6.3 Inklusive Sprache
Gender-inclusive and Gender-neutral Language in German
Many German nouns that refer to professions have a masculine form (referring to male people practicing that profession) and create the feminine form by adding –in (referring to female people practicing that profession). This also works for some nationalities. Here are some examples:
| Masculine | Feminine (add -in) |
|---|---|
| der Architekt | die Architektin |
| der Pilot | die Pilotin |
| der Arzt | die Ärztin |
| der Erzieher | die Erzieherin |
| der Manager | die Managerin |
| der Krankenpfleger | die Krankenpflegerin |
| der Politiker | die Politikerin |
| der Professor | die Professorin |
| der Student | die Studentin |
| der Lehrer | die Lehrerin |
| der Schüler | die Schülerin |
| der Partner | die Partnerin |
| der Kanadier | die Kanadierin |
| der Italiener | die Italienerin |
In the past, the generic masculine form has often been used to not only indicate a male person practicing a specific profession but also for situations where the gender of the person was unknown or when talking in the plural about a group of people that also included women.
In order to achieve more gender equality in the language, various alternative forms of spelling were created. Here are two examples:
- the capitalized “i”: StudentIn
- the use of both forms: Student und Studentin
While these forms emphasize both feminine and masculine forms, they leave out diverse, nonbinary gender identities. Several gender-inclusive forms are currently in use:
- the gender-gap: Student_in, ein_e Student_in
- the gender-star: Student*in, ein*e Student*in
With some words, a gender-neutral word replacement can be used:
- Studierende
- Lehrpersonal, Lehrkraft
- pädagogische Fachkraft
“2.14” from Willkommen: Deutsch für alle by Claudia Kost and Crystal Sawatzky is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.
