AllenHartwell:So not only would it contradict the Fundamento in making family words like patro and onklo gender neutral.

I call BS on all posts by this person.

It has been explained many times that the existing male words would remain unaltered and new gender neutral words introduced.
These gender neutral words would then have male and female suffixes attached to show neutral, male, and female, without possible misunderstanding.

Under the existing system:
- cxhevalo could mean horse or stallion depending on who is using it.
- vircxhevalo could mean stallion or centaur depending on who is using it.
So the word stalono has been introduced to mean stallion.
If this was done for every species there would be far more words to learn than just adopting one suffix meaning male, that could be used with all gender neutral words.

This person has been deliberately ignoring this explanation in order to continue misrepresenting the situation.

Bemused: [...]

Easy, don't feed the trolls. The more bold type you use, the happier the troll.

Bemused:I call BS on all posts by this person.

It has been explained many times that the existing male words would remain unaltered and new gender neutral words introduced.
These gender neutral words would then have male and female suffixes attached to show neutral, male, and female, without possible misunderstanding.

Actually, no. It hasn't. What I've seen so far has been a hodgepodge of efforts to defend a worthless fringe suffixoid that has nothing of true value to offer, competes with established forms, and directly violates meanings inherent in the language since the beginning. If existing words remain unaltered, then kuzo would not become gender neutral under the proposed system. If we're trying to create symmetry, then we wouldn't be making kuzo neutral while keeping patro masculine. If we're trying to preserve the original character of the language, then nobody would be trying to remake it in their image. There was a time when it was open to grammatical revision. That time is over. The window for changes has closed. This is what we have. To change it further would only damage it. Let it be. Let it go. We're never going to reach perfect, so let's enjoy good enough.

Reformers (typically newbies who don't even speak the language) will come. Occasionally they will go. So be it. It's better to lose a few potential new speakers who insist on making Esperanto what they want it to be rather than accepting it how it is than lose stability, possibly educated speakers, the ability to claim that it can be understood by any speaker anywhere in the world, and make it look that much worse to the average person. It's a sacrifice the community at large has always been perfectly willing to make. Rejsi brought up the Reformed Esperanto introduced by Zamenhof himself after enough pressure was put on him by the reformists. The vast majority of Esperantists of the day rejected even that, and even Zamenhof himself saw the wisdom of this later. I don't understand why this is so hard to accept, unless it's only because the reality of the situation doesn't conform with the personal desires of the few trying to recreate the language the way they would prefer it to be. This is just something that isn't done with a language. You can't just decide that Esperanto should have been a certain way and so that's how it is from now on any more than you can do it with Latin or Italian. This was pointed out multiple times by multiple people in the beginning of the thread.

AllenHartwell:

Bemused:I call BS on all posts by this person.

It has been explained many times that the existing male words would remain unaltered and new gender neutral words introduced.
These gender neutral words would then have male and female suffixes attached to show neutral, male, and female, without possible misunderstanding.

Actually, no. It hasn't.

Read this.It has been posted before.

It explains how icx could be used to remove all potential misunderstandings.

You know that point in a Facebook discussion / Forum thread / dinner table conversation where you realize that everyone is going on about their own sincerely held beliefs and no one is going to convince everyone else, so you quietly leave the discussion and do something else because it is turning into a pointless waste of time.

Better to just decline to further engage with someone than to post snarky pictures about trolls and attempt to convince someone of something that you won't convince them of. Bottom line - everyone can speak the language as they prefer. Others can feel free to roll their eyes and walk away if they don't like it.

Okay. Fine. You've convinced me. I completely agree. Let's change the unmarked form to be neuter. We can keep -in- for the feminine and use -ul- for the masculine. Every family word except patro and the new matro (mother) and genitoro (parent) should work like this. The only other exception should be with viro and its counterparts muliero (woman) and adulto (adult). The neuter -ul- (person who does or is characterized by) should be changed to unmarked -o. We could probably replace the correlative table with Romance equivalents while we're at it...

I'm sure it shouldn't be too hard to convince the Academy and the other two million or so speakers around the world to accept all of our improvements and update all of those archaic dictionaries, lessons, books, songs, and inscriptions. After all, it's better now. They no longer have to be inflicted with their Oldspeak. The community is sure to be overwhelmed with gratitude for fixing all of these clear errors they've been forced to speak, write, think, pray, and love in for over a century. The denaski will be especially pleased with our tinkering. It's not like their native language was worthwhile or even complete as it was when their parents taught it to them anyway.

(Edit) I agree with Erinja's ninja. You can use your dialect. Nobody can stop you. I'll just keep using standard Esperanto and hope we can still understand each other after you're done making your new language's grammar.

AllenHartwell:Okay. Fine. You've convinced me. I completely agree. Let's change the unmarked form to be neuter. We can keep -in- for the feminine and use -ul- for the masculine. Every family word except patro and the new matro (mother) and genitoro (parent) should work like this. The only other exception should be with viro and its counterparts muliero (woman) and adulto (adult). The neuter -ul- (person who does or is characterized by) should be changed to unmarked -o. We could probably replace the correlative table with Romance equivalents while we're at it...

You have just described Ido in part. In my personal opinion, Ido is a respectable language, but obviously it is not Esperanto. One question in my mind is, What is more important, theoretical political correctness or genuine communication that has worked well for a century and a quarter? (I confess that I am of two minds about this.)