morfran:There is no “Zamenhof and the community”; even when he was alive, he ceded all control of the language to its speakers, and the speakers are not a monolithic group.

Historically this is so, in that Z relinquished exclusive control over the language, in contradistinction to, say, Schleyer. Nevertheless, the early Esperantists tended to be conservative, in the literal meaning of conserving. They probably realized that willy-nilly, ill considered (or even seriously considered) changes could be fatal to the progress of the language.

Stability was -- and remains! -- crucial, even if this or that person or group is of the opinion that this or that feature might have been, or might be, "better." Language history is littered with failures due to instability. The entire constructed international auxiliary language movement is and always has been so fragile that it is like eggshells. It takes very little to crush or even crack something. Stability is far more important than theoretical purism. (This is a point I myself have made in some admittedly bitter disputes concerning another auxiliary language.)

bartlett22183:Stability was -- and remains! -- crucial, even if this or that person or group is of the opinion that this or that feature might have been, or might be, "better."

Stability is important, sure, but many of these proposed suffixes don’t change anything fundamental that could threaten stability — certainly no more than the introduction of -viro did, or its later replacement with vir-. If all iĉ or any of the other proposed masculine suffixes does is replace vir- as a less ambiguous indicator of gender, then the grammatical status quo is preserved.

AllenHartwell:There is how he designed the language and the vast majority of speakers have spoken ever since ... You could replace filo with idulo.

Again, since you’ve repeatedly demonstrated that you know neither how he designed the language nor how the vast majority of speakers use it, you should just learn the language already and stop trying to be its traffic cop.

AllenHartwell:So it's your proposal that we adopt this new suffixoid and add a new root for every current root it doesn't work with?

It's my proposal that people — especially those who don't yet know the language — not reject every word they haven't heard before on the basis of "linguistic purity", the specter of "feminazism", or how they imagine the first Esperantists would react to it.

AllenHartwell:chaotic with the additional work of learning at least two words for every idea

Every idea? I thought we were just talking about those words that are still regarded as masculine by definition, the usual cited number being around 20. And they wouldn’t be obligatory, just an option for those so inclined.

AllenHartwell:There's also the issue that there isn't just one proposed synonym for each "problematic" word. I've seen genitoro, ĝenitoro, and parento

That's why they're called proposals. They're not official yet, so different people have offered — and will continue to offer — solutions and workarounds until one of them sticks. Doesn’t really count as an issue.

AllenHartwell:I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure that being in use and widely understood since first being introduced by Kalocsay is enough to make it canonical

If you accept neologisms from Kalocsay, then you accept neologisms.

AllenHartwell:People reinforce the claim otherwise by habitually misusing these words as unmarked neuter.

Only to the extent that most English-speakers have been butchering the language when they stopped using terms like "Jewess" and "Negress".

AllenHartwell:Then we could just as easily use maskl- instead. We already have alternatives.

Obviously a lot of people don’t find that a very good one.

morfran:Again, since you’ve repeatedly demonstrated that you know neither how he designed the language nor how the vast majority of speakers use it, you should just learn the language already and stop trying to be its traffic cop.

I'm fairly confident that I can hold my own in a conversation at this point. I watch movies in Esperanto without needing a dictionary now. Even if I do have to pause and rewind a lot with Inkubo just to work out Shatner's pronunciation. I'm also about as confident that learning it as it's actually spoken via this website and other forums and fidindemaj spertuloj gives me a good idea of how the majority of speakers use it. You didn't address my point about just constructing synonyms with universally accepted morphemes like -id by the way.

morfran:It's my proposal that people — especially those who don't yet know the language — not reject every word they haven't heard before on the basis of "linguistic purity", the specter of "feminazism", or how they imagine the first Esperantists would react to it.

