As someone who lived in El Paso, TX for almost 3 years, this is actually pretty common and makes me wish I understood Spanish.
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Dear developers: please stop inserting random Spanish words into Latino/a/x/e character dialogue
- Thread starter Thorakai
- Start date
Do you have any examples of it being done the right way? So as a non native speaker we can contrast.
OP
OP
I want to avoid saying the term the "right way", but some folks cited Life is Strange 2, Miles Morales, and Grim Fandango as examples where it resonated with them and/or had Spanish-speaker input in the process. I threadmarked a post with some videos that show off the diversity in Spanglish some more.
Tbf I think it's getting worse. I see it in my nieces that are quadrlingual (one of them pentalingual), and English words always insert themselves on the other languages. More than ever now with social media.
Thanks, I'm going to check it out but even after only listening to the NEO clips you posted, I know what you mean when it's bad.
Generally speaking. English is too universal amongst the other languages I feel. I'm tri-lingual and I've come to learn how to use borrowed English words when speaking French, because that's what they do(at least the group of friends where I speak French).
By contrast I end up using French words when I'm speaking English but that's ONLY when I'm speaking to myself out loud. I'm way too conscious of my French to not do it randomly compared to my Spanish which is my first language so I genuinely never think about it, so it happens if I'm comfortable enough with whoever I'm speaking to.
My daughter is also part Greek and my wife is hellbent on her being fluent in it, so this whole thing is probably gonna be even more present for her as I'm also having her learn French and Spanish along with English right now.
yep.
also nothing wrong with it, plenty of people do this. seems like a non--issue
Some of you really need to stop speaking to NB people about how they should approach language regarding their own identities. There are people ITT who like the term and identify with it, stop telling them they are wrong.
Languages evolve all the time.
My perspective on "Latinx": If LBGTTTIQ people of Latin American origin/ancestry want to use it to identify themselves, they are perfectly entitled to do so.
However, journalists and marketers from the Anglosphere should REALLY stop using it as a general catch-all term to refer to all Latin Americans.
However, journalists and marketers from the Anglosphere should REALLY stop using it as a general catch-all term to refer to all Latin Americans.
I had to Google for NB to figure out what you meant, and I apologize if I was treading into the realm of personal identity. I'll own my ignorance here: this isn't something I know how to talk about.
But it's also not what I meant, specifically. Like, if you refer to yourself as LatinX because you want to make a statement about your gender identity, I don't think anybody in the world should have the right to suggest that's a bad idea. It's a perfect usage scenario. I can see how my post can be read that way, which I apologize for, and is not what I meant.
But using LatinX to refer to us in a broader sense goes beyond personal gender identification, and seeks to make a statement about making the language itself gender-neutral. It suggests something is wrong with my language or something, and to make matters worse, it's legitimately unpronounceable in Spanish.
My family does this a ton, but mostly with each other. I have never seen people outside of close friend/family units do it, but I can easily believe that they do.
I would argue that it is perfectly fine, but writers are too gratuitous.
In all fairness, a lot of languages are absolutely not able to properly give non-binary people a voice. Of the three languages I speak, English, Creole, and French, none of them have a good framework.
Haitian Creole manages to somehow do the best job by pure dint of not having good third-person pronouns. English is the most versatile if awkward, and French is pretty lol all around.
I would argue that it is perfectly fine, but writers are too gratuitous.
In all fairness, a lot of languages are absolutely not able to properly give non-binary people a voice. Of the three languages I speak, English, Creole, and French, none of them have a good framework.
Haitian Creole manages to somehow do the best job by pure dint of not having good third-person pronouns. English is the most versatile if awkward, and French is pretty lol all around.
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Pew research did a scientific poll where they found out only 3% of Latinos (yes THREE) identify with Latinx while 76% (!!!) have never heard of Latinx. And this is only with latinos in the US so i can only imagine how much lower it is in spanish speaking countries which I'd be amazed if they come close to 1%. I cannot understate how unpopular that term is with your average spanish speaking latinamerican, the reasons being many that have been discusses already. Let us figure this one out ourselves and, sure, if someone wants to call themselves latinx then by all means but know that if you use it to call on a large population you have the odds staked against you.
