morfran:

novatago:Only because of this, you make me think that you don't see the diference between system and meanings of roots and/or words.

By “system” in this case, I’m referring to the principles and procedures by which gender is conveyed in Esperanto. According to the Plena analiza gramatiko, early Esperanto had no word for “male”; the absence of in made a thing male. Later Zamenhof used the root vir as a suffix to indicate masculinity (ex. bovoviro “bull”), but came under criticism because such compounds sounded like mythological creatures (“bull-man”). So later he changed his method for indicating masculinity by using vir as a prefix instead (ex. virbovo), which didn’t really address the problem (“man-bull”), but is still the usage we have now.

So, I was right, now there is a prefix in use and that not changed the gender system.

morfran:

novatago:it's easy to see that those words have been always both male and gender neutral

Unless you look into the matter, when you’ll find that this isn’t true.

You rather don't want to see it. But I'm not going to discuss anymore about this today. I rather talk to a wall.

morfran:

novatago:127 years of use

You’ve pointed to 127 years of use a couple times in this thread (and numerous times elsewhere) as proof that there are no real problems in the language and that the language has never changed on account of its already being perfect.

You just lie here. No more answer needed. I'm tired of your disgusting way to discuse.

morfran:

novatago:No mention that you are ignoring the problems of the reform you want.

Again, a new affix that does what vir already does but without the ambiguity is no more a “reform” than frida is.

And again you are ignoring the problems of it.[/quote]

morfran:As for my wanting this or that new word, I’m actually indifferent,

Yeah, that's evident because you just don't stop lie (in this and other in the last english thread I discuss in) and create confussion about this. No more answers needed for you. And if it weren't enough, you finish with an alternative of Godwin's law, speaking about islamic attitude. Great.

Ĝis, Novatago.

novatago:

morfran:You’ve pointed to 127 years of use a couple times in this thread (and numerous times elsewhere) as proof that there are no real problems in the language and that the language has never changed on account of its already being perfect.

I’m not sure by your use of boldface here if you object to my citing you specifically as the 127-years guy in addition to the claim of perfection, so I’ll address both:

While it’s true that you’ve said often enough, “Esperanto isn’t perfect, but...”, you typically follow up with some prohibition or other against suggesting any room for improvement, like:

novatago:oni ne rajtas eĉ sugesti ke ĝi ne bone funkcias. Esperanto bone funkcias, tio estas fakto pruvita de la tempo, ne mia opinio.

[One doesn’t have the right to even suggest that it doesn’t function well. Esperanto functions well, that is a fact proven by time, not my opinion]

If you think Esperanto functions so well that even hinting at improvement is a right that should be denied, then for all practical purposes, you think Esperanto is perfect. And that’s a fact, proven by time.

I should think the 127 years thing is evident to anyone who’s read this thread, but for the record:

novatago:To add a new gender system won't delete 127 years of texts and recordings.

novatago:And apart of that I don't see the point of making more difficult the grammar “solving” a no-problem (it's just an invented problem, or something about likes and dislikes, not a real problem and 127 years of use prove that) adding uselessly things, if you have to convince people that Esperanto is easier than other languages and later you obligate them to learn a classic grammar and a modern grammar.

novatago:So, I was right, now there is a prefix in use and that not changed the gender system.

Insofar as a “system” is a method of doing something, the gender system has changed several times. First there was the null-affix to denote masculinity, then -viro, then vir-. Now the null-affix system more often than not denotes gender-neutrality. That’s not a gender system in stasis.

And if the “prefix in use” doesn’t change the gender system, why would any other affix?

novatago:You rather don't want to see [it's easy to see that those words have been always both male and gender neutral]

Mhmm:

Wikipedia:In the early twentieth century, members of a profession were assumed to be masculine unless specified otherwise with -ino, reflecting the expectations of most industrial societies. That is, sekretario was a male secretary, and instruisto was a male teacher. This was the case for all words ending in -isto, as well as -ulo (riĉulo “a rich man”), -ano and ethnicities (kristano “a male Christian”, anglo “an Englishman”), -estro (urbestro “a male mayor”), and the participles -into, -anto, -onto, -ito, -ato, -oto (komencanto “a male beginner”). Many domestic animals were also masculine (bovo “bull”, kapro “billygoat”). These generally became gender-neutral over the course of the century, as many similar words did in English, because of social transformation.

novatago:you finish with an alternative of Godwin's law

Well, damn, in the previous post I was going to make a reference to a fanciful Boko Haram-like organization whose name translates to “Suggesting that Esperanto has problems is forbidden”, but you’ve head me off at the pass.

