Why do people use virino instead of ino?
de ASCarroll, 22 de abril de 2014
Aportes: 51
Idioma: English
ASCarroll (Mostrar perfil) 22 de abril de 2014 01:13:17
nornen (Mostrar perfil) 22 de abril de 2014 01:50:31
If you say in English "I am dating a nice female" and not "a nice woman", then you should use "ino" in Esperanto.
morfran (Mostrar perfil) 22 de abril de 2014 02:00:10
ASCarroll:It's one idiosyncrasy in the language I've never understood. A viro is a man. The suffix -ino means female. It's established that suffixes are words in their own right as well. So it seems that ino would work just as well, and wouldn't be potentially sexist/confusing like "female man" would.Virino is a female human, that is, a woman; ino is a female of any sort, though it does get used, along with ulino, in a way that sort of corresponds to English “chick”, “dudette”, etc., just as ulo gets used for “dude”, “guy”.
You’re not alone in your puzzlement, though: the use of -in- with words that otherwise indicate a masculine noun (patrino, fratino, virino, etc.) has struck many as nonsensical, as has using vir- (“male human”) as a masculine prefix (virĉevalo is “stallion”, but looks like “centaur”, once rendered ĉevalviro). Many have proposed -iĉ- as a masculine suffix (I think there’s a recent thread about it), which to work would probably entail introducing feminine counterparts to words like patro (matro, as in Ido) and/or neutral words that can be suffixed as needed (Ido genitoro “parent”, genitorulo “father”, genitorino “mother”).
But don’t hold your breath. As one can surmise from the other thread, -iĉ-, while proposed by many over the years, is the “fetch” of Esperanto; it’s never going to happen.
ASCarroll (Mostrar perfil) 22 de abril de 2014 02:37:11
The whole issue has been somewhat confusing itself while trying to learn the vocabulary anyway. We have homo and ulo (both meaning generic human, person), but we use viro (man) for almost everything and tack -in- to the end in the event that the man is actually a lady. I would prefer simply to drop homo and viro and only use -ul-, -in-, and -iĉ-. But would that really be bone parolata esperanto?
bryku (Mostrar perfil) 22 de abril de 2014 07:27:00
efilzeo (Mostrar perfil) 22 de abril de 2014 07:31:26
Kirilo81 (Mostrar perfil) 22 de abril de 2014 07:58:39
ASCarroll, Esperanto is like it is. That it started as a planned language doesn't mean you or anyone else can change it now, just like you can't change any other language which is actually in use arbitrarily.
morfran (Mostrar perfil) 22 de abril de 2014 08:07:05
bryku:And I have a question to you - why do you use "woman" instead of "sheman" which is a way more logical?Probably because man in modern English refers to a male human being, so she-man indicates a transvestite male. Woman, while etymologically redundant (it comes from Old English wīfmann “woman-person”, “wife-person”, back when man just meant “person”), at least refers to a female human being.
bryku (Mostrar perfil) 22 de abril de 2014 08:26:56
morfran:Thank you. And exactly the same is with the word "virino". Its use is established, why should anyone change it? And changes (if any) should come from rather experienced users who know the language well, not from any beginner.bryku:And I have a question to you - why do you use "woman" instead of "sheman" which is a way more logical?Probably because man in modern English refers to a male human being, so she-man indicates a transvestite male. Woman, while etymologically redundant (it comes from Old English wīfmann “woman-person”, “wife-person”, back when man just meant “person”), at least refers to a female human being.
ASCarroll (Mostrar perfil) 22 de abril de 2014 09:00:33
Mi nur nun vidas vian respondon. Mi proponis, ke mi uzas la sufikson -inon kiel la vorto virino. Viro estas iĉo. Viro ne estas homo. Ino ne estas ina viro.
Bryku, I wasn't really asking anyone to change how they speak. That would be in incredibly poor taste for anyone to do, and most especially someone who just recently joined this community. I was more asking for why it's used how it's used, and somewhat testing the waters to see how well (or poorly) I'd be received using the language in the way I've been learning it anyway. I did some digging on this -iĉ- suffix since writing the post. It seems to have caused quite a bit of negativity whenever a direct proposal of any sort (as in, "hey, everyone, you're using the language wrong and should use it this new way instead!" ) was made - especially if it contradicted or was considered to contradict the Fundamento. This is another reason I'm not going to do that. I probably will adopt it in my personal vortaro and speech though, along with dropping the seemingly redundant words (homo, virino, viro) in favor of using the suffixes already present and this -iĉ- one. It just makes more sense to me and seems just as clear to any speaker.