Oh and by the way: if you're a politician aspiring to get elected in the U.S. and want to cater (or pander) to latinos please, for the love of God, do not use "Latinx" unless you want a room full of eyerolls.
Source of said pewresearch that should be repeated and drilled into everyone's minds everytime Latinx is brought up in this site: here
OP
OP
The Pew research has some limitations. Chief among them is that the sample didn't include any meaningful segment (re: zero) of non-binary respondents, which would be the population that would theoretically be most accepting or receptive of a Latinx label. The study also didn't include any questions on attitudes towards non-binary identity or has any sort of control comparison with acceptance of, say, they/them pronouns. There isn't much there to disentangle to what extent non-adoption is due to an issue with term itself or level of exposure/acceptance respondents might have with non-binary identify itself.
The other thing is that estimates that I can find for transgender and/or non-binary identity (from what I can find—there seems to be little out there on exact prevalence) are low. Seems like there are estimates as low as 0.5% within the US for example, so a low number like 3% shouldn't be cause for dismissing it as a label outright since thats what it might come out to if latin decent NB come out in support of the term.
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Jackie in Cyberpunk is particularly egregious because if you play enough of the game (especially going to certain parts of its map) its clear CDPR worked with native Spanish speakers. They worked with native speakers of a bunch of languages -- there are characters whose dialogue is only in languages like Japanese, Russian, Korean, Spanish, and Hatian Creole if you're playing the game in English. I don't know to what extent those people or people from those cultures were involved in writing the dialogue, or if they just hired native speakers to do the lines they'd already written.
This is kind of odd considering like half the English language's vocabulary is borrowed from French. Though I guess technically a lot of it is Old French.
I agree with OP more research is needed when designing such characters. To me, it really depends on context:
By using a sample of 1 or 2, results might be stereotypical, extremely skewed and obviously don't represent the whole population. I know that if you ask me to design a French hero or villain, they'll have an unnatural love for buttered baguettes and French insults. Might offend some people but I really think there's not enough baguette-wielding heroes.
- Are they talking to people not fluent in their language?
- Is it a professional setting?
- Are they talking to a friend or family? What is their family dynamic?
- Is it someone under a lot of stress/exhaustion/anger?
- Is it a greeting, a threat or just a filler word?
By using a sample of 1 or 2, results might be stereotypical, extremely skewed and obviously don't represent the whole population. I know that if you ask me to design a French hero or villain, they'll have an unnatural love for buttered baguettes and French insults. Might offend some people but I really think there's not enough baguette-wielding heroes.
Like I said, let us figure this one out. I am not saying there shouldn't be a term. I am saying that Latinx not only does not work outside of a tiny, very online, mostly english speaking progressives but it will also never work because Latinx is incompatible with the spanish language. It kind of works when speaking english but not in spanish and this is its main issue and why it will never catch on.
When I say let us figure this one out I mean some spanish speaking progressives are trying to work with adding an "e" at the end like Latine which, unlike Latinx, would actually work within the confines of the rules of our language. Thats not to say its gonna be easy for them but at least latine has a chance of working, can be pronounced, and would fit with every other word: mexicane, colombiane, arquitecte, abogade could work while mexicanx, colombianx, arquitectx, and abogadx will NEVER EVER work.
They way spanish works is that everything has a gramatical gender (not necesarily a human gender). So for example all computers , walls, tables, windows, tvs, tshirts and chairs for example are female while floor, ceiling, refrigerator, socks, and pants to name a few are male. Like it or not spanish (and french, and german, and portuguese, and many others) are intrinsically gendered languages to their core and you cannot remove gramatical gender from them without inventing a whole new language. But not all group of people are by default used with an "o" at the end. Latinos goes with an "o" but if we say "Latin people" in spanish that is always female (gente latina).