To somewhat help this discussion and prevent it from deteriorating further, I would like to note something.

The late Geraldo Mattos pointed out (in Esperanto) that there are two kinds of neologisms: ones that expand the vocabulary (lexical neologisms) and ones that expand the grammar as well as the vocabulary (grammatical neologisms). Lexical neologisms are a typical phenomenon and are acceptable. On the other hand, grammatical neologisms, he said, are "extremely dangerous" to a language since they modify it and do so flagrantly (and I would add that these could impose additional barriers to newcomers learning the language): this is what lead to Volapük's demise.

However, he also said that there are some grammatical neologisms that "provoke little scandal" because these already exist within the language, only not yet expressed materially before the appearance of the said neologisms (Mattos cited the case of "far", which was nearly officialized by the Academy; and I would argue that the proposed conditional participial suffixes "-unt-" and "-ut" also fit under this description.)

Thus, the question is whether the singular "ge-" (when referring to persons) and "-iĉ" constitute either a disruption to the structure of E-o that causes more problems than it solves or a manifestation of something essentially inherent and yet unexpressed mechanism within E-o itself which could improve it.

morfran:…

The fact actually your whole word just values nothing. You just lie and try in purpose to change the sense of my word as you want to be right. How easy is discuss in that way. How easy to discuss dishonestly while you give moral lesson to others. That's kind of person you are.

For everybody else, you can read what I say here: http://www.esperanto.com/enhavo/por-esperanto-kurs.... No dishonest interpretations, just my word. And of course I've said here I maintain that for 127 Esperanto has been used without any new suffix for that question and that's working. Yeah, there are people who want to do it in another ways, and they lie about Esperanto it's not working. But that just means that there are people who want to do it in another ways. And the fact is Esperanto is working properly without that in spite of the dislikes of some people. That's my word and that's the fact. No lies, no dishonest discussion: just facts.

Ĝis, Novatago.

Can you really be that much of a Sith-Lord that you are not willing to distinguish between "not perfect" and "not working"?

Morfran:

Wikipedia:In the early twentieth century, members of a profession were assumed to be masculine unless specified otherwise with -ino, reflecting the expectations of most industrial societies. That is, sekretario was a male secretary, and instruisto was a male teacher. This was the case for all words ending in -isto, as well as -ulo (riĉulo “a rich man”), -ano and ethnicities (kristano “a male Christian”, anglo “an Englishman”), -estro (urbestro “a male mayor”), and the participles -into, -anto, -onto, -ito, -ato, -oto (komencanto…

But if you know so well Esperanto, you should explain why you aren't saying everything. I mean, why you quote only some things and no others. Well, your lack of honesty. Ok, not a surpise.

Because although that quote is true, it's interpretable and is not all we can say about that, except if we want to discuss dishonestly.

We can read in PMEG (please, no one get excited before the end of the quote):
Evoluo «

La signifo de radiko ne estas ŝtone fiksita. La lingvo povas evolui, kaj ankaŭ fakte evoluas kaj ŝanĝiĝas. Multaj vortoj, kiuj antaŭe estis uzataj preskaŭ ĉiam kun vira signifo, estas nun pli kaj pli uzataj kun neŭtra signifo. Precipe ĉe profesioj la evoluo de la modernaj socioj ĉiam pli kreas bezonon de vortoj neŭtraj. Sed estas evidente, ke tiu evoluo ne povas trafi ĉiujn vortojn. La signifo de oftaj viraj vortoj kiel patro, viro, knabo, sinjoro, reĝo k.a., tre malfacile ŝanĝiĝos. Ili estas kaj kredeble ĉiam restos viraj. Ankaŭ la inaj radikoj havas tre firman signifon, kaj oni apenaŭ povas imagi, ke ili iam fariĝos sekse neŭtraj.

Well, first of all that's real evolution, not proposals because of a dislike of the system. In the other side, yeah right it says that many words were used as male gender (of course, because of the kind of society) but (also from PMEG in the next paragraph of the other):

Ĉiu plene rajtas daŭrigi la tradician kvazaŭ-viran uzadon de neŭtraj vortoj, sed ĉiu ankaŭ rajtas uzadi neŭtrajn vortojn plene sensekse. La du manieroj uzi la neŭtrajn vortojn ne vere konfliktas inter si. Ili ambaŭ baziĝas sur la propraj signifoj de la koncernaj vortoj, kaj estas ambaŭ logikaj kaj konformaj al la reguloj de la lingvo.

