Tempodivalse:

orthohawk:I'm opposed to such teaching if it is not accompanied by a notation saying it isn't official and not everyone will understand if the learner uses it To not teach it when there are people out there who DO use it, is almost as bad, IMO

The percentage of people who use ri is very small. Introductory courses shouldn't have to go out of their way to bombard new learners with every single nonstandard usage that someone might see. The job is to teach typical, bonstila Esperanto - the kind you see in the mainstream, e.g. Tekstaro, Wikipedia, news services, etc.

Again, I don't see ri as being kontraufundamenta. Rule 5, on my interpretation, is not explicit in prohibiting new pronouns. But I find it superfluous. Ĝi is a good alternative (as Kirilo et al. indicated), and even tiu for certain contexts.

The way I handle things is to not teach it, per se. I usually just make a side note when discussing the personal pronouns (same with "ci" ). I say "there are people that use this form for such-and-such a purpose. It is not "standard" nor will everyone understand it or the real intent behind its use, so be aware that if thee chooses to use it, thee* will be questioned about it so be prepared to explain thyself*."

*with proper use of "you" and "yourself" when teaching more than one (only had this happen one time, haha)

fenris_kcf:I think it was obvious, that this would happen. And i appreciate it, since it shows the desire and need for a language, that is not only easy to learn, but also carries a mood of equality. IMO that can't be achieved with the ~20 male roots and the asymmetry in sexus-suffixes and personal pronouns. So it's just logical to critize these.

A language grammar per si mem cannot be sexist; this is a common claim, but it makes what philosophers call a category mistake. Sexism [edit: I meant sexist language], at least in the way we normally think of it, is a feature of content, or semantics. What you say in the language can be sexist or not sexist.

Of course, certain grammar rules have evolved (or been developed by Z., in Esperanto's case) in virtue of long-standing patriarchial attitudes - this explains why, in Romance languages, you always use the masculine pronouns for mixed company, and in Russian, who, everyone etc. are by default masculine. Zamenhof was a man of his time, and followed the patterns he saw in those languages.

However, grammar rules are content-free: they provide the structure into which you place the content, the "meat". This suggests that they are, by and large, outside the bounds of sexism, insofar as sexist language deals with content, not structure or meta-features.

For example: Suppose you have a Russian text strongly opposing sexism. It makes no sense to say that the text still must express some level of sexism because of some formal feature of Russian that gives preference to the masculine grammatical gender. This is because we're looking for sexism at the "wrong level": at the meta-level instead of the content level.

Note that -ino familial terms could be replaced by a new separate root, without violating the Fundamento (introduction of a new root). Patro - matro, etc. Iĉismo does violate the Fundamento, because it redefines patro as "parent", against the Universala Vortaro.

For other words, though, lack of a feminine suffix has long ceased to indicate masculinity. There are now two genders for animate terms: explicit feminine (-in), and undefined (null ending).

Tempodivalse:

But I find it superfluous. Ĝi is a good alternative (as Kirilo et al. indicated), and even tiu for certain contexts.

That's not really for you to decide, though. It's for non-binary people to decide. If they don't like being called "ĝi" or "tiu" (and to be quite honest, I wouldn't either), that's their prerogative, especially if they fluently speak Esperanto and are still seeing a problem.

Disclaimer: I think use of "mojosa" is a sure sign that the person using it is extremely un-cool, so as soon as someone uses it I think they're totally lame. I'm generally against language reforms. I'm not ri-ist in any way, shape, or form.

However.

Forgetting about Esperanto for a second, pronouns for genderqueer people are not standardized in any 'natural' language that I'm aware of. Therefore a polite early question to genderqueer person, in my understanding, is "what pronoun do you prefer?", and I've understood that some events for genderqueer people have something on the nametag about which pronouns they prefer ("John [he/him/his]" )

Standardized genderqueer pronouns in Esperanto? Forget it, such a thing will never exist, each person will choose what they feel is suitable for themselves, as is currently done in other languages. I don't see English standardizing it, given the huge spectrum of genderqueer people, and I don't see Esperanto standardizing it either.

