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Gender Marked Professional Names
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1. |
15 Apr 2013 Mon 11:47 am |
Turkish lacks grammatical gender. Just like my native language. But there are differences also. Our given names are strictly divided into male and female names while in Turkish unisex names are many and widely used. It is also still common in Finnish that a name of a profession carries an implication of its holders sex, i.e. ends with the equivalent of "man" or "woman" etc. I recently read there are more than 600 such titles and the number is increasing even though language planners object this type of nouns.
Makes me wonder. I cannot think of many Turkish professional names which follow gender. Actually I can think of one, işadamı. Are there more?
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2. |
15 Apr 2013 Mon 11:53 am |
bilim adamı
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3. |
15 Apr 2013 Mon 11:55 am |
And latest trend is to say " bilim insanı " for this word.
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4. |
15 Apr 2013 Mon 12:02 pm |
Another one is ;
Hayat kadını ---> prostitute
Unfortunately, it is still classified as a profession.
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5. |
15 Apr 2013 Mon 12:05 pm |
There is a slang as "Allah´ın adamı"
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6. |
15 Apr 2013 Mon 12:06 pm |
Balık adam ---> diver
http://www.tbk.org.tr
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7. |
15 Apr 2013 Mon 12:10 pm |
bilim insanı seems like a poor compromise. Maybe araştırmacı would be a truly gender neutral naming.
These nouns do not purely reflect sexism. adam and its equivalents are also an unmarked category in (all?) languages. kadın can never be neutral what comes to sex.
In the end of the 19th century when they opened universities for ladies in Finland the female applicants first had to apply to be "set free" from their gender. Really - this word was used.
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8. |
15 Apr 2013 Mon 12:15 pm |
Makes me wonder. I cannot think of many Turkish professional names which follow gender. Actually I can think of one, işadamı. Are there more?
Turkish language solves this problem bay calling a judge "hakim hanım", a procecutor "savcı hanım", a mid-woman "ebe hanım", a doctor "doktor hanım" etc if the professional is a lady and the gender difference must be made known.
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9. |
15 Apr 2013 Mon 12:29 pm |
bilim adamı and hayat kadını. What a pity.
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10. |
15 Apr 2013 Mon 12:45 pm |
Turkish language solves this problem bay calling a judge "hakim hanım", a procecutor "savcı hanım", a mid-woman "ebe hanım", a doctor "doktor hanım" etc if the professional is a lady and the gender difference must be made known.
Understood. But that is not the problem. The problem is
that she is called bilim adamı.
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11. |
15 Apr 2013 Mon 01:22 pm |
I dont agree with you Abla. Because you can´t see this description anywhere which talking about a female scientist.e.g in news it writes " bilim kadini or bilim insani Ayse Yilmaz ...... not bilim adami Ayse Yilmaz" it is just s general usage of this word which you told.
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12. |
15 Apr 2013 Mon 02:23 pm |
in news it writes " bilim kadini or bilim insani Ayse Yilmaz ...... not bilim adami Ayse Yilmaz"
That is good then and you must be right. But the popping up of words like adam, kadın and the so-called neutral insan show that this profession in the old days used to be ear-marked for men. Times change and language slowly follows this change.
Actually one of the best Turkish innovations is the profession derivator -CI which is gender neutral and very handy. You have successfully exported it to Arabic also.
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13. |
15 Apr 2013 Mon 03:24 pm |
Understood. But that is not the problem. The problem is
that she is called bilim adamı.
I would not argue this point, but to me "adam olmak" does not only mean "to become a man"; it also means "to attain a certain status/rank within humanity".
Notice that Turkish Language discretely recognizes the fact that not all man are "adam".
When you define a person as "bilim adamı", it is more of a reference to her/his rank in humanity, than it is to that person´s gender.
Edited (4/15/2013) by AlphaF
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14. |
15 Apr 2013 Mon 03:26 pm |
"bilim adamı" had been used for scientists from both genders. When i was in primary school about 20 years ago, nothing was wrong. People say and write for woman scientists as bilim adamı and i didnt feel any weirdness.
The problem i think "adam" may refer to man only, also may refer to mankind, all humanity regardless of its gender.
Something happened and suddenly some people started to protest "bilim adamı" and they belamed women were ignored. I could not get used to "bilim insanı", whenever i heard this i start to think: before we said that, werent there any woman scientist existed, or if these are human, there might be "bilim hayvanı" or something like that
this is not the only word ptotested in turkish, there were thousands. But the other´s fault were not coming from turkish origin, i.e. from central asia at least 1000 years ago. In that long time languages born and evolve, check the history of english. thanks to our past leaders, they sticked us back to our roots, otherwise we become something else. hitler´s method in language. what a pity...
Edited (4/15/2013) by ikicihan
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15. |
15 Apr 2013 Mon 04:52 pm |
Notice that Turkish Language discretely recognizes the fact that not all man are "adam".
But some women are.
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16. |
15 Apr 2013 Mon 04:57 pm |
Exactly...
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