Well. Again is saying that those words are neutral gender today but really are they? I mean, everything we have quoted means that those neutral words (ist, ant, …) are, in practice, both gendered and, as in other languages and the gender depends on the context when it's really needed. But wans't it like that in the past when many professions where “only” for men. Well, just think about “vendisto”. You can say what you want, but a vendisto, in the past and now, if you don't speak about a known one, could and can be a man or a woman, since the night of the times.

Why is this so? Well, we can believe that Zamenhof forgot the neutral gender. We can believe that if we want. But, that evolution of the use is not an accident because both gendered male/neutral words in other languages was always there and to think that Zamenhof was forgetting the neutral gender is more a question of opinion, or interest, than a real fact. Yes, he later realise that for animal breeding that wasn't useful so he decided to use vir as prefix. He decided that, knowing he could just create a suffix to reflect -in, something to complement -ĉj. Oh really, we have to believe that? We have to believe that he just forgot the neutral gender? His problem was just about culture and society blindness, to think that it wasn't needed to mention that detail. In Lingvaj respondoj he not only said that the evidently male gendered word “li” can be used as neutral, but he also used it in that way. So, once again, why we should think that he forgot the neutral gender?

Well, Morfran, you are the sharpest person in this forum. Come on, be fun and say it. I didn't quote the PMEG before. The diference between you and me is that I don't need to lie about your or others' words. You do need because you know, you are only partly right or wrong, and well… you are just dishonest moral lessons giver. Just an hypocrite as you prove yourself before.

Stay here making fun of me, and thinking you have moral right to do so, and to calling me taliban, Hitler, Stalin. Keep lying about how unimportant is this for you and proving your hypocrisy. I giving up the discussion. I have stayed my point. Of course that's no solves the discussion because people like you don't want that. Too easy isn't it?

Anyway the fact is that there isn't any problem about that in the language only a discussion about likes and dislikes, and a specific problematic proposal.

Ĝis, Novatago.

I always hate it when this happens. When I was a beginner, upon reading about Ido crisis, I found it laughable (to say the least) that a community could be torn asunder because of linguistic details. But here's the proof. Fortunately, there is a Esperanto community beyond Lernu.

Just as the "-ita/-ata" conflict passed, this too shall pass.

i know i said i was gone, but since there's no "like"-ing or "upvote"-ing here...
i like patrik's attitude. imo, it's nice to see people so passionate about something like Esperanto. ^_^

Fenris_kcf:Can you really be that much of a Sith-Lord that you are not willing to distinguish between "not perfect" and "not working"?

I’m pretty sure even Sith Lords can distinguish between “not perfect” and “not working”. And even between “not perfect” and “not working well”, which is what Novatago actually wrote.

I just don’t think Novatago makes that distinction in practice when it comes to Esperanto; near as I’ve seen from his posts, the only problems and shortcomings to be found in the language are the ones invented by people who are either out to make trouble or have an imperfect understanding of the language, which makes it difficult for anyone to discuss Esperanto critically in these forums without being angrily condemned as an Idist, liar, and/or any number of combinations involving fi and aĉ.

Speaking of which:

novatago:But if you know so well Esperanto, you should explain why you aren't saying everything. I mean, why you quote only some things and no others. Well, your lack of honesty. Ok, not a surpise.

The subject there was the gender system in early esperanto. I quoted the entire section titled “The original setup”, which seemed more than adequate to underscore the very binary nature of the system then. Your quotes from the PMEG pertain more to current usage, and so miss the point.

novatago:I maintain that for 127 Esperanto has been used without any new suffix for that question and that's working

I think you’re forgetting that he made viro a suffix with a different meaning than viro as the second element in a compound word — that is, he created an independent masculine suffix without giving it its own root. And though it’s now used as a prefix, it’s still problematic:

Plena analiza gramatiko:But because vir has two other meanings (male human and adult human), one would need a special root for expressing masculinity; some have proposed “masklo”.

Edit: By the way, regarding “working well”, Esperanto can be said to be working well when it works as designed; where it has to resort to idiomatic exceptions to its own rules, as when it situationally changes the meaning of vir and ge to convey something simple like gender, it can certainly be argued that it’s not “working well” in this regard, only “making do”, which is why this topic has been around for so long.