the english "the".