The best bit of good news is that there is already a genderless term to refer to Latinos that works in English, is a word that already exists, and everyone has heard of and thats just "latinamerican" or "latin". Latino (or latina, or latinx) isn't even an english word so why use it when speaking english?
Sorry for my rambling. I knew if I gave this another hour I would be able to better edit this but I hope my feelings were properly conveyed.
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All you have to do is look at how English evolved over the centuries. "Pure" English hasn't existed for about 1000 years.
OP
OP
No problem, you aren't rambling at all. I know there is a lot to unpack with Latinx. I didn't plan to jump into the Latinx discussion since its too big a topic to go along with the thread at hand, but I still felt need to interject around the limitations of the Pew study since I do see it cited by people a lot. The next time a thread on the topic comes up I'll share my stance.
Thanks for replying. I'll try to wrestle a "meet me in the middle" moment out of you. Can we agree we will both roll our eyes out of our sockets if we ever hear a democrat (because you'll never catch a republican alive saying it) trying to win a statewide election, a district in a battleground, or worse, a presidential candidate utter the word "latinx" in public? Can we agree that would be an unforced tactical error?
All of this. You can't shoehorn into Spanish a word that is unpronounceable for Spanish speakers, period. It's really not going to happen. The vast majority of monolingual Spanish speakers can't even accurately pronounce stuff like Google, Netflix or Apple, so I'm 100% sure Latinx is not going to be an exception.
OP
OP
I'm not trying to be coy or shy away from my opinion on the topic to be upfront. If you make a new thread on topic I'll happy to respond and post my opinions, I just don't want to further derail my thread when I noted earlier I'd like to avoid intermingling this topic with the topic of code-switching. I'll just say that I included Latinx in the thread title because at least some people have indicated they use the label for themselves and I want to be inclusive, I learned from this thread to also learn how to use Latine and use that as well, and I do sympathize with concerns around imperialism that surround discussion on use and adoption of Latinx.
Do you do it when speaking to someone you know doesn't speak anything but English?
The issue is the tendency to portray us Latin Americans as incapable of forming a sentence without splicing Spanish into it no matter who we're speaking with or the context.
Its just a habit sometimes, not something anyone really thinks about in the moment.
i do. You're so used to it that you don't realize it. And is not constantly the same word usage or language swap in sentences. Like sometimes it would be 50% English and Spanish to like 99% English with a Spanish word sprinkled here and there.
Im not saying it's not something that can happen unconsciously.
It's just that it grinds my gears that it's always "Cabron", "Pendejo", "Abuelita" and "Joder" at the very end of a sentence in a way that feels "I'm Latino BTW" instead of actually portraying it as something subconscious or that is part of their personality or the classic spanglish conversations with your family that randomly switches from one to the other.
If I had to say a good example, that'd be Miles Morales in PS5 Spidey. There's always actual conversation being made in Spanish:
"Trajiste la leche?"
"Oh I'm on my way to get it"
Vs stuff like TLOU2 where it's like
"We're gonna kill that cabrón"
"Oh and then we're going to visit my abuelita"
"Follow that Pendejo"
Indeed, even the inverse. I write/read so much english that I frequently insert random english words while speaking portuguese without realizing.
The point being made is that Latinx should NEVER be used to refer to people from the various Spanish speaking countries and cultures for the various reasons already listed. It's an inclusive term for individuals that want to use it for themselves. It's not a label that should be used to refer to people outside that group.
If you don't understand the difference then we can go with a different word like "Mexican." If you look brown and you live in Southern Californian then you are "Mexican." My friend is originally from Guatemala and her entire family is from Guatemala. She absolutely hates being called "Mexican" and is always quick to correct people and let them know she is from Guatemala.
It would be as absurd as calling someone from Scotland an Australian.
Thank you. Everyone who's not an english speaker uses -e as for non binary pals. X is impossible to pronounce and fucks up text-to-speech. I don't know what's so hard to understand. Ella, él, elle vs Ella, él, ellx?
