A long-lasting argument against Esperanto is that it is sexist, in that its nouns are (or were) originally male by default, and required a feminine ending to become female.

Usage has shifted over the years, so that now it appears that most nouns are gender-neutral and require a prefix to indicate maleness ("vir-") and a suffix to indicate femaleness ("-in").

However, there are still a number of words -- largely kin-related -- that retain the older meaning; for example, "patro" means "father" (rather than "parent"; one does not say "virpatro", as far as I know) and "patrino" means "mother". The prefix "ge-", meaning "both sexes together", has been applied to create sex-neutral kin-terms like "gepatro" ("parent") or "gefrato" (sibling).

But this still seems to lead to an exception to the rule: nouns are gender-neutral UNLESS they're kin-based (for example), in which case you make a neutral word by applying "ge-".

Does it bug anyone else that there is an exception like this in Esperanto, whose strength is to be exception-free?

I've looked into "Riismo", a movement which both tries to add a new suffix for maleness ("-iĉ", derived from the male suffix of endearment, like "Paĉjo" for "daddy") and replace "li" and "ŝi" with "ri". I imagine that it's largely language bias, but I'm not too comfortable with outright replacing "li" and "ŝi" with "ri", especially when there are already two different ways to indicate gender-neutrality (insofar as I understand it): using oni, or making use of si (the reflexive pronoun).

Can anyone else give me examples of when a sentence meant to be generic (e.g., "sadly, in many cases an academic's achievement is judged more by the quantity, and less by the quality, of his publications") is formed in which the pronoun is not reflexive, and therefore "si" would be a bad choice?

In addition, Zamenhof (as I understood it) intended ĝi to be the gender-neutral pronoun (even when applied to people), which seems to have fallen by the wayside due to natural languages' (specifically, English's) discomfort with the idea of a genderless pronoun being applied to a person (i.e., "it" would not be applied to a person except in a derogatory sense). What are your thoughts about simply trying to get used to using ĝi in this context, as English speakers?

Also, what do you all think about "-iĉ" (and simply using "si" or "ĝi" as a gender-neutral pronoun in addition to "li" and "ŝi" instead of replacing them)?

Does anyone who is very experienced in Esperanto have any comments about the shift in language usage? Is it real? Does it seem to be heading towards a language full of exceptions?

Thanks for your thoughts!

-- Kat

I only want to say: quit your "maristo" job and enter the Academy of Esperanto
and thank you cause you always answer my little silly questions

fojo:I only want to say: quit your "maristo" job and enter the Academy of Esperanto
and thank you cause you always answer my little silly questions

Goodness -- thanks for the complement, but no way could I even hold my own with those folks. I'm still married to the dictionary when I read! ; )

-- Kat

waxle:It was my understanding that everything remained as it was in Zamenhof's original plans, with -in altering an implied masculine noun to be an inherently female one and vir- existing to make something painfully clear that it was inherently male.

That's very interesting, because that's not how it was represented to me way back when when I raised an objection to this kind of forumulation and to which I still object -- the question may not have come up for Zamenhof due to the culture of his times, but that kind of "inherently " type of forumlation is profoundly upsetting to me. So it looks like we've both got two very different senses about what's going on (though, personally, I'm not happy with either).

waxle:Even if this is developing into an exception in this area, I don't see that as a problem. It is the only thing that isn't exactly spelled out in Zamenhof's writings.

If usage is evolving, it can only be a sign that we are growing and living as a movement. After all, if Esperanto stayed the same as it had been when it was designed, we would not exist as we are today. Any growth and change is a sign of our thriving.

That's definitely very true; however, one of the key important central tenets about Esperanto is that it is specifically supposed to avoid linguistic drift. Drift, although completely natural, is how a single language develops into dialects and then, eventually, into different languages. We (as Esperantists) don't want that -- the purpose of Esperanto is to be an international language, which can't happen if it fractions into ununderstandable local dialects (much less different languages). So I'm kind of on both sides of the fence on this one: I want it to change, but I don't want it to change. Argh! ; )

Have you ever heard of "Nomic"? It's a self-amending game -- in the sense that players actually change (or, at least, propose to do so) the rules of the game with every turn. Douglas Hofstadter wrote about it in his book "Metamagical Themas". I mention this because he talks about the levels of rules in any kind of legal system: some rules are nigh-unchangeable, like the US Constitution. However, they have to be changeable, otherwise the system can't flex in response to changes in society, technology, etc. But it has to be very hard so that changes can't be made on a whim, or by a contemporary fad of sentiment. I wonder if the Academy of Esperanto has anything like that in place for Esperanto, or whether they consider Zamenhof's initial set of rules to be unchangeable? I really don't know -- do any of you folk know? It's an important question, and I'm an idiot for not having researched it in the first place! Heh.

