Do you support Riism ( http://www.rano.org/riismo2.html )? I prefer to use the -iĉ masculine suffix, but not the word "ri", because "tiu" already does the same job.

Some of you may say such changes are bad because they put potential learners on unstable ground. But I don't think so because of two reasons:

1. Sexism is a big drawback of Esperanto, perhaps the worst along with the adjectival agreement, the accusative case, the accented letters and the eurocentrism. But, unlike the others I listed, it actually disgusts people from E-o instead of merely annoying them.

2. It doesn't really introduce much backwards incompatibility. Imagine I told you in English "Hey, friendicho, how are you?". You'd think it's incorrect and peculiar, but you for sure would understand.

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Cu vi subtenilas la Riismo ( http://www.rano.org/riismo2.html )? Mi preferas uzi la -iĉ vortfino, sed ne la vorto "ri", ĉar "tiu" jam faras la sama.

Iu de vi rajtas opinas ke ŝanĝos kiel tiu estas malbona, ĉar ili metus homojn kiujn lernus la parolumilon al malstabila bazo. Sed mi ne opinas tie ĉar:

1. Seksismo estas granda malboneco da Esperanto, kredinde la plij malbona flanke de konseno de a-vortoj, la n-kazo, la akcenta leteroj kaj la vortaro pruntado nur el Eŭropaj fontoj. Sed malkiel la aliaj mi listigis, ĝi reale naŭzas la homojn da Esperanto anstataŭ nure sentigas ilin malbonan.

2. Ĝi ne aligas multa malantaŭen malkongruo. Imagu ke mi dirus vin en Angla "Hey, friendicho, how are you?". Vi opinas tio estas malkorekta kaj stranga, sed ja vi komprenus.

(btw if I annoy you by writing both in english and bad esperanto in the english part of the forum, just give me a shout, I'll stop.)

I don't support so-called riismo. Riismists are cut from the same cloth as the people who tried to get "manhole covers" officially changed to "personhole covers", "history" to "herstory", and "woman" to "womyn".

The truth is, languages aren't sexist -- people are. The hypothesis that pronouns somehow contribute to or detract from women's rights is provably false. Compare the situation of English- or German-speaking women (German is in some ways even more "sexist" than English) with that of Arabic-speaking women (Arabic has no words for he and she, like riismo). Case closed.

Moreover I'm not really comfortable with the whole idea of "enforcing" politically correct speech and thought. What if I, as a short person, decide that malaltulo reflects an Esperantic hatred of short people because there's no special morpheme for "short"? Where does the witch hunt end once it starts?

So since there's no legitimate reason to change this, I feel it's fine as is. Let "general use" decide what gets used and what doesn't.

Mi ne subtenas tiel nomatan riismon. Riismistoj memorigas min de tiuj homoj kiuj provis laŭofice ŝanĝi "manhole covers" je "personhole covers", ŝanĝi "history" je "herstory", kaj ŝanĝi "woman" je "womyn".

La vero estas, ke lingvoj ne estas seksismaj -- homoj estas seksismaj. La hipotezo, ke pronomoj iel aldoni aŭ forpreni rajtojn de virinoj estas pruveble malvera. Komparu la situacion de Anglaparolantaj kaj Germanaparolantaj virinoj kontraŭ la situacio de Arabaparolantaj virinoj. La hipotezo malpruviĝas.

Krome, vere ne plaĉas al mi la ideo ke politike pravaj parolado kaj pensado estu "devigaj". Kio okazus, se mi, kiel malaltulo, decidus ke la vorto "malaltulo" spegulas Esperantan malamegon por malaltuloj ĉar ne ekzistas faka vortero por "malalta"? Kiam finiĝus la persekutado post ĝia komenco?

Do, ĉar ekzistas nenia bona kialo por ŝanĝi ion, mi opinias, ke ĉio bonas tiel nun estante. Ĝenerala uzado definu tiujn, kiuj uziĝos, kaj tiujn, kiuj foriĝos.

