Making iĉismo disappear
de orthohawk, 2015-junio-10
Mesaĝoj: 91
Lingvo: English
eshapard (Montri la profilon) 2015-junio-10 21:47:03
sproshua:we're all talking about different things. i'm not talking about sexism as a societal problem. i'm talking about language as a function of one's being, how one thinks about oneself.Yes, I see where you're coming from. I could be bothered by the fact that Esperanto apparently prefers females. Clearly, females get their own special suffix, while males have to make do with the crappy general form; it does seem to suggest that the language prefers females.
But hey, I don't let it get me down.
rapn21 (Montri la profilon) 2015-junio-11 08:46:38
Kirilo81 (Montri la profilon) 2015-junio-11 08:57:39
rapn21:I don't understand the problem with -iĉThere is something like an untouchable norm, the Fundamento.
See here for a variant of iĉismo which does not break the norm.
rapn21 (Montri la profilon) 2015-junio-11 10:54:22
Kirilo81: There is something like an untouchable norm, the Fundamento.But -iĉ isn't contrary to the Fundamento, in fact it was pulled from existing Esperanto vocabulary.
See here for a variant of iĉismo which does not break the norm.
Kirilo81 (Montri la profilon) 2015-junio-11 12:25:58
rapn21:But -iĉ isn't contrary to the Fundamento, in fact it was pulled from existing Esperanto vocabulary.The mere suffix is not problematic, whereever it comes from, but its application to roots, which are male according to the definition in the Universala Vortaro. A patro is a man, you can't change this into patro 'parent', patriĉo 'father'. But you can introduce parento (or whatever you like) and derive from it both parentiĉo 'father' and parentino 'mother' on equal grounds, solving at the same time the problem of neutral parento(j) = classical cumbersome "patro(j) kaj/aŭ patrino(j)".
rapn21 (Montri la profilon) 2015-junio-11 13:55:09
Kirilo81: The mere suffix is not problematic, whereever it comes from, but its application to roots, which are male according to the definition in the Universala Vortaro. A patro is a man, you can't change this into patro 'parent', patriĉo 'father'. But you can introduce parento (or whatever you like) and derive from it both parentiĉo 'father' and parentino 'mother' on equal grounds, solving at the same time the problem of neutral parento(j) = classical cumbersome "patro(j) kaj/aŭ patrino(j)".But surely the addition of a suffix is easier than adding twenty new roots? Wouldn't it be less change and disruption?
Tempodivalse (Montri la profilon) 2015-junio-11 14:41:28
rapn21:But surely the addition of a suffix is easier than adding twenty new roots? Wouldn't it be less change and disruption?Kirilo demonstrated the problem with iĉ very succinctly. The problem is that the 20-odd roots are "hard-coded" to be default masculine. While it's possible for Fundamento words to alter their meanings, or usage, slightly (as in the case of ŝati), it seems like a more serious change to redefine the word for father as parent.
So the obvious solutions are: 1) develop a new "hard-coded" default feminine word for each masculine one; 2) develop a new gender-neutral term to which you can apply both feminine or masculine suffixes. Well, there's 3), don't do anything and keep the current system, which involves no disruption or change, but we're not interested in that, I guess
sproshua (Montri la profilon) 2015-junio-11 17:42:28
again, i'm not coming at this from a sexism angle. i'm talking about self-identity. some people are happy to let society via society's terminology to define them. others not so much. and while i don't doubt your commitment to feminist values, you don't get to decide what is and what is not important to another person. i recently conversed with someone who tried to tell me the issue of gay marriage is not important, and should not be important to me, because there are, in that person's opinion, more important matters in the world, like ISIS. i reject those sorts of arguments.
and to answer your question, i'll have two years under my belt this summer.
@Tempodivalse:
there are other shifts in pronouns, such as the annoying use of they/them/their as a gender neutral singular.
bartlett22183 (Montri la profilon) 2015-junio-11 17:49:45
Why is it that people will accept all kinds of oddities, quirks, twists, strangeness, and inconsistencies in so-called "natural" languages but get bent all out of shape over a mere 20-or-so words in another living language, Esperanto? Yes, if I had been Zamenhof in the 1880s, I might have done a few things a little differently, but the language works as it is. It seems that only newcomers who have never really mastered and used the language get all upset. In fact, the only additions (please note, not changes) I myself would really make to the language would be to add a sex-neutral third-person singular personal pronoun and a general second-person singular pronoun. These are the only two items in which I think Ido has an advantage, but E-o has worked without them for a century and a quarter, nevertheless. I think it can survive without them for another century or so. Tempodivalse (Montri la profilon) 2015-junio-11 18:18:41
sproshua:@Tempodivalse:Minor comment: singular they has been around since Early Modern English, and used by people as renowned as Shakespeare, Austen, and Shaw. It's only "annoying" on a prescriptivist view. Descriptively - it has had an enormous precedent from a very long time.
there are other shifts in pronouns, such as the annoying use of they/them/their as a gender neutral singular.
sproshua:you don't get to decide what is and what is not important to another person.Sure. But I think the more important point is: you don't get to decide what is standard or accepted Esperanto. If the Esperanto speaking community does not use icxismo or similar reforms, the reforms will simply continue to be considered wrong.
Analogy: No matter how much I think thou/thee/thy should be restored in English, it's simply not going to happen (with apologies to orthohawk) and I will be pegged as weird - or as having a poorer grasp of the language, becuase I apparently don't know any better.
If someone really wants to be addressed as ri, I don't mind using it when speaking with that person - just as I would be OK with using thou if I were talking with a devout Friend. But this doesn't mean I would use it more generally, for example in a formal text.
The upshot is: We get to decide what's important to ourselves, but we can't make the language - a living entity outside the control of any single person - decide it's important.
But I think I've been repeating this same message over and over, so I'll stop now.