#ethnic languages

[motherlanguageday]

The importance of Mother Tongue.

Organized by the Permanent Mission of Ukraine to the United Nations

[mapsontheweb]

Languages / Ethnicities in Iran 🇮🇷

[fedtothenight]

americans love to approach any discourse, any news, any media, any relationship and incident through the american lens, and yet i haven’t seen anyone spell out a really obvious reality regarding the suicide of the italian call of duty cosplayer inquisitor ghost / vincent: at the end of the day, a white woman with a large following contributed to the hanging of a man of colour through the spreading of false sexual accusations.

[news4dzhozhar]

Alot happened in the past few days so I'm playing catchup here.

[kaladinkholins]

i know I've mentioned my interpretation of mizu's gender a million times on here but i don't think i ever fully elaborated on it.

so on that note i just wanna ramble about that for a bit. basically, it's my reading of the show that mizu is nonbinary, so let me dig into that.

putting the rest under the cut because it ended being pretty long lol. also here have a cute mizu pic of her being happy and most at ease with herself, symbolised by her letting her hair down. <3 ok let's proceed.

okay note that nonbinary is an umbrella term, and applies to a vast range of gender identities, but it's my personal preference to use it as is, simply because i'm not a fan of microlabels. more power to you if you are though, but anyway.

essentially when i refer to mizu as nonbinary it means that i interpret mizu as a woman, but not ONLY a woman. not strictly a woman. she is also a man. she is also neither of these things, she is something in between, while at the same time she is none of these at all. i've said as much many times, but i just don't want people to think that by nonbinary it inherently means a "third androgynous gender" that essentially turns the gender binary into a gender trinary. not only is that going against what the term nonbinary was crafted for (to go against rigid boxes and categorisation of gender identities), but also, not all nonbinary people fall under that category or definition, and that's definitely not the way i interpret mizu.

also, before anyone fights me on this, let me clarify further that gender means something different to everyone. it's not your biological sex or physical characteristics. but at the same time, gender is not mere presentation. you can be a trans woman and still present masculine—either because you're closeted and forced to, or because you just want to—and either way, that doesn't take away from your identity as a woman. same goes for trans men. if you're a trans man but you wear skirts and don't bind or don't get top surgery, that doesn't make you any less of a man. because gender non-conformity exists, and does not only apply to cis people! some lesbians are nonbinary and prefer using he/him pronouns while dressing masculinely, but that doesn't mean they're a man, or that they're any less of a lesbian. neither does this mean that they're a cis woman.

the thing about queer identities in general is that, like i said, they mean something different to everyone, because how you identify—regardless of your biological attributes and fashion or pronouns—is an extremely personal experience. so a nonbinary person and a gnc cis woman's experiences might have plenty of overlap, but what distinguishes between the two is up to the individual. there's no set requirements to distinguish you as one or the other, but it's up to you to decide what you identify as, based on what you feel. either way, by simply identifying yourself as anything under the LGBTQ+ umbrella, you are already communicating to the world that you are not what a conservative, cisheteronormative society wants you to be.

which is why i find all this queer infighting on labels to be so ridiculous. because we're all fighting the same fight; the common enemy is a societal structure that divides us into set roles and expectations purely based on our biological parts. that's why biological essentialism in the queer community is a fucking disease. because by arguing that women are inherently weak and fragile and soft and gentle and must be protected from evil ugly men, while men are inherently strong and angry and violent and exploitative of women, these people are advocating for the same fucked up system that marginalises and abuses women as well as effeminate and/or gay men.

anyway. i'm going on a tangent. this was meant to be a blue eye samurai post. so yeah back to that— the point i'm trying to make is that there's no one way to identify as anything, and everyone views gender in a specific way.

so with that being said, yes you can definitely interpret mizu as a gnc cis woman and that's a totally valid reading. however, interpreting her as nonbinary or transmasc also doesn't take away from her experiences with misogyny and female oppression, because nonbinary and transmasc folks also experience these things.

me, personally, i view her as nonbinary but not necessarily or always transmasc because i still believe femininity and womanhood is an inherent part of who mizu is. for example, from what we've seen, she does not like binding. it does not give her gender euphoria, but is instead very uncomfortable for her both physically and mentally, and represents her suppressing her true self. which is why when she "invites the whole" of herself, she stands completely bare in front of the fire, breasts unbound and hair untied. when she is on the ship heading to a new land in the ending scene, she is no longer hiding her neck and the lack of an adam's apple. we can thus infer that mizu does not have body dysmorphia. she is, in fact, comfortable in her body, and relies on it extremely, because her body is a weapon. instead, what mizu hates about herself is her face—her blue eyes. she hates herself for her hybridised identity, hates herself for being a racial Other. hates that she has no home in her homeland. these are not queer or feminist themes, but postcolonial ones.*

* and as a tiny aside on this subject, i really do wish more of the fandom discussion would talk about this more. it's just such an essential part to reading her character. like someone who's read homi k bhabha's location of culture and has watched this show, PLEASE talk to me so we can ramble all about how the show is all about home and alienation from community. please. okay anyway—

nevertheless, queer and feminist themes (which are not mutually exclusive by the way!) are still prevalent in her story, though they are not the main issue that she is struggling with. but she does struggle with it to some extent, and we see this especially during her marriage with mikio, where we see her struggle in women's domestic spaces.