Cu vi subtenilas ("subtenas" pli klaras) la Riismon ( http://www.rano.org/riismo2.html )? Mi preferas uzi la -iĉ vortfinon, sed ne la vorton "ri", ĉar "tiu" jam faras la saman (mi preferus "faras same", aŭ"efike samas" anstataŭ "faras la saman").

Iu de vi (mi preferus "Iuj vi" aŭ pli bone "oni") rajtas opinii ke ŝanĝi kiel tiu ("kiel tiu" estas bona, sed "tiel" bone funkcius ĉi tie ankaŭ) estas malbona, ĉar ili metus homojn kiujn lernus la parolumilon (ne klaras al mi, ke tiu signifu "lingvon") al malstabila bazo. Sed mi ne opinias tiel ĉar:

1. Seksismo estas granda malboneco ("malbono" estus bona ĉi tie ankaŭ) de Esperanto, kredinde la plej malbona flanke de konsento ("kongruo" pli taŭgus) de a-vortoj, la n-kazo, la akcentaj ("ĉapelaj" estas la kutima vorto) literoj kaj la vortara pruntado nur el Eŭropaj fontoj. Sed malkiel la aliajn, kiujn mi listigis, ĝi reale naŭzas la homojn de Esperanto anstataŭ nure sentigas ilin malbonan.

2. Ĝi ne aligas multe da malantaŭa malkongrueco ("backwards compatibility" estas komputila ĵargonaĵo parenteze). Imagu ke mi dirus vin (tiu estas permisita, sed "al vi" estas preferinda) en la Angla "Hey, friendicho, how are you?". Vi opinius ke tio estas malkorekta kaj stranga, sed ja vi komprenus.

Well, I don't subscribe to Riism fully, although I respect the position of its proponents.  I think the main purpose of constructed international languages is easiness, and depending on your parent language, you may be accustomed to speaking in a gender-specific or gender-neutral way. For that reason, Esperanto should make it easy to speak in a gender-specific or gender-neutral way, according to taste.

So I, as an English speaker, use "li" and "sxi", but I could expect mandarin-speaking esperantists to use "ri" if they were taught the word (sadly, many teaching materials don't include it.)

I find that the pronoun 'ri' is very useful for the very common situation where, in English, you must say "he or she" or "him or her", which is cumbersome.  English speakers can perceive the need for a gender-neutral pronoun, hence the rise of the "singular they".  In my opinion, a separate pronoun is clearly a better solution.

-icx- is also a good idea, but I find that gender usually isn't relevant enough to bother explicitly specifying.

 

In situations where English would force the use of "he or she" (or singular "they"), in Esperanto you can always use either tiu or si, depending on whether it refers back to the subject of the clause or not. Thus there is absolutely no need for a new word "ri" in Esperanto, even if there is such a need in English. Riism doesn't seek to simplify, but to complicate the language in order to satisfy certain peculiar contemporary notions of political correctness.

Tiafoje, kiam en la angla oni devus uzi la konstruaĵon "he or she" (aŭ la malpluran "they"), oni nepre ĉiufoje povas uzi tiun aŭ sin, depende de ĉu la pronomo referas al la subjekto de la subpropozicio. Tial nepre ne necesas nova vorto "ri" en Esperanto, eĉ se tian la angla bezonas. "Riismo" ne celas faciligi la lingvon, sed celas malfaciligi ĝin por plenumi kelkajn strangajn hodiaŭajn ideojn de politika ĝusteco.

I could expect mandarin-speaking esperantists to use "ri" if they were taught the word

My understanding (extremely limited mind you) is that the corresponding symbol in Chinese is closer in meaning to tiu than to "ri".

can't gxi refer to a person? I think esperanto already has a gender neutral pronoun, so why make things any more complicated?

Gonzo: As far as I know, "ĝi" can never refer to a person, only an inanimate object, animal, or the like.

BeauC: "Oni" is usually more for a non-specific person, where you would use "you" as a way of demonstrating what someone could, must, etc. do (like I just did in that sentence).  But since that's mostly when you would need a non-gender-specific pronoun...

