Vai all’indice
Rispondi

The "iĉ" suffix:

di Aubright, 15 gennaio 2013

Messaggi: 55

Lingua: English

Vespero_ (Mostra il profilo) 15 gennaio 2013 16:07:22

Esperanto already has some crazy word-length minimums (everything's at least two syllables if it's a noun). Adding a masculine suffix would bump this up to a minimum of three syllables per word for all gendered nouns.

This would also mean that you would have to decide what nouns would be gendered. People, of course, but what about dolls? Do you use it with -isto and -ano? Instruistiĉo is a silly word.

Having a feminine suffix does not make you sexist, treating women (or men!) improperly does.

Aubright (Mostra il profilo) 15 gennaio 2013 17:02:21

I see your points Tempodivalse and they are valid (although neutral to feminine seems also sexist as it puts emphasis on the feminine. Same problem in my opinion). As for Vespero, I am certainly not trying to imply that using a language that has aspects of sexism makes one a sexist (if that were the case I would have to stand against billions of people). I simply am trying to make my usage of Esperanto more gender-neutral for certain words. Case and point, my friend is transgender. If he were to be a father someday what would I call him in relation to his child? He gender wise identifies with the feminine but is male-bodied and is attracted to women. For cases like these I do believe family words need to be gender neutral unless specification is necessary/ wanted.

efilzeo (Mostra il profilo) 15 gennaio 2013 17:33:52

Aubright:Now I understand not wanting to change Esperanto because you want it to be as easy as possible, but to flat out DENY there is any problem whatsoever seems like a stretch. And in response to efilzeo; As a feminist i am as equally against the glorification of the male as I am towards the female.
When I was 7 I stole a toy from the house of my cousin. After that I felt like everybody was looking at me badly, like if everybody knew I stole it. Now if for you the fact that patrino comes from patro is a discrimination, to me it seems exactly the same thing: an obsession, a paranoia. I read someone wants to change the word "woman" into "womyn" because containing the word "man" is so much discriminating. I don't want to sound rude because I understand that feeling discriminated is really hurting, but at the same time is important to don't get for enemy the entire world. In that case, more than a conspiracy, an obsession is more likely.

I don't know for others, and I'm the last who can speak given that I'm a beginner, but if a female would say "Mi estas instruisto", I wouldn't recognize this as an error, because it has a male/neuter role I suppose. When you add -ino, is because you want to specify it, otherwise nouns are perceived as neuters, referring to a person more than a male or female. I do really think this is a non-problem.

Aubright (Mostra il profilo) 15 gennaio 2013 18:43:27

I wouldn't say I am paranoid nor would I say I obsess over this (but how many people would, right?) I do however wish to stay consistent in my speech and avoid the concept of glorifying one sex over another. With instruisto I don't see a problem since it is neutral already. I suppose what I am advocating is doing to family roles what has already been done to other words.

Aubright (Mostra il profilo) 15 gennaio 2013 18:48:45

In fact scratch that. I'm not really advocating anything. More checking for opinions and testing my own against them to see if they hold up. Thus far some haven't (if anyone was curious).

Fenris_kcf (Mostra il profilo) 15 gennaio 2013 20:56:50

tommjames:Virtually nobody uses -iĉ
Hello, i'm virtually nobody. Nice to meet you.

tommjames:so by using it you will sound odd, or perhaps mark yourself out as a supporter of useless reform proposals more generally.
By using Esperanto we mark ourselves out as supporters of useless conlangs.

Tempodivalse (Mostra il profilo) 15 gennaio 2013 22:31:42

With instruisto I don't see a problem since it is neutral already.
if a female would say "Mi estas instruisto", I wouldn't recognize this as an error, because it has a male/neuter role I suppose.
Interestingly, it was not always this way. In early Zamenhof-era usage, words ending in -isto and -ulo were almost always automatically assumed to be masculine and -in- was appended more liberally. Nowadays "-in-" is only used when it is essential to convey feminine-ness.

So Aubright, if you feel that this setup treats females unfairly, might I suggest that you use "vir-" or "-iĉ" in a similar vein: only when it's essential to convey masculine-ness, and leave the unmodified form for the majority of cases.
I'm not really advocating anything. More checking for opinions and testing my own against them to see if they hold up
It's good that you're thinking for yourself. Do continue! I, for one, feel as though there's an unfair pressure for Esperantists to conform to a Eurocentric style (SVO word order, adjectives before nouns, etc.) and if you don't conform, you're seen as "toying" or "joking" with the language. I don't think Zamenhof intended this to happen. EO's flexibility allows speakers to preserve some of the mannerisms of their native language (thus making it easier to learn for everyone).

In this case I disagree with the use of -iĉ, but it has precedent, so I don't find it completely unacceptable. If you feel strongly about the issue, use it. Ultimately we'll still understand each other just fine regardless of differences in speech (just as I sometimes like to contract my compound tenses or use SOV word order).

efilzeo (Mostra il profilo) 15 gennaio 2013 22:38:58

Aubright:In fact scratch that. I'm not really advocating anything. More checking for opinions and testing my own against them to see if they hold up. Thus far some haven't (if anyone was curious).
That's interesting, but how the iĉ would solve the problem? And above all, where's the problem? If I understood properly your example, we have a male which feels himself as a woman even if he's still a man (I'm not sure because the term "transgender" is used both for operated people and those who just look like). If it is so, the problem is not linguistic but social, it depends on how people see him/her. He/she could call him/herself patrino, but he/she could not demand to be called this way by anyone else. Surely the problem could be fixed using gepatro, but there would always been someone who would call him/her patro. With the introduction of iĉ we would jsut have a substitute for ge-, right? Exception proves the rule, doesn't change it.

P.S.

tempodivalse:Interestingly, it was not always this way. In early Zamenhof-era usage, words ending in -isto and -ulo were almost always automatically assumed to be masculine and -in- was appended more liberally. Nowadays "-in-" is only used when it is essential to convey feminine-ness.
So our age is politically correct itself! lango.gif

Aubright (Mostra il profilo) 15 gennaio 2013 22:39:08

Thank you for your understanding and your suggestions Tempodivalse ridulo.gif I honestly was afraid that as this thread progressed I would be somewhat demonized or be seen as naive for even bringing this up. I'm glad that thus far this is not the case.

Tempodivalse (Mostra il profilo) 15 gennaio 2013 22:57:46

So our age is politically correct itself!
Part of it might have been political correctness, but I think simplicity was also a factor. In most situations it's simply superfluous to add -in- when the context would make this already clear (i.e. a female pronoun already indicating gender).

There are still, however, words that stubbornly continue to be seen as masculine by default (Ŝi estas mia patro sounds very wrong whereas Ŝi estas mia instruisto doesn't).

Torna all’inizio