It was never my contention that it's not a good proposal because of feminism. I don't believe that the two are related outside of a few radical projects like riismo (which icxismo seems to have come from). It wasn't even my contention that linguistic purity should be an end in itself. I just don't see the need to make changes where none are needed (as if changes can really even be implemented by fiat anymore) or introduce new synonyms when the word stock we have now is more than sufficient. If you really want to say parent in general, and the few regulars who mentioned -ul are wrong after all, then you're also totally free to say ge-. Mia gefrato is my brother or my sister. Simple.

morfran:Every idea? I thought we were just talking about those words that are still regarded as masculine by definition, the usual cited number being around 20. And they wouldn’t be obligatory, just an option for those so inclined.

Then they would still be obligatory to learn. Right now, the beginner must learn that patro is father, patrino is mother, and gepatro is parent, and that vir- forms the masculine. Under your solution, the beginner would have to learn that patro and gxenitoricxo are father, patrino and gxenitorino are mother, and gepatro and gxenitoro are parent, and that patro is a historical word not in use anymore except when it is, and that both vir- and -icx- mean male unless the unmarked noun does. Then you would get into the question of whether to say viro or adolticxo, or if icxino is a suitable substitute for virino...

morfran:That's why they're called proposals. They're not official yet, so different people have offered — and will continue to offer — solutions and workarounds until one of them sticks. Doesn’t really count as an issue.

And so we keep introducing more and more words only used by one or two people until we have twenty different canonical Esperantoj... This is another reason I think we should be cautious in what we accept: allowing one reform would grant legitimacy to all of the reforms. If we let -icx in, then why not let in far, or -oz, or avunculuso? Where does it end? No. You need a point where we stop making changes to the base grammar and vocabulary.

morfran:If you accept neologisms from Kalocsay, then you accept neologisms.

I don't personally accept it. I personally hate the word and wish it weren't one. But I do acknowledge that it is one, because it did manage to gain traction, because it filled a semantic need and appeared in a scandalous work by a widely respected poet in a language with few other intellectual or creative leaders. Many people use picxo in their daily lives. Almost nobody uses -icxo outside of perennial arguments on Esperanto message boards.

morfran:Only to the extent that most English-speakers have been butchering the language when they stopped using terms like "Jewess" and "Negress".

I don't think the two situations are really comparable. Those terms had long, painful legacies of prejudice and oppression. They had to go and those still using them would quickly and rightly find themselves ostracized. The gender situation in Esperanto is not about eliminating two nouns with dark histories but changing how the language works as a whole.

morfran:Obviously a lot of people don’t find that a very good one.

Mostly because they find vir- a better one IMHO.

AllenHartwell:I'm fairly confident that I can hold my own in a conversation at this point.

You’ve been exceedingly confident that you know what you’re talking about since the day you joined Lernu. Your confidence and enthusiasm aren’t in question, only your authoritarian declarations from the mountaintop when you clearly haven’t been there yet.

AllenHartwell:Even if I do have to pause and rewind a lot with Inkubo just to work out Shatner's pronunciation.

In the DVD commentary, Shatner explains why his pronunciation was so wonky in that film. But yeah. Shatner. Enough said.

AllenHartwell:You didn't address my point about just constructing synonyms with universally accepted morphemes like -id by the way.

One could certainly say ido when “offspring” is literally the case. Might not work so well when only the role of “child” is meant, as with adopted children and “child” as a form of address by, say, a priest.

One could arguably make the same case for generinto as the go-to word for parent. A little literal in the same way that ido is, but it could work, I suppose. On the other hand, words for “cousin”, “grandchild”, etc., aren’t so readily substituted by existing words.

AllenHartwell:It was never my contention that it's not a good proposal because of feminism.

Mhmm:

AllenHartwell:It does not exist outside of the imaginations of a very few speakers who think that the cause for women's rights to equal treatment and pay will be furthered by fracturing the one worthwhile interlanguage. It's mad.

AllenHartwell:It wasn't even my contention that linguistic purity should be an end in itself.

I’m too tired to repost all your gems on that subject again.

AllenHartwell:Mia gefrato is my brother or my sister. Simple.

It’s declarations like this that make your supreme self-confidence a little premature.

