Official news site of the Lula government begins to use neutral language.| Photo: reproduction

Agência Brasil, the federal government’s official news website, now managed by President Lula’s (PT) team, began to use neutral language in some of its contents. In an article published last Friday, with the title “Elected parliamentarians meet for the first time in Brasília”, the author of the text mixed, in some sentences of the text, the spelling changes adopted in the neutral language, not foreseen in the language portuguese.

Defended by LGBT activists, criticized by linguists and without foundation in the informal use of the language by the population, neutral language proposes the abolition of endings that indicate female or male gender in words, considering them “sexist” or “discriminatory”. Instead of using professor or professor, for example, they defend the use of “professore” or “professor@” or “professorx”. The form with the ending “e” has been imposed more frequently by identity movements.

Despite seeming harmless, the imposition of neutral language by these groups brings several risks. The first is to misrepresent and compromise the Portuguese language, which, like other languages ​​of Latin origin, has gender inflection. The second is the attempt to “erase” gender from society and force adherence to an identity and ideological agenda.