Some comments on some ideas people have expressed.

Regarding international speakers, I think Zamenhof had the full expectation that Asians and others would learn Esperanto. But he drew words from the languages he was familiar with; it would be difficult for him to draw words from languages he didn't even speak. And I can't say how much he knew about the families of world languages, but if he had added words of Japanese origin, that helps exactly one country - the Japanese. Japanese has a few small minority languages in its family, but it is otherwise all alone in the language world. Other languages of the region are for the most part not only not closely related, but not even in the same FAMILY. Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Vietnamese, Russian, Tagalog, Thai - these languages are not even remotely related. So yes, it is hard for a Japanese person to learn Esperanto words based on French. But it is equally hard for him or her to learn words based on Chinese, Korean, etc, because these languages are equally alien to Japanese, aside from a few words that come from historical ties in the region. If I were to write Esperanto today, I STILL would not include much at all from Asian languages, simply because it doesn't help that many people, compared to the number of people it inconveniences.

Regarding using riismo to remove gender entirely, I have always believed that this is pointless. While I am all for gender equality in language, and I personally tend to use gender neutral terms in English (police officer, firefighter, cleaner, flight attendant), I think that adding a pronoun and removing old pronouns is going a little far. If I wish to speak neutrally in Esperanto, I am able to, just as I can in English. It is seldom important, one way or the other; there are languages the world over that are highly gendered and highly gender neutral, yet people seem to express their thoughts just fine.

You will never make everyone happy, everyone is influenced by their native language. Some English speakers say 'we want to be able to be vague about gender'. Some French speakers say 'we want to be able to specify gender because it's important to know what you're talking about'. For reference, in Hebrew, if you want to say "I love you", you have to specify whether the speaker is male or female, and also whether the person being loved is male or female. A Hebrew speaker might get annoyed that Esperanto has no way to specify this, unless you wanted to go with a clumsy solution like "I, a male, love you, a female". Yet if a Hebrew speaker were to suggest that Esperanto verbs and the pronoun "you" should all specify gender, I think most people would say that this is taking things too far and that we don't need to be this specific.

Expectations of what a language should or shouldn't be able to express in an elegant manner are heavily based on the native language. Everyone, please keep this in mind when you give your "objective opinion" on gender and language. I am sure that if you think with an open mind, you can think of at least one instance where it would be nice to be more specific in an elegant way, and at least one instance where you would want to be vague on purpose.

And, in my opinion, since everyone is not likely to agree on what would constitute "improvement" here, even on the question of being more specific versus less specific, probably we should just leave things as they are. We got along for more than 100 years like this, right?

Tomo S. Vulpo:The person you talk to knows his or her own gender, so why would you need to tell him or her?

I have no idea, why don't you ask the creator of the Hebrew language? It's just the way it is, I can't give a reason.

This is not just true of Hebrew, but Arabic as well. It would sometimes be useful in writing; if you had a male and a female, and you were unsure of which was speaking, the verb form would tell you. It is useful the same way that the words "he" and "she" are useful. If I point to a man and say "he can do it", it is clear to everyone that is a man, I don't need to emphasize it. But in writing, "he" can do it, versus "she" can be a useful distinction. Likewise, if I receive a Hebrew e-mail from someone, I know immediately if it is a man or a woman. Does it matter? I don't know. Some people might say yes, some people might say no. My only point is that people can have lots of opinions on these topics, based on how their native languages handle them.

And unless you are communicating with somebody anonymous on the internet - which isn’t as old as linguistic genders, by the way - you should always know the gender of your conversational partner as well, so differenciating the gender of the speaker is pointless, too.

So let's do away with "he" and "she" then, shall we?

I am not interested in arguing about the reasons for Hebrew grammar, or the reasons for French grammar, or the reasons for Esperanto grammar. It is the way it is. Our task is simply to learn the language, not parse the exact reason for every construction.

Also, Zamenhof did know Hebrew and he doesn’t seem to have thought that it is neccessary, either.

Perhaps you have missed my point.

My point is not that we should make this change in Esperanto because Hebrew had it. My point is that people have lots of ideas about what is a good or a bad idea in grammar, and these ideas are influenced by other languages that these people speak. Just because Hebrew does something doesn't mean that Esperanto should do it. Just because English does something else doesn't mean that Esperanto should do it. And just because German, French, Japanese, and Swahili do all kinds of things, does not mean that Esperanto should do those things.

Thus, your point is invalid.

You have missed my point completely. My point was not 'change Esperanto'. My point was, "You can't please everyone".

And since I have quite evidently displeased you, I think my point was more than valid.

Maybe you should be more concerned about your "objective opinion" on why people think what they think?

