Kirilo81:
There was no reform of the German language in 1996, but of the German orthography. The difference is very very huge.

I've heard that many Germans, including some publishers, have ignored the new rules. Is that true?

orthohawk:That's not what the Fundamento is all about. It's the *baseline* of Esperanto. There is nothing in the Fundamento that says you can't add things ::as long as they don't violate the Fundamento or cause a violation OF the Fundamento:: The "icx" suffix causes such a violation (in order for it to work and not cause superfluity the "male words" need to be changed to "gender neutral": The Fundamento defines "patro" as "father", not "parent".
The suffix "-end" did nothing to change anything in the Fundamento.

Now this is a sensible argument. I completely agree with orthohawk on the role of the F, and on the condition he stated, whether a change could possibly be adopted or not.

Bruso:

Kirilo81:
There was no reform of the German language in 1996, but of the German orthography. The difference is very very huge.

I've heard that many Germans, including some publishers, have ignored the new rules. Is that true?

"Many" is relative. Nowadays every official writing is written in the new orthography. You'll only see some of the generation 40+ utilizing the old one.

orthohawk:
That's not what the Fundamento is all about. It's the *baseline* of Esperanto. There is nothing in the Fundamento that says you can't add things ::as long as they don't violate the Fundamento or cause a violation OF the Fundamento:: The "icx" suffix causes such a violation (in order for it to work and not cause superfluity the "male words" need to be changed to "gender neutral": The Fundamento defines "patro" as "father", not "parent".
The suffix "-end" did nothing to change anything in the Fundamento.

This puts it exactly right. We can't have Esperanto be totally immutable, but we must have some standard baseline to refer to when considering additions to the language. This situation with reform reminds me a bit of the programming/scripting language Python, which became fractured with the release of its "new" 3.X version. Some fundamental changes/improvements in the language broke backward compatibility much in the way that "icx" would in Esperanto. In another example, the Perl scripting language underwent such a drastic change between versions 5 and 6 that version 6 is essentially an entirely new language, like what happened to Esperanto with Ido.

I think that sometimes people make a similar mistake with conlangs as programmers do with programming languages in that they are always searching for "The Best" language. The "best" is almost never what wins, but the language that happens to be in the right place at the right time with the right features is unbeatable even if it has many flaws.

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P.S. Orthohawk, I am no longer able to send messages to you for some reason... I type up a reply and when I hit send I get a notification that I mistyped the username. Clicking on your username leads to an error page. Not sure who would be able to look into this...
Sorry for the slight topic detour there.
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orthohawk:That's not what the Fundamento is all about. It's the *baseline* of Esperanto...

That is an exceptionally good way of presenting it. If we ever make a FAQ, that whole explanation needs to go in it.

We've been having some server problems and lately some user accounts have had problems. I've notified the relevant person that Orthohawk's account has a problem and hopefully it will be fixed by tomorrow.

I think most anyone would agree that a Python 3.x reform — for Esperanto or any language — is to be avoided.

Part of the problem surrounding the backlash to the whole iĉ issue, it seems to me, is that some proponents have apparently been advocating an implementation wherein words like patro and frato would be neutered to mean “parent” and “sibling” — which would indeed be a backward incompatible approach.

But that isn’t the usual version of the proposal, in which iĉ would be just be another extension, not a revision, of existing vocabulary. In that strategy, wherever a word indicates a male, one would introduce a neuter counterpart (ex., genitoro for “parent”), to which one could add iĉ or in at one’s discretion. In some cases, existing words could do the job, like homo/homiĉo/homino in addition to viro.

Of course, many still won’t feel the need or desire for such a suffix, which is all well and good — I’ve seen more stillborn Esperanto neologisms over the decades than I can recall — and for me, who no longer keeps in touch with local Esperantists, the point is academic. But all this fierce objection to it over its backward incompatibility baffles me, since that was never the version of the proposal I’ve seen myself, and it too facilely dismisses the issue without really addressing it — which is probably another reason it keeps coming up.

morfran:Part of the problem surrounding the backlash to the whole iĉ issue, it seems to me, is that some proponents have apparently been advocating an implementation wherein words like patro and frato would be neutered to mean “parent” and “sibling” — which would indeed be a backward incompatible approach.

But that isn’t the usual version of the proposal, in which iĉ would be just be another extension, not a revision, of existing vocabulary. In that strategy, wherever a word indicates a male, one would introduce a neuter counterpart (ex., genitoro for “parent”), to which one could add iĉ or in at one’s discretion. In some cases, existing words could do the job, like homo/homiĉo/homino in addition to viro.

Of course, many still won’t feel the need or desire for such a suffix, which is all well and good — I’ve seen more stillborn Esperanto neologisms over the decades than I can recall — and for me, who no longer keeps in touch with local Esperantists, the point is academic. But all this fierce objection to it over its backward incompatibility baffles me, since that was never the version of the proposal I’ve seen myself, and it too facilely dismisses the issue without really addressing it — which is probably another reason it keeps coming up.

All the things you tell us are only reasons to reject that suffix more and more. The proposal, if it's true what you say because I've always heard about other arguments and I actually haven't confidence in what you said, is so messed up, and all because supporters could say anything to find more supporters. And in the best of the cases it's totally useless because it offers, as usually, a solution for a no problem thing. So it's just to add to the vocabulary a useless suffix, something useless to be learned.

Patro: Father
Patrino: Mother
Patrulo: Parent

It have been always there under the nose of everyone.

Ĝis, Novatago.

It is really a pity that orthohawk posted his great message on page 8 and not on page 1. This might have saved quite a lot of bile.

novatago:I've always heard about other arguments

As long as you keep objecting to arguments you’ve heard instead of the one in front of you, these 8+ page threads pitching this or that neologism will probably take up the bulk of your time here.

novatago:it offers, as usually, a solution for a no problem thing

As I said, many won’t feel the need for such a suffix. I’ve got a crazy hunch that you might be one of the naysayers.

novatago:Patrulo: Parent ... It have been always there under the nose of everyone

Where it’ll probably remain. After all, if “female father” doesn’t make logical sense to someone as “mother”, how would “father-person” make any more sense to them as “parent”? That, of course, and the niggling problem that patrulo doesn’t actually mean “parent”.

In any case, I’m not trying to convince you or anyone else that you should use or not use iĉ. All I’m saying is that it’s not the rule-breaking, dialect-making, dirty bomb that people here have been making it out to be, that it’s no worse — or better — than any other proposed suffix that’s already been rejected by the PMEG, and that some people here should really take a chill pill before turning on their computer.