AllenHartwell:I don't understand why people have made ten pages out of this total non-issue. The Esperanto word for father is patro. The word for mother is patrino. The word for a bull is bovo, and a cow is a bovino. It's not a hard principle. There's a common gender and a feminine suffix.

Wow, if you were not able to get the point though there are already 10 pages about it, you probably have a hard time keeping attention.

AllenHartwell:Many other languages are set up like this too. Those languages are capable of change. Why not rant about how German is sexist and try to change that language instead?

If you'd read carefully, you'd have percepted, that i, as a native German speaker, am actually doing this. So please stop your moral preach.

AllenHartwell:It'll be just as pointless, but at least German doesn't have a set in stone Fundamento.

Urr... Say what?

AllenHartwell:There's no point in trying to change it. Esperanto is what it is, and there is a good reason for that.

Ah, finally we have someone who seems to know about the reason. Would you be so kind to share your knowledge with us?

erinja:most people who complain about gender issues in Esperanto grammar seem to be more interested in the language being fully logical (= symmetrical endings for male and female, base word is always neutral) than interested in actual feminism

Yet gender endings seem to come up quite a lot, as opposed to other non-symmetries: e.g. the fact that plural pronouns are not derivable from the singular; that basic adverbs don't always end in -e (though nouns of any sort end in -o); or that hieraŭ, hodiaŭ, morgaŭ aren't derivable from each other (as they are in Volapük).

AllenHartwell:The Esperanto word for father is patro. The word for mother is patrino. The word for a bull is bovo, and a cow is a bovino. It's not a hard principle. There's a common gender and a feminine suffix.

Actually, things that aren’t explicitly female are ambiguously either male or neuter, depending on the speech habits of the speaker — which is not a very reliable method. A kokino is unambiguously “hen”, for example, but a koko can be either “rooster” or “chicken”.

Some people might use koko to mean only “rooster”, some to mean only “chicken”; for them, this issue truly is a moot one.

But that’s a result of personal usage; there’s nothing in the rules or dictionary that says a koko is unambiguously this or that.

A word like patro, on the other hand, is unambiguously male by definition. No iĉ-pitching place I’ve read outside of this forum ever proposed that patro henceforth mean “parent”, but that a new word that actually means “parent” be introduced. Any neologism that proposes to greatly change the meaning of existing words is obviously to be rejected.

Bruso:Yet gender endings seem to come up quite a lot, as opposed to other non-symmetries: e.g. the fact that plural pronouns are not derivable from the singular; that basic adverbs don't always end in -e (though nouns of any sort end in -o); or that hieraŭ, hodiaŭ, morgaŭ aren't derivable from each other (as they are in Volapük).

True dat. But the flashpoint for this particular debate was ASCarroll’s puzzlement on another thread at the logic of virino as a word for “woman”, since it looked like “female man” to him.

He was, of course, immediately accused of homosexuality, militant feminism, etc. I mentioned that many people have proposed iĉ as a solution (homiĉo and homino alongside viro and virino), but that this is discouraged by the PMEG. The guy was new, and floated iĉ and a bunch of other neologisms in the present thread, whereupon he was driven out of town.

Which is why this thread has gotten so long — some of us are still debating what iĉ would entail, and some are debating our conduct in the debate itself.

novatago:By the way, this one is a troll.

You're a moron.

Clarence666:

novatago:By the way, this one is a troll.

You're a moron.

Remember what Mark Twain said:

Mark Twain:Never argue with a fool; onlookers may not be able to tell the difference.

nornen:Remember what Mark Twain said:

Mark Twain:Never argue with a fool; onlookers may not be able to tell the difference.

You are right and M.T. is right too. | Vi pravas kaj M.T. ankaux pravas.

If anybody still neglects the sexism problem of Esperanto, please translate correctly following sentence into Esperanto. | Se iu ankoraux malkonfirmas la seksisman problemon de Esperanto, bonvolu traduki gxuste sekvan frazon en Esperanto:

This is my friend Joyce.