Does it really matter? The point is that people have lots of opinions. Their opinions are based on more than just logic. The children of Liberals tend to be Liberals. The children of Conservatives tend to be Conservatives. I am sure that all of these children would argue that their opinions come from logic, not from the beliefs of their families. Yet I don't believe that liberalism and conservatism are genetic. We are influenced by our circumstances, and in my opinion, this includes language. We grow up speaking a language. We learn a new language. We say "Hey, it's so hard to do XYZ in the new language, and so easy in my language; why doesn't the new language do it the way that my language does, which is far superior?" It has certainly happened to me. I remember when learning Italian, I was disappointed to learn that you can't learn adverbs as flexibly as in Esperanto.

Now, if you are done with your preachment, O Open-Minded One, please be nice enough to explain to me how this is related to anything.

The relation is that you can't please everybody, that people are influenced by other languages they speak. Particularly with gender issues. Not every opinion is formed from logical analysis. Many opinions that people have about suggested improvements to Esperanto grammar have their basis in someone's idea that Esperanto should do things more the way that their native language does. Often the native language allows for more nuance, or less. Beginners feel frustrated that Esperanto can't match this increased nuance, or increased ambiguity (whichever they prefer), from their native language (or from another language they speak well).

I am interested in making peace in this forum. I think that some of our differing opinions are based on cultural differences and differences in native languages. And that's ok. I am not interested in flame wars and rude comments.

R2D2!:

Pupeno:I think "aim to perfect the language" is not the right way to go, but solving the gender issue is not that hard: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riism

Since there's already a proposal, you only have to adept it. Personally I've adopted it.

It's even easıer to solve ıt usıng “ĝı”. There's no need for a “rı”.

—Ilhuıtemoc δ

I also posted about that in the 'Does the -in suffix bother you?' thread.

R2D2!:
It's even easıer to solve ıt usıng “ĝı”. There's no need for a “rı”.

Adding a new word with a new meaning only means some people will have to use the dictionary once more time in their life. No big deal. Changing the meaning of a word (like using "ĝi" to mean "he/she" instead of it) means that the reader or listener will not understand you, will misunderstand you without realizing it or will understand something weird is going on and won't be able to find the answer, because no searches or questions about "ĝi" would reveal the new meaning.

R2D2!:
But “ĝı” ıs a neutral gender pronoun, so ıt can be used ınstead of he or she. Don't be confused between your mother-tongue pronouns and Esperanto pronouns.

—Ilhuıtemoc δ

My mother-tongue doesn't have anything like "ĝi" or "it", I'm not confusing anything with my mother-tongue.

Now, according to http://reta-vortaro.de/revo/art/gxi.html: "Pronomo de la tria persono en singularo, por montri aĵon aŭ estulon". Now I'm confused. Are human beings creatures (as in estulo)?

Can anybody copy the definition of "ĝi" according to la PIV?

If "ĝi" is as you said, it'd be amazing, but then all these would be wrong:

http://en.lernu.net/enkonduko/lingvoprezento/verbf...

http://en.lernu.net/lernado/gramatiko/konciza/pron...

http://en.lernu.net/lernado/gramatiko/detala/prono...

and many others.

According to PMEG, ĝi is only for things, animals and children:

ĝi ≈ la priparolata aĵo, besto aŭ infaneto

http://bertilow.com/pmeg/gramatiko/pronomoj/person...

But aren't children, human beings, and "gxi" is obviously use in that case without problems.

Pupeno:According to PMEG, ĝi is only for things, animals and children:

ĝi ≈ la priparolata aĵo, besto aŭ infaneto

http://bertilow.com/pmeg/gramatiko/pronomoj/person...

Pupeno, I wouldn't use the PMEG to support your actions, if I were you.

Bertilo has a few things to say about language reform in there.

http://www.bertilow.com/pmeg/gramatiko/o-vortoj/se...

Iuj Esperantistoj ne volas vidi la lingvon trankvile evolui rilate al sekso, sed volas ĝin draste reformi. Oni proponadas diversajn novajn afiksojn kaj pronomojn por fari la lingvon “perfekta”. Tiuj reformoj efektive kaŭzus pli da problemoj ol ili solvus. Feliĉe en la praktiko ĉiuj tiuj klopodoj montriĝas vanaj malŝparoj de energio

"Some Esperantist don't want to see the language calmly evolve with relation to gender, but want to reform it drastically. They continually propose various new affixes and pronouns to make the language "perfect". These reforms actually would cause more problems than they would solve. Happily, in practice, all of these efforts have proven to be vain wastes of energy."

FYI Pupeno, I think this has been said to you before, but there is really no need for "ri". Whenever people want to be vague about gender, existing words like "oni", "tiu" and "iu" have been more than sufficient. I have never once been forced to give someone's gender when I didn't want to.

But then again, use of some of those things make it OBVIOUS that you are trying to hide someone's sex, just like using 'ri', and just like fantasy/sci-fi authors who go by their initials (any long-time fan knows that these are almost all women - in fact, I see that an author goes by initials and a last name, and my first assumption is that it's a woman, until I learn otherwise)