kavaliro:Esperanto is a living language which transmits a living culture, and for that very reason, it changes over time. That's how living languages (and cultures) work.

I agree with you that living languages change over time. However, reform movements are almost NEVER the cause of such evolution. Languages generally change in small ways over time as people use words in ways that are more convenient. This is what happened in your example - words were originally default-male, but over time people started using them neutrally for convenience, so now those words are neutral. Those words which have not already become neutral are primarily those relating to familial relationships. I honestly doubt those will change naturally over time because it's real not any simpler or easier to change the current default-male familial words to default-neutral words and add a male suffix. That's not to say there aren't changes that should and will be made, but I doubt that particular change will catch on. In my opinion, use of ge- in singular words is a more logical and more likely solution to the lack of neutral familial words in Esperanto, simply because it's one I can picture people actually starting to use en masse to make up for that gap in Esperanto vocabulary.

Large-scale language changes (which the changes generally proposed are) almost never take place in real living languages without large-scale socio-political changes to back them, because only in those situations are people forced to take on such drastic changes rather than just ignoring them and speaking as they always have. Since Esperanto is relatively free of such changes due to its position, majorly changing the language without fracturing the community in some way is VERY unlikely.

That said, the OP was very harsh and I don't think that attitude is at all helpful in this discussion. However, I am impressed with the more mature voices on both sides of this debate, which luckily seem to be those still talking at this point.

kavaliro:No. That's wrong. Esperanto is a living language which transmits a living culture, and for that very reason, it changes over time. That's how living languages (and cultures) work.

But Esperanto is not a natural language. The point of Esperanto is to facilitate understanding between people. This can't happen if we let Esperanto evolve too much.

Eventually, all words will end up being gender-neutral, because over half the Esperanto population just freaking hates that gender-bias. I expect that "vir-" will deprecate in favor of something less awkward that better matches the "-in-" suffix, like maybe "-if-." "Patrifo" or "fratifo" actually sounds fairly good, now that I think about it. But something similar will eventually catch on, and it will be no different than adding a new word to the dictionary. But of course the rule-mongers will complain about it the whole while.

For someone arguing so adamantly for changes in Esperanto, you could've at least done a little bit of research before posting. There is a proposed, but of course unofficial, masculine suffix already in existence. It is -icxo, not -ifo

So you see, the idea that Esperanto is forever fixed in its orignal form is simply wrong. It's actually changed a lot over the years. I've only detailed one example. There are many.

Compared to a natural language, or even many constructed languages, I really do not see it as "so many." There is this example of gender and some examples of the specific meaning of words, but there seems to be little else.

If anyone were just allowed to change Esperanto at well, we'd end up with nonsense. The Akademio de Esperanto exists for a reason.

kavaliro:No. That's wrong. Esperanto is a living language which transmits a living culture, and for that very reason, it changes over time. That's how living languages (and cultures) work.

A great example of this is word gender. According to the specifications, nouns describing living things are male unless modified. In modern Esperanto usage, however, that is only true for a small fraction of words, particularly words that describe interpersonal relationships. To wit: when you see or hear "doktoro," or any profession, it's gender-neutral unless modified. Likewise any animal noun: "bovo" means gender-neutral bovine, not "bull," not "cow." The only words that currently retain gender bias are words that label a person: "fraŭlo," "patro", etc. That's just how it is. All the rule-mongering in the world isn't going to change that, because Esperanto as a language and a culture have moved on. The rule is no longer valid except in a historical sense.

Eventually, all words will end up being gender-neutral, because over half the Esperanto population just freaking hates that gender-bias. I expect that "vir-" will deprecate in favor of something less awkward that better matches the "-in-" suffix, like maybe "-if-." "Patrifo" or "fratifo" actually sounds fairly good, now that I think about it. But something similar will eventually catch on, and it will be no different than adding a new word to the dictionary. But of course the rule-mongers will complain about it the whole while.

So you see, the idea that Esperanto is forever fixed in its orignal form is simply wrong. It's actually changed a lot over the years. I've only detailed one example. There are many.

This is absolutely false. You do not own the language. The Akademio owns the language. As users, it is our obligation to speak and write according to their proscriptions. As explained before, this is entirely reasonable. The function of a language is to enable communication. Communication can only happen when both parties understand each other. If I don't understand you, then you have failed to communicate with me and the language was pointless. If you try to use some made up word like "-fi-" or "-icx-" instead of the universally understood Fundamenta vir-, then it's very likely that the other person won't know what you're talking about - especially if they're not familiar with every fringe idist/reformist attempt. Trying to force a masculine suffix simply will not work because the language was not designed with one in mind. It quite frankly doesn't matter how many people hate the "gender bias" of the language (not that it really even has one). That's how Zamenhof decided it should be. That's how Esperantists have used it for over 120 years. That's how it will remain. People aren't going to totally change their speaking habits and forgo almost the entirety of Esperanto literature before this point just to satisfy your whim.

AllenHartwell:Fundamenta vir-

In the beginning, there was no way to indicate the male gender at all; everything that could be male was presumed to be so unless suffixed with -ino.

Later, Zamenhof began using -viro as a suffix to indicate the male gender. While innovating a masculine suffix obviously did not destroy the language, as certain people in this forum insist that it must, it did create other problems, since viro already meant something besides “masculine”, and some combinations with it were easily confused with creatures from Greek mythology.

In the 1920s, under criticism for the inadequacies of viro as a suffix, Zamenoff made it a prefix in his translation of Genesis. From that time on, vir- by convention (though not by actual meaning) came to mean “male”, while -viro retained its usual meaning of “man”.

The point of this:

• The language, even on the issue of how to convey gender, is obviously malleable.
  
• Zamenhoff himself introduced a male suffix, though awkwardly. The concept of a male suffix, therefore, is not only not kontraŭ-Fundamenta, but historically already part of the language.

Incidentally, some people (myself included) never heard of -uko as a suffix for a castrated animal. Found it today in the PAG (§372) while looking up the viro thing: introduced by Australian breeders, it’s described as akceptinda by the PAG. Live and learn.

AllenHartwell:… You do not own the language. The Akademio owns the language. As users, it is our obligation to speak and write according to their proscriptions …

Urm …

Ludwik Lejzer Zamenhof:Lingvo internacia, kiel ĉiu nacia, estas propraĵo de ĉiuj; la aŭtoro forlasas por ĉiam ĉiujn personajn rajtojn al ĝi.

"Why do people even bother with Esperanto if they don't like it?"

1.) Because it helps you learn other languages (and the grammar of your own language).

2.) Because it's easy and fast to learn, included in that is it gives you confidence in language-learning or -using.

3.) Because you can potentially travel to places and stay with people cheaply when/where you couldn't before.

And for some people:

4.) Only being interested in talking with people from all over, Esperanto is perfect because you reach people who don't speak any major English more easily, but smaller conlangs have too few speakers. Likewise you can probably even go to that Esperanto meeting in your hometown and meet a few foreigners who happen to know Esperanto but not the local language.

5.) It's small enough to be a "secret language" between you and your friends.

6.) Because for some people it actually is bigger than their native language or any other language they know well/fluently.

7.) If you're interested in making your own conlang become successful, it's good to learn the most successful one(s) to see what's good and what's not.

(This is all obvious but I can't really comment on if it's off-topic or not, as I'm just replying to the actual thread title and was shocked at how contrasting the OP was to the title...)