On BGA, in their profile preferences, players can select a gender. We try to use the proper gendered forms matching this choice in association to the player name. If the player selects 'Do not display / Other', we try to use a neutral form if such is available in their language.
This is not an easy thing to do. Our recommendation to developers and translators is to avoid using gender-specific wording as much as possible, but it is not always possible. For example, sometimes a possessive pronoun is needed in English, and this pronoun depends on the gender of the subject.
A computer is completely "naive" about language, gender, grammar and semantics. We cannot rely on the computer understanding what it's about and magically changing the gender. Especially in 40+ languages with different grammar.
How does the replacement feature work?
In order to allow to apply proper gendered forms in most cases, we have set up a replacement system, whose formula is the following: in games, the gender declared by players in their preferences is taken into account to apply the replacements defined by language in sentences containing the player name.
Some notes:
_ We don't have this outside of games because we can't push to your browser the gender preferences of all 6M+ BGA players.
_ We have to be able to associate the gender somehow with the sentence being displayed. There is no magic there. We rely on the player name, substituted in the string with the framework variable ${player_name} that you can see in the string to translate. If it's not there, the system has no clue about gender.
What are the current replacements by languages?
For English:
" his " is replaced by " her " for the feminine, by " their " for neutral.
" his/her " is replaced by " his " for the masculine, by " their " for neutral.
For Dutch:
" zijn/haar " is replaced by " zijn " for the masculine, by " haar " for the feminine.
For French:
'·e', '·es', '·e·s' are removed for the masculine.
'·' is removed for the feminine.
How can I propose replacements for my language?
Grammar is very diverse (there is even a fair number of genderless languages in the world) so the situation is obviously very different depending on languages. That's why we recommend translators to have a specific thread in their own language about translating BGA to reach consensus about how best to translate (see viewtopic.php?f=11&t=21384).
When/if a consensus has been reached about some gender replacement rules, please summarize it in an English post for admins, then contact us through the contact/support form to request inclusion in a future site release.
This is not perfect / can you make it perfect?
Agreed / probably not ; we can fix bugs if any are left, we can add some replacement rules to make it better, but the system will stay "naive" by nature. If only one language was considered, we might find a set of rules covering all useful cases. With 40+ languages, it's much less likely.
This is not an easy thing to do. Our recommendation to developers and translators is to avoid using gender-specific wording as much as possible, but it is not always possible. For example, sometimes a possessive pronoun is needed in English, and this pronoun depends on the gender of the subject.
A computer is completely "naive" about language, gender, grammar and semantics. We cannot rely on the computer understanding what it's about and magically changing the gender. Especially in 40+ languages with different grammar.
How does the replacement feature work?
In order to allow to apply proper gendered forms in most cases, we have set up a replacement system, whose formula is the following: in games, the gender declared by players in their preferences is taken into account to apply the replacements defined by language in sentences containing the player name.
Some notes:
_ We don't have this outside of games because we can't push to your browser the gender preferences of all 6M+ BGA players.
_ We have to be able to associate the gender somehow with the sentence being displayed. There is no magic there. We rely on the player name, substituted in the string with the framework variable ${player_name} that you can see in the string to translate. If it's not there, the system has no clue about gender.
What are the current replacements by languages?
For English:
" his " is replaced by " her " for the feminine, by " their " for neutral.
" his/her " is replaced by " his " for the masculine, by " their " for neutral.
For Dutch:
" zijn/haar " is replaced by " zijn " for the masculine, by " haar " for the feminine.
For French:
'·e', '·es', '·e·s' are removed for the masculine.
'·' is removed for the feminine.
How can I propose replacements for my language?
Grammar is very diverse (there is even a fair number of genderless languages in the world) so the situation is obviously very different depending on languages. That's why we recommend translators to have a specific thread in their own language about translating BGA to reach consensus about how best to translate (see viewtopic.php?f=11&t=21384).
When/if a consensus has been reached about some gender replacement rules, please summarize it in an English post for admins, then contact us through the contact/support form to request inclusion in a future site release.
This is not perfect / can you make it perfect?
Agreed / probably not ; we can fix bugs if any are left, we can add some replacement rules to make it better, but the system will stay "naive" by nature. If only one language was considered, we might find a set of rules covering all useful cases. With 40+ languages, it's much less likely.