Tangi:My language does not distinguish men, women, and objects in the 3rd person references. It is OK. I'm not ashamed of this. There is no need to be ashamed that your grammar is somewhat not European.

Your Lernu profile indicates Russian. I'm supposing your native language is something else, because Russian is quite gendered: pronouns он, она, оно, and the past tense of verbs reveals gender (был, была, было).

Nobody's criticising non-European languages here.

I feel rude when I assume someone's gender. In English, I deal with that by avoiding saying "sir" or "ma'am" to strangers, and I refer to strangers in stories as people/persons rather than men or women. I tend to say "they" when I am talking about a person I don't really know. To me, this is respectful, more respectful than spending time imagining what their genitalia or chromosomes are like so that I can use the most logical pronoun.

I have seen some posts on here of people saying that you can't force riismo through reform, only through grassroots usage. I have also seen some suggestions that ri and -icx- are not widely used and therefore invalid. Perhaps this is because the people saying these things don't hang out in Esperanto-speaking LGBT spaces very much, that's why they don't see these terms being used fairly fluidly and in a "grassroots" style rather than a few random people trying to pass down a reform. Maybe it is a passing youth slang fad and will go away. Maybe it will stick only in LGBT circles. But neither ri nor icx, regardless of what you think of them, are just being forced on people and proposed academically--they are actually in active, regular use by some people. This isn't beginners experimenting with the language, this is an actual case of a living language being alive. And like a reformist can't change the language to their liking, there isn't really a way to stop a living language's natural changes and vernacular from developing against a traditionalist's will, either.

whysea:Perhaps this is because the people saying these things don't hang out in Esperanto-speaking LGBT spaces very much, that's why they don't see these terms being used fairly fluidly and in a "grassroots" style rather than a few random people trying to pass down a reform.

Do you spend a lot of time in LGBT circles, and are "ri" and "icx" widespread in those circles? I have not noticed it among my LGBT friends but perhaps they speak differently in LGBT spaces than they speak with me?

erinja:

whysea:Perhaps this is because the people saying these things don't hang out in Esperanto-speaking LGBT spaces very much, that's why they don't see these terms being used fairly fluidly and in a "grassroots" style rather than a few random people trying to pass down a reform.

Do you spend a lot of time in LGBT circles, and are "ri" and "icx" widespread in those circles? I have not noticed it among my LGBT friends but perhaps they speak differently in LGBT spaces than they speak with me?

I've not noticed this either. I would be interested to see exactly what kind of precedent these forms have. Thus far I have, with vanishingly small exceptions, not seen them used anywhere by proficient speakers - not in the spoken language, and definitely not in the written language. The latter, at least, can be empirically demonstrated by doing a search of Esperanto texts.

It may be possible that iĉismo survives primarily (or only) in the spoken language of a certain sub-group of speakers among themselves (sort-of like thou is still used by some Quakers).

Duolingo may not be "helping with reform" per se, but I did just come across a lesson that teaches "mojosa".....granted it identifies it as slang; however, it says nothing about its (perceived?) restricted use to a very small user base of Esperantists.

orthohawk:Duolingo may not be "helping with reform" per se, but I did just come across a lesson that teaches "mojosa"...

As much as I think the term is idiotic (and derived from something wildly inaccurate), it seems pretty clear that mojosa is entering the language. I come across it fairly frequently, although I don't use it myself (because many things which are "cool" have nothing to do with current youth styles). As far as "reform" goes, however, mojosa doesn't really seek to change anything fundamental in the way that adding a new pronoun or suffix would; it's mostly just a new root - the least disruptive thing you can add to Esperanto - and new roots do get added to the language every year. Regardless of how some (such as myself) might feel about it, it does appear to be gaining traction, and I think a time will come when people will stop talking about it as a new thing, and just consider it a thing.

I don't see this acceptance happening with sxli, ri, na, etc. Not in the sense of a prediction, but in the sense that I literally don't see it happening. About the only time I really come across these are in forum discussions regarding reforms; in practice they are gaining virtually no traction amongst the general Esperanto-speaking population, even though they have been around at least as long as I've been involved in Esperanto (coming up on ten years now), and no doubt a lot longer than that.