Se iu provizos gxustan kaj efikan tradukon, mi neniam plu skribos pri la problemo.

PS: mi estas nek feminaziisto, nek idoisto, nek icxisto.

PPSS: la Germana lingvo estas fiaskigita lingvo. La oficiala libro pri "sekse justa lingvouzo" enhavas 200 (du cent) pagxojn. Kaj ... divenu la rezuton ... gxi ne solvas la problemon. Do la diferenco inter DE kaj EO estas, ke EO estas reforminda lingvo, dum DE estas forigenda lingvo.

Clarence666:
If anybody still neglects the sexism problem of Esperanto, please translate correctly following sentence into Esperanto. | Se iu ankoraux malkonfirmas la seksisman problemon de Esperanto, bonvolu traduki gxuste sekvan frazon en Esperanto:

This is my friend Joyce.

Se iu provizos gxustan kaj efikan tradukon, mi neniam plu skribos pri la problemo.

PS: mi estas nek feminaziisto, nek idoisto, nek icxisto.

PPSS: la Germana lingvo estas fiaskigita lingvo. La oficiala libro pri "sekse justa lingvouzo" enhavas 200 (du cent) pagxojn. Kaj ... divenu la rezuton ... gxi ne solvas la problemon. Do la diferenco inter DE kaj EO estas, ke EO estas reforminda lingvo, dum DE estas forigenda lingvo.

Tiu estas mia amiko Joyce. Easy. Your comments on German are totally out of line, by the way. It works that way because, guess what, that's how people have spoken it for thousands of years. It's entirely legitimate, just like the way Esperanto handles it is legitimate. Neither system is going to change. The only difference is that German technically can, while the issue of whether Esperanto can was already settled at Boulogne. Certain people might not want to accept that because they want to keep arguing, but the case has been closed for over a hundred years. It frankly doesn't matter if there's a "better" way or not. The decision was made on this way and this is the way Esperanto can only be, according to the Fundamento and the Declaration themselves.

nornen:

orthohawk:

nornen:I don't know, but taking into consideration that ge' is defined as of both sexes, the word gepatro sounds to me like an autogamous, hermaphrodite parent.

yes, it has that meaning because it's used on PLURAL words. If we expanded its meaning to include using it on a singular noun to denote "the gender neutral form of the root"..........................

Thanks for the explanation. So the idea would be: ge' means of both sexes when used in plural, and of any sex when used in singualr"? Am I getting this right?

Yes, however, I would probably phrase it as "of epicene/neither/neutral gender"

AllenHartwell:Tiu estas mia amiko Joyce. Easy.

Amiko, like koko, is either a viro or a persono, depending on the speech habits of the speaker. If one only uses it one way, it’s unambiguous; if not, it’s a little unclear if one means to say Joyce is a male friend or just a friend.

AllenHartwell:Neither system is going to change. The only difference is that German technically can, while the issue of whether Esperanto can was already settled at Boulogne.

Insofar as iĉ is just shorthand for “male” in the way that in is shorthand for “female”, it’s a word like any other, and could be adopted or not adopted the same as any other word. For Esperantists not in the habit of specifying the gender of everything they talk about, a masculine suffix wouldn’t change anything at all. The “System” — that is, many people’s current understanding of it — would be preserved: you, for example, seem to think that amiko is a common gender word for “friend”; a masculine suffix would make that usage unambiguously true, and you could go on living many happy years never once having to utter word amikiĉo.

As always, if one is going to reject iĉ — or any other neologism — by all means, let one do so. But one really should understand what it is before one breaks out the “Esperanto — love it or leave it” bumper stickers and bullies a newbie Esperantist out of the forum.

Clarence666:la Germana lingvo estas fiaskigita lingvo. La oficiala libro pri "sekse justa lingvouzo" enhavas 200 (du cent) pagxojn. Kaj ... divenu la rezuton ... gxi ne solvas la problemon. Do la diferenco inter DE kaj EO estas, ke EO estas reforminda lingvo, dum DE estas forigenda lingvo.

Dude, c'mon over and i'll show you what needs to be removed.