As for me, I think it's a little inconsistant to support the addition of the "-iĉ-" suffix and the removal of both "li" and "ŝi."  I think the "-iĉ-" suffix itself could be a welcome addition to the language in cases where you want to specify a male, since I've always felt that using "vir-" as a prefix sounds a bit cumbersome.  However, I see no problems with having seperate male and female pronouns - perhaps I'm biased because my native language has such a feature, but I don't see how it could truly be sexist, and it comes in handy when discerning between individuals.

Just my thoughts.

Firefox ate the message.....*cries*

The gist of my long post is that, "ri" is a good idea in case someone is writing fisction for a character of no gender or of both genders.

As for -iĉ, I also support it, for the fact that it makes Esperanto more cohesive. I may want to say the male teacher, I could use vir-, but it's more regular to use -iĉ as we have -in. As rules go, it makes sense...but I'm just a learner...

I'm not opposed to degendering Eo, but I find it would more than complicate things. English is fairly genderized. Hebrew is very much more so. I ask why all the fuss? What's wrong with it? It isn't like there is no difference between male and female. (I'm teasing a bit.) But I think we make it seem more important than it is. Yes, it would have been neat to have it gender neutral. But it is just as cool to have it use gendered cases regularly. I would be in favor of a language being able to express both just as easily so one could naturally express either, like when translating "friend" (gender neutral in English), but "amigo" or "amiga" in Spanish is gender specific. Then the translater could get an accurate translation. But Eo half provides that option, which is acceptable, but not perfect. But the more important point to me is that it is already done. Although I am in favor of discussions like this, I do recognize a change adds a lot of complication. How's this one: I have recently been applying myself to learn Korean. In Korean, their "R" or "L" sound is one sound and is different than English & Esperanto. It is very hard for a Korean to say the English R, L, or even W. W tends to be silent, while L and R sound the same. So law and raw is best understood by context. Now how this applies to this Eo topic is that "Ri" in my opinion would be a nightmare for a Korean Esperantist to so commonly distinguish from "Li". I would want a different word. "Hesxi" is more appealing to me, but for that matter, "hesxi" is not official, but about any esperantists would very quickly understand its use. And that is the point--to be understood, not "technically" correct. Thus we already have a solution for the he/she predicament. We only need to use it whenever we care to. But so many people would differ in terms of what suffiv should be used for masculine words such as father, brother, etc. And the bigger problem that a popular change would bring is when someone uses "frato", would they be meaning the original meaning of 'brother' or do they mean the new/modified meaning of 'sibling'? This one, in my humble opinion is better left unsolved as is unsolved in most cases in English: uncle/aunt, cousin/cousin (not gender specific), etc. I don't think the gender shortcoming is a big problem. The bigger problem is not using Esperanto and not having a universally accepted and supported language. I've looked into Ido, and I intend to apply myself to learn Ido when I'm fairly fluent with Esperanto. But we must pick & choose, then apply ourself to what we choose, then we can try more. I must first learn Esperanto before I push for major support of changing it in any way. Maybe I will find that my first prejudisms against certain aspects aren't that much of a problem as I thought they were to begin with. Maybe they are more of a problem. But my first step is to learn Esperanto.

I mentioned Ido, and got sidetracked. Ido is a gender neutral Esperanto alternative, inspired by Esperanto. But I think that in them "solving" problems they deduced that Esperanto had, I think they made just as many. For instance, they went totally English/Latin alphabet for sake of not liking supurscript symbols for trouble representing them in a plain Latin only context. So they use our English ch for ĉ and sh for ŝ. But I *hate* sh and ch use in English. I think this is one of the best parts of Esperanto that every sound has a distinct letter and ever letter has a distinct sound. It is MUCH simpler. In "fixing" Esperanto, I think they added several complications. But I have not learned Ido and Esperanto, so I don't know which is the easier yet. But I do see that Ido is not near as popular, so I chose Esperanto because I have learned a language is considerable work to learn. And finding good resources is very important. Esperanto has many good resources.

Long live Esperanto!

Thanks for considering my thoughts. That's the point and spirit of Esperanto. To be able to understand others. And I think it solves that problem very well!