thinking about Tron translations again (Tronslations?)
and I got to thinking about linguistic genders
and well. there are two languages that I studied enough to know offhand what a Program is
German: das Programm
Spanish: el programa
which… actually makes me happy.
because I have always viewed program gender as very fluid and nonbinary (hah) (they are very familiar with binary, okay. they know what it is, and it’s Not That)
anyway
I like these translations because it shows that in both languages, Program is kinda genderqueer
in German it takes the neuter (not male or female) article “das”
in Spanish, there is no such neuter article; everything is either masculine or feminine, with masculine being treated more as the default and used when other languages would not be gender-specific
and Program is a masculine noun, taking both the masculine article “el,” and adjectives with the “-o” ending…
BUT, the noun itself ends with “-a” …which is… very gender-nonconforming for a masculine noun.
so yep. Genderqueer programs all the way.
one more little detail. There ARE words in Spanish that are more genderqueer than “program.”
One of them is “agua” – water
which has the feminine ending -a, and also takes feminine endings on its adjectives. e.g. “agua limpia”
BUT it takes the (typically masculine) article “el”
(the way I learned it, this is just for ease of speaking; “el agua” is easier to say than “la agua,” and this pattern also happens for several other feminine nouns beginning in A)
but anyway, this also pleases me. Because inside the Encom computer, the energy that powers programs takes the form of water.
so not only do they have a genderqueer name, they’ve got genderqueer energy too.
Literal genderfluid.
<3