on the other hand, though, she finds no trouble or discomfort in being a man or being around other men—even naked ones—and does not seem stifled by living as one, does not seem all that bothered or uncomfortable navigating through men's spaces. contrast this to something like disney's mulan (1998), where we do see mulan struggle in navigating through men's spaces, as she feels uncomfortable being around so many men, always feeling like she doesn't belong and that she's inherently different from them. mizu has no such experiences like this, as her very personality and approach to life is what can be categorised as typically "masculine". she is straightforward and blunt. her first meeting with mikio, she tells him straight to his face that he's old while frowning and raising a brow at him. she approaches problems with her muscles and fists (or swords), rather than with her words or mind. compare this with mulan, who, while well-trained by the end of the movie, still uses her sharp wits rather than brute strength. this is a typically "feminine" approach. it's also the approach akemi relies on throughout the show—through her intelligence and persuasive tongue, she navigates the brothel with ease. mizu, in contrast to someone like mulan and akemi, struggles with womanhood and femininity, and feels detached from it.

thus, in my opinion, mizu is not simply a man, nor is she simply a woman. she is both. man and woman. masculine and feminine. she has to accept both, rather than suppress one or the other. her name means water. fluid.

as a side note, while i do believe mizu is nonbinary, i also primarily use she/her pronouns but this is a personal preference. i find it's easier, plus it's what the creators use, and because, in general, being nonbinary simply doesn't necessitate the use of they/them pronouns. nonbinary is not just a third gender. it's about breaking the binary, in any which way, and that's exactly what mizu does.

also, i'd also like to mention that one of show's head of story even referred to her with the term "nonbinary", rather than simply "androgynous" (see pic below). and it's possible this could be a slip up on his part, in which he believes the terms are interchangeable (they're not btw), but regardless i find it a very interesting word choice, and one that supports my stance.

so anyway yeah that's my incredibly long rambling post.

TL;DR nonbinary mizu rights 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻 congrats if you reached the end of this btw. also ily. unless you're a TERF in which case fuck off. ok i'm done.

[variousqueerthings]

there’s so many ways that queerness exists in texts, unintentionally and intentionally, coded and uncoded and partially coded and baited and confused and limited and expansive, and then there’s whatever is happening with Hawkeye Pierce, M.D. of the 4077th MASH unit

[itsanidiom]

me: dune is an analogy for colonialism especially colonialism in the middle east.

them: what? no? it’s fantasy. in what way is it like the middle east?

me: …

[the-everqueen]

...not to be insane but i stumbled on a fic where h*b is the Nahuatl deity Quetzalcoatl and i. i cannot. the once slave trader has been posed as a Native god. what.

[nero-neptune]

i'm afraid that there's Never gonna be a concentrated effort to get the nazis off of tumbler dot com, bc no one knows what a nazi (or neo-nazi, for that matter) actually is! additionally, no one knows what nazi rhetoric even is, not when it's passes the "Uses Progressive Language" test, bc using the Good Words™ is all you need to let extremely racist messages fly under the nazi-detecting radar. god forbid anyone look in the mirror and ask "am I the bad guy??" and get their shit together.

this website: "hey staff !! >:((( when are you gonna get rid of all the nazis?!?!"

also this website: *makes the 358th conspiratorial post that Strongly Suggests that bloodthirsty jews (with dual loyalty, Of Course) control the media. this post has over 20k notes*

[the-garbanzo-annex-jr]

Source

[motherlanguageday]

Every two weeks a language goes extinct.

It is estimated that every two weeks a language goes extinct. But why try to protect these languages? What is the real significance of International Mother Language Day, marked on 21 February?

[mapsontheweb]

Main ethnolinguistic group in the districts of India.

by cactusmapping

[a-typical]

"...and distribute leaflets warning the local people against cooperating with the Arab Liberation Army. Any resistance to such an incursion usually ended with the Jewish troops firing at random and killing several villagers." (1947)

Israel is dropping leaflets above Gaza, warning residents to flee & warning those who don't evacuate northern Gaza, will be seen as "an accomplice of a terrorist organization." A breach of international law & justification for the atrocities to follow. (2023)

Threatening leaflets were also distributed in Syrian and Lebanese villages on Palestine's border, warning the population. "If the war will be taken to your place, it will cause massive expulsion of the villagers with their wives and their children. Those of you who do not wish to come to such a fate, I will tell them: in this war there will be merciless killing, no compassion. If you are not participating in this war, you will not have to leave your houses and villages.

BREAKING: Israel is now bombing Syria, Gaza, and South Lebanon.

[propalitet]

Directors of usamerican crime shows make an episode and it's like: this uh, albanian.....woman? no no she has to be in her early 20s, fled the, what's it called, yugoslavian wars and came to america in, lets say 2002., enraged by the still ongoing conflict in her country she turns against the usa and starts killing. She kills white marines, who are fathers, to reflect her own conflict with her father who betrayed her home country to fight on the side of......let's say Slovenia, why not. She only speaks serbian because we don't now albanian exists and she gets murdered by the big strong usa police officer while she's histerically crying. Another win for usa.

[alltimewhat]

this is not new to say but i feel like the internet and social media and instant gratification have absolutely destroyed people's will and understanding of being uncomfortable. sometimes it's good to be uncomfortable. sometimes it's necessary. refusing to ever engage with ideas that make you uncomfortable will never get you anywhere but complicity and moral laziness