JinxLeRai:I do sometimes speak German with this friend, but have encountered the same problem there – the necessity of gendering nouns makes me pause when introducing them to others. Are they a "Sänger" or a "Sängerin"? I tend to awkwardly rephrase in order to avoid this, but I'd like to find a good solution there too!

Side note: Actually a German word ending with the suffix "-er" does not explicitly refer to a male person, but a person/thing that does something (e.g. "Bäcker" (baker), "Lehrer" (teacher), "Rechner" (computer)). The reason why it is mainly regarded as male person/thing, is that the genus (the grammatical gender) of such a word is always masculine and also the existence of the "-in"-suffix marking the sexus (the natural gender) without a male counterpart — Fodder for the Gender-Nazis.

Tempodivalse:(Mildly unrelated comment.)

I find it somewhat ironic that, despite the criticism that Esperanto's -in suffix is sexist, there is no equally simple way to indicate explicit masculine. Of course, there is the prefix vir-, which looks a little awkward, and can be ambiguous - is virbovo a bull or a man-bull, e.g. minotaur? For that reason, I will often prefer a standalone adjective vira, or rely on context where possible (e.g., use of masculine pronoun).

My understanding is that in the early days of Esperanto, -vir was used as a suffix to denote a male animal. And this suffix use of vir could be ambiguous.

From what I've read, when roots are combined to make a compound word, if one root modifies the other as an adjective or adverb, then the modifier root goes first and the modified root second. You also get to drop the -a or -e in the middle.

So if I wanted to say "a bull-like man" (like the Minotaur), I could combine bova and viro to make bovviro. The problem is that vir as the second (modified) root is indistinguishable from -vir as a suffix. Bovviro (once a common term for a bull) looks like it could be bull-man (minotaur).

Using vira as part of a compound word, however places vir before the root being modified: virbovo = male bovine, or bull. Bovo is not a suffix, so there should (in theory) be no ambiguity.

At least, that's what I've read.

It's probably safest just to use vira as as separate adjective... and to use minotaŭro, faŭno, etc. for creatures of myth.

*From what I've read, when roots are combined and they have a relationship that would be expressed with a preposition, the preposition-governed root goes first: e.g. sunbrilo, sunshine (brilo de la suno)

Side note: we really don't have special names for many male animals in English either. Or if we do, they're not well known, or can only be used as adjectives due to overlap with other species. e.g. A male lion is just a male lion, (vira leono), but the lioness get's her own name; A male dog, fox, and wolf are all 'dogs'.

JinxLeRai:

RiotNrrd:amiko = friend (no gender specified)

If you wish to underscore that they are female, use amikino.

If you wish to underscore that they are male, use viramiko.

Just saw your reply after posting my previous answer, RiotNrrd – thanks for the response! Looks like my problem is not so problematic after all; I hadn't realized that "amiko" was gender-neutral. I think I will do as you say.

Hmm, perhaps Hokan Lundberg and Bertilo Wennergren, the authors of La Puzlo Esperanto, a course on this very site, would be interested to know this. When I did the course not so long ago they were teaching that amiko = male friend .

Bemused:...
Hmm, perhaps Hokan Lundberg and Bertilo Wennergren, the authors of La Puzlo Esperanto, a course on this very site, would be interested to know this. When I did the course not so long ago they were teaching that amiko = male friend .

And they were right.

Some people consider "amiko" to be a male friend, some consider it to be a gender neutral friend. This usually depends on native language. There are people who for cultural or linguistic reasons group "amiko" with the gendered family words like patro or onklo.

Hokan may have had a certain opinion but Bertilo includes "amiko" in his list of neutral words.

http://bertilow.com/pmeg/gramatiko/o-vortoj/seksa_...

Ŝi estas amiko doesn't cut my ear in the same way as *Ŝi estas knabo*. I might automatically insert a -in-, but that's probably due to my Slavic influence.

Also: Is malamiko (using the same root) a male enemy or gender neutral enemy? If you don't have the same problem saying Ŝi estas malamiko, then it's likely the root is not gendered at all.

The clue that "amiko" is not gendered is the relatively minimal historical use of "geamikoj" when talking about mixed groups. Or putting it differently -- it is not expressly stated that it's a mixed group but you have to assume this, otherwise Esperanto literature describes a world strangely empty of women.

If I said "Li havas multajn fratojn", there is no doubt at all that I am talking about men only. If I say "Li havas multajn amikojn", you basically have to assume that his many friends include both men and women, without necessarily saying "geamikojn", and indeed "li havas multajn amikojn" would be the overwhelming choice over "li havas multajn geamikojn".

Furthermore, a simple search of tekstaro.com shows that since Zamenhof's writings in the earliest days of Esperanto, "amikoj" has been the overwhelming choice, in uses where it is clear that we are talking about both men and women, because of the numbers of people involved ("estimataj esperantistaj amikoj" -- you have to assume that we are not talking only to men!!).

Fenris_kcf:

JinxLeRai:I do sometimes speak German with this friend, but have encountered the same problem there – the necessity of gendering nouns makes me pause when introducing them to others. Are they a "Sänger" or a "Sängerin"? I tend to awkwardly rephrase in order to avoid this, but I'd like to find a good solution there too!

Side note: Actually a German word ending with the suffix "-er" does not explicitly refer to a male person, but a person/thing that does something (e.g. "Bäcker" (baker), "Lehrer" (teacher), "Rechner" (computer)). The reason why it is mainly regarded as male person/thing, is that the genus (the grammatical gender) of such a word is always masculine and also the existence of the "-in"-suffix marking the sexus (the natural gender) without a male counterpart — Fodder for the Gender-Nazis.

True, but I highly doubt most Germans would say of a female friend, for instance, "Sie ist Lehrer"

JinxLeRai:

Fenris_kcf:Side note: Actually a German word ending with the suffix "-er" does not explicitly refer to a male person, but a person/thing that does something (e.g. "Bäcker" (baker), "Lehrer" (teacher), "Rechner" (computer)). The reason why it is mainly regarded as male person/thing, is that the genus (the grammatical gender) of such a word is always masculine and also the existence of the "-in"-suffix marking the sexus (the natural gender) without a male counterpart — Fodder for the Gender-Nazis.

True, but I highly doubt most Germans would say of a female friend, for instance, "Sie ist Lehrer"

Err, for me, this is the normal way of expressing it. "Sie ist Lehrerin" for me sounds like an unnecessary emphasis of her sex.

FWIW, in Russian "friend" is not inherently gendered - as exemplified by the famous quote from the Soviet movie Кавказская пленница: "Женщина - друг человека!"