Non-binary option for characters, please?

[Daranion]

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Japanese isn't gendered? What are you on about? They have a ton of different ways just to refer to oneself, let alone others. Wait just a second... World:Goblin?

[Gun-Cat]

Japanese isn't gendered? What are you on about? They have a ton of different ways just to refer to oneself, let alone others. Wait just a second... World:Goblin?

Japanese has, and uses very frequently, a lot of gender neutral terms. You are probably thinking of あたし、僕 and 俺 as terms to refere others or the different ways to call your siblings, but in the end Japanese is very gender neutral. You can actually see it in the tales of the storm, in the english version they included a "The WoL is Male/Female" option, something completely missing in the Japanese versions because it isn't needed seeing that the WoL is refered to as 英雄さん, Hero-san. Granted in the MSQ the WoL certainly is refered to as 彼 or 彼女, he or she at times.

All in all I think the whole debate is very unfair. This is a Japanese game and they simply don't have the same sensibilities as westeners in this regard because their language just doesn't work the same way English does. Demanding to be catered to from another culture in that way is perplexing to me.

[Lastelli]

Japanese has, and uses very frequently, a lot of gender neutral terms. You are probably thinking of あたし、僕 and 俺 as terms to refere others or the different ways to call your siblings, but in the end Japanese is very gender neutral.

I disagree. I find japanese to be one of the languages with the lowest degree of gender neutrality, to the point where certain words or expressions are directly associated to a specific gender. A japanese man using かしら or わ at the end of their sentence will be considered rather feminine. A girl using 僕 will be considered masculine, but this doesn't really stop here. The japanese language deeply reflects the japanese culture, and japanese culture is one where social differences and social standing are very important, including the difference in gender as interpreted by the general society.

The problem here is that "gender" has a precise meaning from a biological standpoint, so you can't really treat gender as a state of mind like many self-proclaimed gender neutral induviduals imply it is. You can try to "cheat" and change your gender via surgery and hormonal therapies, this doesn't change the fact that you were either born a she/he. And if you don't feel like you belong to your biological gender I will respect that, but please don't ask the world to change what the word "gender" means just because of your personal ideology or, even worse, to assume that such a biological distinction doesn't exist and is not part of the social relationships of 99,99% of the population.

[Gun-Cat]

I disagree. I find japanese to be one of the languages with the lowest degree of gender neutrality, to the point where certain words or expressions are directly associated to a specific gender. A japanese man using かしら or わ at the end of their sentence will be considered rather feminine. A girl using 僕 will be considered masculine, but this doesn't really stop here. The japanese language deeply reflects the japanese culture, and japanese culture is one where social differences and social standing are very important, including the difference in gender as interpreted by the general society.

I can only talk about my daily office job that is completely gender neutral in comminucation either with each other or with our customers. Granted with friends you have a lot more freedom to express yourself -as you stated correctly using terms and particles- but talking about someone else you will very rarely use a gendered pronoun, and that is what I suppose this whole thread is about and the quote I was answering to said. You are naturally correct on your take regarding politeness.

As opposed to that take a language like German for example that is very particiular about gendering everything to a nonsensical degree. Fish are always masculin Fish (der Fisch), a woman is always female (die Frau) but girls are for some reason gender neutral (das Mädchen). Again this is only my point of view comparing a few languages I know if you have any other experiences I would love to hear them!

[Lastelli]

I can only talk about my daily office job that is completely gender neutral in comminucation either with each other or with our customers. Granted with friends you have a lot more freedom to express yourself -as you stated correctly using terms and particles- but talking about someone else you will very rarely use a gendered pronoun, and that is what I suppose this whole thread is about and the quote I was answering to said. You are naturally correct on your take regarding politeness.

As opposed to that take a language like German for example that is very particiular about gendering everything to a nonsensical degree. Fish are always masculin Fish (der Fisch), a woman is always female (die Frau) but girls are for some reason gender neutral (das Mädchen). Again this is only my point of view comparing a few languages I know if you have any other experiences I would love to hear them!

I understand your point, my native language is the same in that any noun is either M or F and we don't even have a neutral gender like english does. However grammatical gender is yet another thing that may or may not be correlated with biological gender. Actually, I think this is the source of the misunderstanding. Gender neutral people, assuming this actually means anything, mistake pronouns that are used to identify a biological feature for pronouns that should be used to define a social category that is a derivation of the biological feature and other historical reasons.

[Gun-Cat]

Gender neutral people, assuming this actually means anything, mistake pronouns that are used to identify a biological feature for pronouns that should be used to define a social category that is a derivation of the biological feature and other historical reasons.

You might be on point with that. I get that people want to express themself, but demanding language to accomodate to that seems weird.

[Vidu]

girls are for some reason gender neutral (das Mädchen). Again this is only my point of view comparing a few languages I know if you have any other experiences I would love to hear them!