There are people ITT who speak the language who say they use Latinx for self identity, so no " Everyone who's not an english speaker uses -e as for non binary pals " is not true.
Again let's not try to tell others how to handle their identities please.
people need to differentiate between the type of language switching games go for and just using english words in non english speaking countries. its two very different things. in the latter the english words are actually ingrained in the other language, the intent of using it makes sense for a native speaker and a native listener in the context of their conversation, there's no attempt to cross language barriers, the word might be foreign but its adjusted in the native conversation as a native significant equivalent.
kids using "cringe", "owned" or "random" while talking to themselves is not the same as a character in game saying "Hello friend can you help me? Oi amigo você pode me ajudar?", nobody fucking does that. multilingual people are not stupid and usually dont assume their listeners are stupid either, there's no logical reason to say the same thing two times in two different languages, i can see some people being so used to different languages that they mix words here and there, but unless they're used to mimicking parrots that repetition is still not natural for any human being
kids using "cringe", "owned" or "random" while talking to themselves is not the same as a character in game saying "Hello friend can you help me? Oi amigo você pode me ajudar?", nobody fucking does that. multilingual people are not stupid and usually dont assume their listeners are stupid either, there's no logical reason to say the same thing two times in two different languages, i can see some people being so used to different languages that they mix words here and there, but unless they're used to mimicking parrots that repetition is still not natural for any human being
This always feels weird to me as well, but I have also seen Latin Americans using english words here and there where there's a clear spanish equivalent, so I can understand it as "something that might actually happen irl".
Context is key, too. I liked how it was used in LiS2 as a family bonding theme:
Context is key, too. I liked how it was used in LiS2 as a family bonding theme:
I also really liked how at a certain point of the game he got to have a full, normal conversation with people that clearly knew how to speak the language fluently.
I also thought it was odd but I wasn't really going to question my native speaking friends. I think the caveat, at least for the ones I've been told to use(like most simple being week-end) is you say it very French. I'm sure it's not actually part of the language more so accepted loan words spoken amongst the French, or at least their youth. Since I'm just learning to speak it, I'm not an authority.
As you said, it's 3% but in the US
The biggest issue with both "Latinx" and the Spanglish topic is that latin america is such a diverse concept that any broad statement about how much acceptable it is or not will probably be wrong.
I've seen the x used in written text outside of white academy since years and years ago here in Chile (Todxs, Nosotrxs, etc). A lot of people hate it here, but then you need to start asking if they hate it because it's hard to use it in spoken spanish (a valid concern imo), or because it's gender neutral. The use of the "e" is starting to be used more broadly (Todes, Nosotres, etc.), and it gets a lot - and I mean A LOT - of pushback because it's a "profanity of language" and "we already have gender neutral, just use the o"
So when some people here say that the latinx it's just a white thing, I am baffled. Then it hits me, that's probably the case for Latino Americanos, as in, Latines that live in the US.
So that research shouldn't really be drilled into everyone's mind because that just alienates latines from the rest of the world because of an American thing.
The whole discussion around the word "Latinx" always reminds me of this video:
It's rather curious how most of the people trying to push this term live in the USA. From my point of view, the biggest problem with the way this word is used is the huge influence USA has over the world. Give it some time and all the people from LATAM will be put in the same bag and referred to as "Latinx" and that sucks, because we are all vastly different when it comes to our cultures and languages. Hell, USA already imposed the term "Latino" on us and it's already impossible to change that. I don't think our way of speaking has to be bound to your linguistic approaches and your increasingly fixation on words.
Anyway, on topic. I have no problems with games including random Spanish words into character dialogue. It could be discussed it may sound unnatural, but what defines a natural way of communication anyway? I remember I used to visit a bar in Europe which was constantly frequented by people from LATAM. Although our conversations were held in Spanish, it was quite common to hear words such as "pendejo", "parcero", "obrigado" and I was using my local "weon" like if there was no tomorrow. We would constantly switch between a mix of English, Spanish and our local words, but we managed to understand each other just fine.
