gender-sensitive writing
Spelling Advice: Gender star should still not be part of the official set of rules – but a little bit
The gendered spelling of teachers remains a matter of taste
© Uli Deck / Picture Alliance
Supporters of gendering will have to wait for a uniform spelling: The German Spelling Council has dispensed with a binding regulation for internal symbols such as asterisks or colons. Instead, the phenomenon should be described in a special character area, but not included in the set of rules.
The Council for German Orthography does not classify gender signs as a core component of German orthography. This was announced by the committee in Eupen, Belgium, about gender-equitable writing. In a new supplement on the topic of special characters, the Council also lists the genders in the middle of the word – colon, underscore and asterisk.
Council President Josef Lange told the news agency that it was intended to describe the social phenomenon itself. The signs conveyed “superlinguistically charged” that all gender identities were meant. Lange added: “The gender star is not part of the core area of German orthography.” So there are still no regular characters.
Gender development “is not finished”
The Council now wants to propose to the state authorities to add the special characters section to the official regulations. At the same time, the previous recommendations of the Council have not been rescinded, as the panel announced. Long said: “The development is not complete.” She must continue to be observed. The meeting was preceded by a very controversial discussion.
The Council is an important authority on spelling. His task on behalf of government agencies is to maintain the uniformity of spelling in the German-speaking world and to further develop the spelling with a view to changing the language.
Most recently, in 2021, the Council recommended not including asterisks, underscores, colons or other forms for identifying multi-gender designations in the middle of the word in the official regulations at this time. Now it would still not be recorded regularly, but described as a phenomenon in the area of special characters.