I think the thing with mojosa is that there really is no word in Esperanto which even approximates the English slang term "cool", which is so expansive and subjective that I would have a heck of a time trying to define or describe it with any kind of adequacy. But, as with obscenity, I still know it when I see it. And I can see people wanting Esperanto to have a word with a similar position. I would prefer a word other than mojosa, but you know - whatever. If that's the word people have chosen, then that's the word. And that does seem to be the word a large* segment of the community has chosen. So, alright.

--------
* I don't know what "large" is by the numbers, but I guess it's "enough that I come across it fairly regularly while tooling around the Esperanto internet", whatever that implies.

I think the thing with mojosa is that there really is no word in Esperanto which even approximates the English slang term "cool", which is so expansive and subjective that I would have a heck of a time trying to define or describe it with any kind of adequacy.

As I pointed out elsewhere, there are plenty of alternatives to "mojosa" if one wants to express "cool" (a word you don't see in lots of languages). I treat "mojosa" the same way I treat English slang - I don't use it, but I accept it as having a place in certain registers of the language.

I personally like malacxe. Or what about: sxike, klase, belbele, bonbone?

Tempodivalse:

erinja:

whysea:Perhaps this is because the people saying these things don't hang out in Esperanto-speaking LGBT spaces very much, that's why they don't see these terms being used fairly fluidly and in a "grassroots" style rather than a few random people trying to pass down a reform.

Do you spend a lot of time in LGBT circles, and are "ri" and "icx" widespread in those circles? I have not noticed it among my LGBT friends but perhaps they speak differently in LGBT spaces than they speak with me?

I've not noticed this either. I would be interested to see exactly what kind of precedent these forms have. Thus far I have, with vanishingly small exceptions, not seen them used anywhere by proficient speakers - not in the spoken language, and definitely not in the written language. The latter, at least, can be empirically demonstrated by doing a search of Esperanto texts.

It may be possible that iĉismo survives primarily (or only) in the spoken language of a certain sub-group of speakers among themselves (sort-of like thou is still used by some Quakers).

Well, I don't have alot of specific instances of this to point to, because, as Tempodivalse has pointed out a few times, there's not alot of texts in which people using ri and iĉ will appear. You could say that as well of alot of words and grammatical formations from natural languages' dialects and subcultures, too, at least pre-internet.

Most of my encounters with people using ri has been in speaking with transgender people and genderqueer people, mostly in chat rooms, blogging sites, and anonymous forums. Often they will just say they want to be called ri, or either of us will just use it in conversation because we feel comfortable doing it--at least, the times I have used it, I haven't been corrected, and they times they have used it, I haven't corrected them. What either of us was thinking at the time is unknowable but I feel it's safe to imagine that neither of us were very bothered that "ri" was being used as a normal word.

Here is an example I have found of someone using "ri" as their preferred personal pronoun, someone who I have encountered just simply because of being a queer Esperanto speaker: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sf0mpiFWoyk

Prior to reading this thread I wouldn't have thought much of the fact that [ri] mentions "ri" as [ria] pronoun in the description, to me that is a common thing to see, as well as people simply just using it.

As far as iĉ goes, I would say it isn't as common--to the point that I will only use it when I feel people aren't going to hop in and criticize me, or simply not understand what I am saying--but I have definitely seen others use it unironically, and not just komencantoj messing around.

Oh, and I would like to also mention mojosa and na...I have to say that I see mojosa so regularly that I don't even think of it as something new or contentious. It's everywhere, at least in the circles I'm a part of. And while I don't really use "na" myself, nor do I claim that it is widespread, I have definitely seen it being used outside of a grammar discussion on more than one occasion.

orthohawk:Duolingo may not be "helping with reform" per se, but I did just come across a lesson that teaches "mojosa".....granted it identifies it as slang; however, it says nothing about its (perceived?) restricted use to a very small user base of Esperantists.

Sorry to
1. resurrect an old thread and
2. reply to my own post, but

I've found in the past week or so, that although Duolingo isn't "teaching" reforms, per se, they don't really have to if they're going to allow learners to come in and spam the discussion forums with their pet reforms and allow them to encourage other learners to adopt their fake esperantisms.

Why bother doing something when you can just let others do it for you? at least then you have an "alibi" of sorts and can say "hey, *I'M* not doing that!!!"