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Female words in Esperanto

by Megatron, February 15, 2018

Messages: 6

Language: English

Megatron (User's profile) February 15, 2018, 9:42:01 AM

Hi again.

From this wonderful article: "https://stelachiamnurkritikas.wordpress.com/2018/0..." I see the following excerpt (the one that writes this is a hungarian girl):

"I was called: urseto – bear cub, steleto – starlet, (bel)koreto – sweetheart my whole childhood".

My question is: is this right? Shouldn't it be "ursetino", "steletino", "belkoretino"... as the one who gets this beautiful words is a ittle girl?

Thanks a lot!
Bruno

Matthieu (User's profile) February 15, 2018, 10:25:07 AM

This is right, most Esperanto words that refer to people or animals are gender-neutral. There are about 30 inherently male roots, they mostly refer to family members and nobility. See Seksa signifo de O-vortoj in PMEG.

Megatron (User's profile) February 15, 2018, 10:47:53 AM

So, same thing with bebo / bebino words I wrote about in my other post, isn't it?

Mia infanino estas "bebo", ne "bebino". Ĉu ne?

I have to study more Esperanto...

sergejm (User's profile) February 16, 2018, 4:41:54 AM

You can use 'mia bebino', but more often they use 'mia filineto' or 'etulino'. In the last word 'et-' is used as a root.
Note: add suffix '-in-' first, '-et-' after: 'ursineto';
'ursidino', 'ursidineto' - '-id-' is before '-in-'.

In some cases you can put -in- before -id-:
Mulo estas azenido kaj ĉevalinido.
Hino estas ĉevalido kaj azeninido.

Metsis (User's profile) February 18, 2018, 6:18:54 PM

Is there a rule for in which order to add those suffixes? Why -in before -et?

nornen (User's profile) February 19, 2018, 7:24:21 PM

Metsis:Is there a rule for in which order to add those suffixes? Why -in before -et?
The general rule is that you parse the word starting with the root and then one by one adding the suffixes. The difference between ursetino and ursineto may be minimal, basically the difference between a female small bear and a small female bear:
Mi havas tri ursinojn: du ursinetojn kaj unu ursinegon.
Mi havas tri ursetojn: du ursetinojn kaj unu virurseton.

As sergejm pointed out very importantly, with other suffixes the meaning might change radically:
ursinido = the offspring of a female bear (the progenitor is female)
ursidino = the female offspring of a bear (the offspring is female)
ridadigi = to make someone laugh repeatedly
ridigadi = to repeatedly make someone laugh
esperantineco = the quality of being a female Esperantist
esperantecino = non-sense
leonestrino = a female lion-tamer
leoninestro = a lioness-tamer

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