-- Kat

I agree.

Don't get me wrong- I completely support female equality, but there are so many forms of injustice, and countries where women are persecuted horribly- and people are really paying attention to the addition of single syllable in Esperanto? I suppose that its not fair that nouns and such are automatically male, but really its just a form of being specific. If they were automatically male, we'd have the same problem, and why not be more specific than in languages like English where its not obvious whether a noun is male or female? I just think its a pretty irrelevant thing to be upset about. I'm sure most don't take it to be demeaning.

And if its such a demanding issue, then, as a living language, it will change over time.

See, I don't really think that Esperanto's incredibly gender-biased. To me, it makes just as much sense to say that you make a noun male by taking out the 'in' as it would to say that you make a noun female by adding the 'in'.

Vidu, mi ne vere pensas, ke Esperanton estas tre sekspartia. Pri mi, diradas ke, forigi la 'in' virigas vorton, estas sama al diradas, ke enigi la 'in' virinigas vorton.

p.s. Is there an Esperanto word for 'sense' in the way I used it in the first paragraph? I exhausted all my dictionaries and found nothing that would suffice...

sense = senco

to make sense = havi sencon

LaPingvino, lingvohelpanto de la Nederlanda lernu!

I feel the need to say that the notion that vir- and -in make everything equal is repulsive. There are some analogies to be drawn from this that make it painfully obvious that this practice is chauvanist to the core.

Homo = human. But that's a species, not how we refer to one another. "We" are 'people' in English. Men and women, if you look at the population through a dichotomous glass. The analogous terms in Esperanto as originally written are "viro kaj virino." (not virviro). We can't apply ge- to the term, because that definitely implies androgyny. So we are stuck with the generic term for 'person'or 'individual human being' as being indistinguishable and therefore synonymous with "male human being." Women, thereby become a sub-class.

Additionally, to say that you masculinize something by putting "vir-" before it further emphasizes the notion that being a human is somehow the same as being socially viewed as a man.

Therefore I support -icx and -in as equal modifications of neuter words, and avoid words with inherently gendered meanings (not that hard). Although I've found that very infrequently is it necessary to use either suffix. Does it matter that a woman title herself the 'female-spouse' (edzino) of her spouse? Or that someone clarify wether or not their partner is male or female, when mentioning them off-hand?

On the other subject, third-person pronouns, I see no need for the addition of a supposed epicine pronoun. We have one: gxi. An english-speakers inability to conveniently apply a non-gender-specific pronoun to a human being shouold not over=rule the millions who everyday refer to inanimate objects as the English equivalent of "he" and "she."

I just got back from a trip with a family of five (3 children, two parents) who spoke household Esperanto. The used terminology for the parents were "panjo kaj pacxjo." Equal footing, equal standing; as it should be.

I don't think it helps anyone to cry "sexism" when the word for a female whatever is made from the root of a male whatever.

Getting this picky about Esperanto takes away from what Esperanto is about. It's about making everyone equal throughout the world with one language. I really doubt that the good Dr. who created Esperanto was thinking women are second-class.

To start picking a language apart for its sexism takes away from the big picture. I don't feel second-class when I'm called "virino".

Esperanto is certainly flexible enough for you to make it gender neutral if you want, but I don't see the point of saying the standard way is chauvanist.

That implies those of us who don't do it your way are being sexist, and again, it's just tearing apart the Esperanto community to dwell on this minor detail. You're straining for gnats and swallowing camels

Shawna

I don't think it hurts the Esperanto movement in the least to openly discuss ways to use the language (as it is) while also addressing the fact that the language IS SEXIST.

While it is great that many people (male and female) don't mind the fact that there is a patriarchal word structure in Esperanto, it nevertheless has been (and likely will continue to be) a very well-founded criticism of the language for quite some time. Some people may suggest to ignore critics, but I defend the language that I love and work to further with great hope for what it can be: a language that everyone feels comfortable using.