Newsgroups: sci.lang,soc.culture.esperanto
Path: cantaloupe.srv.cs.cmu.edu!bb3.andrew.cmu.edu!newsfeed.pitt.edu!newsflash.concordia.ca!news.nstn.ca!ott.istar!istar.net!van.istar!west.istar!n1van.istar!van-bc!unixg.ubc.ca!aurora.cs.athabascau.ca!news.mag-net.com!freenet.unbc.edu!news.scn.org!scn.org!lilandbr
From: lilandbr@scn.org (Leland Bryant Ross)
Subject: Re: GENDER in Esperanto.
Message-ID: <DwntFJ.7uM@scn.org>
Sender: news@scn.org
Reply-To: lilandbr@scn.org (Leland Bryant Ross)
Organization: Seattle Community Network
References: <4vgd6s$7hr@cantuc.canterbury.ac.nz>  
Date: Sat, 24 Aug 1996 20:40:30 GMT
Lines: 125


<W.Taylor@math.canterbury.ac.nz> (Bill Taylor) says:

>"hundo"    means dog, either definitely male or unknown or irrelevant.
>"hundino"  means definitely female dog, good.
>
>But there is (seemingly) no very quick way of referring to a definitely
>male dog.  It could easily be useful (say in a vet's manual or kennel's
>regulations) to refer to a male dog *and* a dog-of-either-sex even in
>the same sentence!  Now it seems to require a cumbersome circumlocution.
>Whereas with the neutral construction given above...
>
>hundo     either sex
>hundino   bitch
>hundilo   male dog
>
>...and their plurals, are all so simple!

The traditional way of referring to a definitely male dog is to prefix 
"vir-" (literally "man-", somewhat like English "he-"):

   virhundo          hundo          hundino
   (he-)dog          dog            (she-)dog, bitch

The principle is illustrated--with the VIR-prefix in caps--in these two
passages from "Genezo" (using the BFBS's normative "Londona" version, as
it were Esperanto's King James): 

7.2-3 (re Noah's menagerie):  El cxiuj brutoj puraj prenu al vi po sep 
  paroj, VIRbestojn kaj iliajn inojn ; kaj el la brutoj, kiuj ne estas
  puraj, po du, VIRbeston kaj gxian inon.  Ankaux el la birdoj de la 
  cxielo po sep paroj, VIRbestojn kaj *virin*bestojn [!], por ke semo
  restu sur la tuta tero.

30.35 (re Jacob's Lamarckian subterfuge):  Kaj li apartigis en tiu tago 
  la VIRkaprojn striitajn kaj makulitajn kaj cxiujn kaprinojn mikskolorajn
  kaj makulitajn, cxiujn, kiuj havis sur si iom da blankajxo, kaj cxiujn
  nigrajn sxafojn ; kaj li transdonis ilin en la manojn de siaj filoj.

This is not as elegant or (to my sense) satisfying a solution as a "male" 
suffix, but it *is* the actually used and traditional (it's in the friggin'
*Bible*, fer cryin' out loud!) way of handling the matter, and it's 
really no more "cumbersome [a] circumlocution" than the elegant -in--
formoj for females.

BTW Bill,
-il- is not available for use as a male suffix, since it is already an 
  established Esperanto suffix meaning "tool, implement, instrument, 
  means for ~x~ing".  Thus 
     "hundilo" 
  would probably be taken by most Esperantists as referring in an 
  *abnormal* way to certain accessories (leashes, collars, bowls, 
  curry-combs, maybe flea powder...) sold in pet shops, and 
     "patrilo"
  as referring (hapax-legomenistically) to (a) male genitalia, (b) sperm-
  bank equipment, or maybe (c) "parenting tools" of the self-help-book
  or psychotherapeutic ilks.

>4.  Is anyone doing anything to correct it!?

Some Esperantists--a few seriously, a few others in jest--currently use 
the suffix -icx-, formally motivated by analogy to the male-term-of--
endearment suffix -cxj-
     pacxjo = daddy     (cf. panjo = mommy, or mummy if your English
                                     dialect permits such a necrotic
                                     spelling)
and promulgated in the so-called "Riisma Manifesto" (which also mandates
the pronoun "ri" in place of "li" and "sxi", hence its title), to make 
any root male:

patro          patricxo          patrino
parent         father            mother

frato          fraticxo          fratino  (fracxjo  -  franjo)
sibling        brother           sister   (bro'     -  sis)

hundo          hundicxo          hundino
dog            (male) dog        (female) dog, bitch

>5.  If not, is it too late to correct it?

This (-icx-) is still a novelty; most Esperantists who don't read soc.
culture.esperanto religiously are probably not even aware of it.  It is 
certainly too early to predict whether it will ever supplant the 
traditional system (which incidentally Zamenhof designed more along 
English than "genera" European tradition" lines).  However, Esperanto is 
a living language, and such a shift cannot be ruled out as a possibility.
In my own lifetime most English-language actresses have become actors--
sans surgery!--and at least in the US the mandatory Mrs./Miss dichotomy 
has become a more fluid Mrs./Miss/Ms. continuum.  Deleting the gender 
implications of words as fundamental as

  patro    father

  filo     son (Turgenev's novel will have to be republished as _Patricxoj
               kaj Filicxoj_)

  edzo     husband (the "gay marriage" issue creates additional problems 
              here) -- the etymology of this root (from a Yiddish borrowing
              of a French/Italian *feminizing* suffix, cognate w/ Eng -ess!)
              is amusingly eclectic

  frato    brother

  sinjoro  Mr. (also Sir and lord/Lord)

  avo      grandfather

kaj

  onklo    uncle

will require an unusual level of commitment on the part of an unusually 
high percentage of Esperantists in order to overcome the inertia of 
custom.  But it can be done, and it is a change I suspect (shall we ask 
the Brazilians?) Zamenhof is rooting for from his mansion in Homaranismo-
Heaven.  The man (expert linguist or not) was not an intentional sexist, 
as his translation of the early Polish feminist novel _Marta_ bears 
witness, and Bill's right, this *is* a glaring deficiency and structural 
injustice in the language that cries out for a remedy.
--
Liland Brajant ROS'                "Sed krom se iuj el la  homoj  malsategas,
P O Box 30091                      kiel do la socio povas posedi strukturon?"
Seattle, WA 98103 Usono            -Gulivero (Ted Danson) en la nova televida
Tel. (206) 633-2434                 versio,  citita  en  "Baptist Peacemaker"