If a person feels free in English to give an invented pronoun to describe themselves, or to use plural pronouns in the singular, then I would fully assume that in Esperanto a person would feel equally free to choose the same options available to the standard English speaker. I would roughly categorize these as repurposing existing words ("ili" in the singular, or "gxi", or maybe "oni" ), or making up a new word (I'd put "ri" in this category, and anything else someone cares to invent - zi? ti?)

I feel this is something that official grammar doesn't need to occupy itself with. It will never be standardized, I would assume it will never be taught in a course (because it won't be standardized and it would in fact be impolite to go calling all genderqueer people "zi" or "oni" or "ri", when presumably they do not all want to be called this). So anyone worried about reforms - I think you can relax. It's not something I see as an issue here. Though for the record if someone thinks they are going to get all genderqueer people to agree on a single pronoun (either invented or repurposed), I think you can forget about that, it simply won't happen in such a diverse community.

@Tempodivalse
Actually i didn't say that Esperanto is sexist; i said that the sexus is expressed asymmetrically and that's what i and many others criticize. I criticize it because it is unlogical and there's no sense in doing it that way; it's an unnecessary obstacle on the way to learn Esperanto.

Regarding Iĉismo: Personally i prefer Hiismo, in which the darn 20 roots keep their sexus.

As people are still discussing that it is wrong to teach ri in Esperanto course for beginners I want to do it again, so that there would be no doubts about it (sorry for that, but I don't like people giving wrong information)

DUOLINGO DOESN'T TEACH RI OR -IĈ-! DUOLINGO TEACHES STANDARD ESPERANTO! THAT'S IT! ALL THE REFORMS ARE DISCUSSED IN FORUMS WHERE PEOPLE CAN FREELY DISCUSS ANYTHING

I would appreciate if people who was saying it about duolingo would edit their posts in the beginning, don't blame duolingo, blame people participating in forum's discussions (even if it is me, I don't care but it would be better to blame me rather than duolingo which is a very good course)

erinja:Disclaimer: I think use of "mojosa" is a sure sign that the person using it is extremely un-cool, so as soon as someone uses it I think they're totally lame. I'm generally against language reforms. I'm not ri-ist in any way, shape, or form.

Kiel mojose.

erinja:Disclaimer: I think use of "mojosa" is a sure sign that the person using it is extremely un-cool, so as soon as someone uses it I think they're totally lame. I'm generally against language reforms. I'm not ri-ist in any way, shape, or form.

So, given thy position in the Esperanto/Lernu community, thee doesn't think this attitude can be seen as censure? By thy own words, mojosa-users are "lame" (a usage, by the way, I put in the same category as "gay" used for "stupid"...please cut it out); how thee cannot see this as insulting and condescending is beyond me.

In British English the title "Mx." (pronounced "mix" or "mux" ) is standardized for non-binary people and people of unknown gender. People can obviously use other titles if they want.

In written Spanish it's now acceptable to put the letter @ in place of "a" or "o" in similar circumstances. This doesn't stop someone from deciding they want to be a u.

In Swedish there's a standard gender-neutral pronoun, "hen." This isn't to say people can't go by whatever pronoun they want in Swedish, but I think people like to see their existence acknowledged by the language they speak regardless.

Similarly, lots of non-binary Esperanto speakers have said that, while people can obviously go by whatever pronoun they like, and do, it would still be a nice gesture for Esperantists as a whole to begin acknowledging even just the most common pronoun for non-binary people, "ri."

Fenris_kcf:@Tempodivalse
Actually i didn't say that Esperanto is sexist; i said that the sexus is expressed asymmetrically and that's what i and many others criticize. I criticize it because it is unlogical and there's no sense in doing it that way; it's an unnecessary obstacle on the way to learn Esperanto.

Regarding Iĉismo: Personally i prefer Hiismo, in which the darn 20 roots keep their sexus.

Personally, I think hiismo is the height of ridiculousness and red-herring-ism. I personally am a matristo: Come up with explicitly feminine roots for "those darn 20 roots" and be done with the whole mess. I mean, really; we are discussing adding a mere 20 words to the vocabulary. Not such an intolerable onus IMO, considering the dea(r)th of the whole "esperanto is sexist" attitude.

(I'm not sure if that last sentenc was sarcasm or not. Maybe it's both, lol)