AllenHartwell:Then you would get into the question of whether to say viro or adolticxo

If deciding whether to say “male horse” or “stallion”, “female horse” or “mare” presents a crisis for you in English, then I can see why this issue is so dire for you.

AllenHartwell:Under your solution...

My proposal doesn’t really go any further than letting people float their neologisms without fear of getting curb-stomped. If Kalocsay and others had to contend with this, the current lexicon would still fit in a pamphlet.

And “iĉino”? If you’re still asking questions like that, then I don’t think you’ve grasped the iĉ thing at all yet.

AllenHartwell:And so we keep introducing more and more words only used by one or two people until we have twenty different canonical Esperantoj

Before piĉo stuck, there were probably as many words for the same idea as there were people accustomed to saying the word in their own language. It doesn’t lead to multiple canonical Esperantoj. It means that the ones that don’t stick get forgotten.

AllenHartwell:But I do acknowledge that [piĉo] is [a word], because it did manage to gain traction

I think that’s all anyone could ask of you — you don’t have to use piĉo yourself, but nor should you be decrying anyone else’s decision to use it. Live and let live.

As for legitimacy through traction, there obviously was a time when piĉo had no traction whatsoever; to have denounced it on the grounds that it hadn’t yet gained currency would obviously have been premature. If people didn’t want it, it would have died on its own, without your help. Same goes for any other neologism.

AllenHartwell:The gender situation in Esperanto is not about eliminating two nouns with dark histories but changing how the language works as a whole.

The point was that English used to distinguish between male and female for all sorts of things, but does so less and less over the decades. Oftentimes I see “actor” applied to women as well as men, instead of “actress”. Using words in an epicene way that indicate a role and not a gender obviously doesn’t change how the language works as a whole.

AllenHartwell:Mostly because they find vir- a better one IMHO

If that were true, this subject wouldn’t keep coming up.

Uh, the discussion doesn't really progress, so I refrain from further comments.

I just want to summarize my opinion:
There are versions of iĉismo which are kontraŭfundamentaj (patriĉo, ri), and some which are not (see my post above). There are reasons to postulate a more symmetric system which are ill-founded ("justice" ) and some which are not (less opacity, which nouns are neutral and which not; clearer marking of the natural gender).

But in the end it is an academic debate (which is going on since over 30 years, BTW): Many esperantists will not accept any changes because of an unreflected conservatism - which in most cases however is the better choice and has helped the language to survive crises not once.
A few, mostly beginners, adopt some kind of iĉismo, but often without reflecting whether their version causes norm collisions (and it usually does).
And many other speakers (maybe the majority) are just unsure, which leads -as they use the means available now- to the overuse of ge- (with monstrous results like gekaraj) and double forms like li/ŝi.

So, the natural gender issue is a real problem, leading to real consequences in the language use (and even language change in the cases of bovo, kapro, and koko, maybe others), but there seems to be no solution likely to catch on.

AllenHartwell, I again can only express my support of you sticking to the Fundamento, which is the real base of our language, but I also must give you the advice to check your knowledge of it before you make apodictic assertions, which introduce real kontraŭfundamentaj changes like the change of meaning of kat', -ul- or -id- you implicitly proposed above. Get yourself a copy of PMEG, the best available grammar of E-o, and read Zamenhof and other good authors in order to have a better feeling of the real language use.

morfran:

erinja:I think you'd be surprised at the number of people there who aren't likely to have heard of -iĉ-, particularly in the older generation of people who learned Esperanto a long time ago and aren't active on the internet.

If we discouraged every new word and usage that the “older generation” hasn’t heard of, then even attaching viro to a word to make it masculine would be an unnecessary contrivance, since every word and every suffix would be masculine unless otherwise specified. There would be no friends, for example, only he-friends and she-friends, nor even Esperantists, but he-Esperantists and she-Esperantists. Nothing new would ever catch on, because nothing unfamiliar to the horse-and-buggy set would be allowed to.

My official position is that people can speak the language however they want to. If they want my opinion I don't recommend -icx-, but if someone wants to use it, that's their decision and that's fine.