My point above is just a simple example of a particular situation; however, that's how languages work. They evolve and adapt to different situations with the final purpose of conveying a message. Games including characters using Spanish words is but a representation of how people speak and nothing else. It might be inaccurate sometimes, but it's never entirely incorrect.
God I wish I could visit that bar again.
It's rather curious how most of the people trying to push this term live in the USA. From my point of view, the biggest problem with the way this word is used is the huge influence USA has over the world. Give it some time and all the people from LATAM will be put in the same bag and referred to as "Latinx" and that sucks, because we are all vastly different when it comes to our cultures and languages. Hell, USA already imposed the term "Latino" on us and it's already impossible to change that. I don't think our way of speaking has to be bound to your linguistic approaches and your increasingly fixation on words.
Anyway, on topic. I have no problems with games including random Spanish words into character dialogue. It could be discussed it may sound unnatural, but what defines a natural way of communication anyway? I remember I used to visit a bar in Europe which was constantly frequented by people from LATAM. Although our conversations were held in Spanish, it was quite common to hear words such as "pendejo", "parcero", "obrigado" and I was using my local "weon" like if there was no tomorrow. We would constantly switch between a mix of English, Spanish and our local words, but we managed to understand each other just fine.
My point above is just a simple example of a particular situation; however, that's how languages work. They evolve and adapt to different situations with the final purpose of conveying a message. Games including characters using Spanish words is but a representation of how people speak and nothing else. It might be inaccurate sometimes, but it's never entirely incorrect.
God I wish I could visit that bar again.
Yeah this is my problem with it. Because of this it never sounds authentic or natural. It's never a full sentence or phrase. It's always a word at the end and that word is always cabron, pendejo, or some other generic shit. It's like they don't even try to spice it up. I've never heard someone in a game say something like "don't be a come mierda," "hijo de puta, or simple shit like "que tal" or "mira esto" or some kind of phrase or expression specific to where that person is from like "this guy lives at fucking "casa del carajo" (really far away). They never get creative with it. It's like it's the only words they know. A lot of people in this thread are saying they actually speak like Manny from TLOU2 and I'm having a hard time believing it. Generally speaking Spanglish or calling your grandparents abuelo and abuela is one thing, but do people really end their sentences with "cabron" and "pendejo" like these video game characters always do? No offense intended, in just very surprised.
That's my confusion to some of the responses in this gaming discussion topic; some say "I like this because I talk like that/my friends and family talk like that" - which sure! I'm not gonna deny anyone that win - but many aren't bringing up examples of product/writing in which they feel a connection with the specific representation and my takeaway from the OP is that this is about perceived poor quality tokenism and how authentic Spanglish isn't coming from presumed white-majority creatives/leadership in AAA game industry designed firstly for a domestic audience that reflects as much.
I don't like settling for afterthought scraps, specifically when I feel like a game (or any piece of mainstream art coming out of such systems) has an Americana setting with the same models over and over as a token side character or filler NPCs. I dare a AAA production with an Americana setting to represent a wider range of Latin characters instead of one that's recognizable and palatable to the audiences that have always been catered to by the systems of entertainment media. I'm not saying that there aren't good examples or a trend towards progress (I hope Miles Morales is a great improvement over 2018 in representation of intergenerational Nuyoricans, between Miles and his mom! I haven't played it yet; I hope to feel seen by it!), but historically speaking I agree with OP's "Dear devs" as it applies to tokenism.
Speaking of NY, I look forward to see what Brass Lion Entertainment whips up in Corner Wolves, a game played from the perspective of Jacinte, a young Afro-Latina character, in mid-'90s Harlem.
Not sure if you played it and not sure if it's a better implementation, but in Miles Morales, Miles' mom was doing the opposite where she would mostly speak in Spanish when talking with him and sprinkle English words here and there iirc.