...I know that this is totally not adding to the discussion at hand, but just on the off-chance that someone is intrested in why "Mädchen" is gender-neutral in german: "-chen" is a special diminutive ending that you can put together with a noun. It automatically makes the word "gender-neutral" or at least gives it gender-neutral pronouns/the gender-neutral article "das" ("der Fisch" - "das Fischchen").

"Mädchen" is most likely derived from the word "die Magd" (maid; but also just a young, unmarried woman) - so: Die Magd - Das Mä(g)dchen. And it just ended up sticking as the word we're using for girls now.

But you're correct - everything in german is highly genderd, even when it makes little sense... our dogs are all male (der Hund), cats are all female (die Katze) and children simply have no gender (das Kind).
Gender-neutral options pretty much dont exist - sometimes I envy the english language for having "they". Not so much because of the topic at hand but more so because that way I can refer to people ingame without knowing their gender. Personally it doesnt bother me when someone refers to me as "he", but I may also not react to it, because as female I'm obviously not used to being adressed as "he" ("Oh, you were talking about me? Yeah, sure, sure can do that")

[Gun-Cat]

...I know that this is totally not adding to the discussion at hand, but just on the off-chance that someone is intrested in why "Mädchen" is gender-neutral in german: "-chen" is a special diminutive ending that you can put together with a noun. It automatically makes the word "gender-neutral" or at least gives it gender-neutral pronouns/the gender-neutral article "das" ("der Fisch" - "das Fischchen").

"Mädchen" is most likely derived from the word "die Magd" (maid; but also just a young, unmarried woman) - so: Die Magd - Das Mä(g)dchen. And it just ended up sticking as the word we're using for girls now.

But you're correct - everything in german is highly genderd, even when it makes little sense... our dogs are all male (der Hund), cats are all female (die Katze) and children simply have no gender (das Kind).
Gender-neutral options pretty much dont exist - sometimes I envy the english language for having "they". Not so much because of the topic at hand but more so because that way I can refer to people ingame without knowing their gender. Personally it doesnt bother me when someone refers to me as "he", but I may also not react to it, because as female I'm obviously not used to being adressed as "he" ("Oh, you were talking about me? Yeah, sure, sure can do that")

Ohh, thanks for clearing that up! It has been some time since I looked into my German textbooks. Interesting to know! While we are at it, I fraintly remember reading some letters in german that had some fancy endings like "Student/-innen", mind explaining what that is all about? Is that an attempt to address both students male and female? Might be atleast tangentially related to this thread.

[kikix12]

While we are at it, I fraintly remember reading some letters in german that had some fancy endings like "Student/-innen", mind explaining what that is all about? Is that an attempt to address both students male and female? Might be atleast tangentially related to this thread.

I cannot say about German specifically, but I can tell you about Polish. And I believe it IS the same as both languages have the same origin and pretty much the same construction.

Using the /- at the end of the word basically means exchanging the endings. In German and Polish, the endings define both genders and numbers (singular or plural) relevant to word (in addition to time and all that jazz).

Let's take this phrase: "Imię studenta/-tki." which means "(male) students/(female) students name.". In that word, its basic form is "student", with the core being "studen-" followed by a proper ending to show number and gender (and the rest...). It would look like this.

Singular            Plural
Me: Student         We: Studenci
You: Studencie      You: Studenci
He: Student         They (male): Studenci
She: Studentka      They (mixed): Studenci
                    They (female): Studentki

This of course changes depending on all sorts of things, like time and what not (for example "We/you are students" will be "Jesteśmy/-cie studentami" not "Jesteśmy/-ście studenci"), but that's irrelevant here as you are interested in that /- construction.

And here I used it again. Basically, you cut out the ending and offer a different one. You can achieve the same thing by "student/studentka" where you write the whole words out fully or "student lub studenka" (lub = or). But /- is just faster. You can use it multiple times of course "student/-tka/-ci/-tami", in all cases you just remove the defining ending from the first words used "student -> studen-" and replace it with whatever is after the slash "studen- + tka/ci/tami = studenka/studenci/studentami".

Yeah...Sorry for making this post a long one...but I am quite poor at keeping it simple...

[Legion88]

Ohh, thanks for clearing that up! It has been some time since I looked into my German textbooks. Interesting to know! While we are at it, I fraintly remember reading some letters in german that had some fancy endings like "Student/-innen", mind explaining what that is all about? Is that an attempt to address both students male and female? Might be atleast tangentially related to this thread.

Most titles/grades/ranks in german are historically male.
With time there come female people into the same positions as males so the titles just get the extension "-in" to show that it is the female version.
"-innen" is the plural extension for female.
The military ranks get the addition "weiblich" (female) to indicate that it is a female soldier but this is only for correspondence and their papers for the daily use the addition wont be used.
Some even older or significant titles just have a male form but have their genders with Mr. or Mrs. before the title to indicate the gender.