However, part b of my official position is that people should be aware of what others are likely or not likely to understand. That is, you can speak the language however you want, or you can even go so far as to speak a highly reformed Esperantido, but you should be aware that people may not understand you, and you should be aware of the more widely accepted way of saying whatever you're saying, so that in case you aren't understood, you can repeat yourself in a different way that is more mainstream.

Esperanto evolves. I don't consider myself part of the "horse-and-buggy set". But it evolves naturally through Esperanto speakers seeing a need for a word and starting to use it. Though -icx- has been floating around the interwebs for quite some time, no one is really using it so I think people don't see a need. I've seen things come into quick use when people see a need for them, and -icx- isn't one of those things. -icx- seems mainly confined to beginners and hard-core reformists, not normal Esperantists.

Regarding Esperanto speakers - Esperanto conventions tend to be very elderly-heavy. If you're 80 years old and you learned Esperanto decades ago and you speak it once or twice a year at Esperanto conventions you attend, you aren't going to learn new forms too quickly. For one example, people weren't sure of the Esperanto word for mobile phones when they first became widespread. I don't remember whether there were serious competitors, but the word that ended up winning was "posx/telefon/o" ("pocket telephone" ). I meet a lot of old Esperantists who don't know this word. It's the standard word, it has no serious competitors, and it's been in widespread use for probably 15-20 years, but it's not uncommon for me to meet someone who doesn't understand it. It's a perfectly normal and good Esperanto word but if I'm talking to someone that I suspect might not know it, I do watch them carefully when I speak, to make sure they're understanding what I'm saying, in case I need to call the phone something else ("portebla telefono" or something, or else gesture to my own posxtelefono)

In summary of my position on this topic:

-Iĉ- is really just a suffoid synonym of viro and masklo. We already have these two. Both have their own niche. We simply don't need a third version. If we were to adopt it, then we would just have a redundant word, two competing affixed ways of clarifying the built-in male meaning technically already present, and a weakness in our defense against other pointless neologisms and reforms.

If we allow boviĉo to replace the Fundamenta bovo and the now necessary virbovo, then why not allow malidiĉo to replace patro entirely? Or homino to replace virino? Why not just replace homo with ulo or humano? And why stop there? Why not replace onklo with my avunculuso neologism? Or create an exclusive first person plural pronoun? We can't just throw out perfectly good and historical words like that for words almost nobody outside the reformist fringe would know. We can't just force people - and, as Erinja pointed out, the vast majority of Esperantists are elderly and generally don't have and aren't even familiar with things like the internet or cell phones - to relearn the language they've been using for over a century just to "fix" the subjective "problems" a legion of noobies and youngsters have been claiming to find. The inconsistencies introduced by already adopted problems like in country and citizen names are bad enough. We might as well be honest in creating a brand new Esperanto-based language at that point. Why not just scrap the whole thing and go join one of the many Ido reform projects?

And what happens if it becomes popular? Suddenly there's a second historical way of marking gender and a new current way. It just makes the learning load even heavier on the learner for absolutely no gain for anyone except radical fringe movements like feminists and the eternal reformers. This iĉismo would be the Ido of our time if anyone else even knew it.

Then there's the argument that languages change or die. This is not true. Languages are either used or dead. Esperanto is not like other languages that change because they are used. It is an interlanguage. It is used by staying the same. Creating dialects and introducing instability just fractures the already small community and makes it even less attractive to the average person. Why bother having a language for everyone to speak to one another regardless of native language if it fractures into twenty competing dialects?

We already have adopted neologisms like Svedio for Svedujo and taŭro for virbovo. -Io for countries seems partly adopted. This weird poŝtelefono thing seems to be as well. Why can't it end here? Why can't we just stop accepting new roots? Let's be done with it. Let's close the vortaro to new roots, regularize what we can with what we already have, and enjoy what it is instead of always fretting over what could be. We don't need a perfect language. We need a finished language. And that is what we have.