Why is there an asterisk in "Zeug*innen"?
Edit: I've got some good answers now, thank you all!
I believe the word means witnesses but I don't understand why it has an asterisk.
Posted May 4, 2022, 7:53 PM UTC · edited · locked
2837
It's a ""gender neutral"" form to be more "inclusive". But "Zeugen" is understood by the vast majority of native speakers to be a completely fine plural form including all genders and everything.
You pronounce "Zeug*innen" by making a glottal stop before the "innen". Many German speakers will make the mistake of pronouncing it as "Zeuginnen" (even natives), which makes one of the problems with these forms clear.
39
It is witnesses. That's correct.
So, it's a way to be inclusive. Rather than put only the masculine or feminine plural it's a way of putting both.
They other way is to capitalize the "i", but the asterisk seems to be winning out. So it'd be ZeugInnen.
Other examples are: Pilot to Pilotinnen, Schüler to Schülerinnen.
It all follows that pattern.
9
It's also meant to include non-binary people.
11
Yep, that's why you avoid using either masculine or feminine this way.
1
but Zeug*innen is only the female form so mission failed successfully
Edit the person below seems to think that "Zeug" is the male form of "Zeuginnen", the correct male form however would be "Zeugen".
3†
but Zeug*innen is only the female form
Only it's not, that's the whole point. Username checks out ;-)
3†
ah okay, so the asterisk isn't pronounced?
2
You make a little pause where the asterisk is.
8
Normally not but some people make a small pause (just like with the capital I (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binnen-I )).
5
In English the pause is also known as glottal stop, in German linguistics it's recently referred to as Gender-Pause.
7
Just pronounced like Zeuginnen as far as I know.
0†
No, you pronounce it like Zeug Innen, with a pause in the middle
6
Good to know.
1
thanks!
1
Bitte schön
2
You make a little pause where the asterisk is.
0†
thank you!
1
It's a form of gender-neutral language. "Der Zeuge" is a masculine noun (you might want to look into "Generisches Maskulinum"), so sometimes an asterisk (or an underscore _) is used to include people of all genders.
8
thanks, ill read through the wikipedia article on this.
1
The so called Gendersternchen. Basically a neutral form that emphasizes you want to address everybody no matter their sex. This implicitly does include more than just male and female. It relaces the "antiquated" Zeug/innen or ZeugInnen that was used before but these only address male and female. Somewhat controversial and you can find tons of sources and also multiple ideas on how to deal with this in spoken language.
6
Thanks for the info! so how do you pronounce it? does the asterisk make a sound?
1
Usually you are supposed to do a glottal stop, but as Malossi167 said, there are multiple ideas, some even advocate for saying "Stern" or "Sternchen" to emphasize it.
All in all: Only a minority of the population uses these forms and for many people (including me) it's rather cringe-inducing.
10
Thank you. this is all very interesting!
2
I personally just pause for a moment. Zeug innen. As I said this is a topic that was pretty intensely debated before we had more important stuff to deal with like a pandemic or a war. So you will find multiple opinions including a bunch of people that say that this destroys our language.
3†
I think the major problem is it's very strange to pause at the middle of a word. Would it be possible to create a new suffix with neuter gender?
3
Actually, we use a glottal stop in the middle of words all the time as it is actually a normal German consonant (just not written): be()obachten, ver()achten, Verkehrs()ampel, ...
Basically, spoken Standard German doesn't have syllables beginning with a vowel, so whenever there's a syllable that in written language starts with a vowel, it actually starts with a glottal stop.
3
My German textbook (Augenblicke: German through Film, Media, and Texts) uses "Kommiliton*innen" in a similar manner:
- der Kommilitone (-n) - fellow (male) student (s)
- die Kommilitonin (-en) - fellow (female) student(s)
This is not mentioned in Langenscheidt's dictionary.
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1
Thanks for the info and the warning. I've got my answer now so if a mod is around I'm happy for them to lock the post to prevent in-fighting.
0
Watching :)
0†
Ok, I see the trolls have finally arrived, sadly. Locked.
1†
It's a pretty new way of saying it, so wouldn't be in all the text books yet, but you should absolutely use it, it's very common. I love how language is changing.
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I think this joke should be explained (specially as the neutral form works to express gender neutrality with some other words Studierende, Lehrende): zeugen means to beget, to father someone so Zeugende can have corresponding association.