Common Elements To Regularizing Esperanto Gender
Some critics feel that deriving feminine from masculine words is sexist, while others are bothered by the lack of symmetry. Such sentiments have sparked numerous attempts at reform, none of which have been accepted by the Akademio de Esperanto.
Reforms tend to center around a few key areas:
- A masculine suffix, parallel to the feminine -ino
- An epicene affix
- An epicene pronoun (he/she)
Three specific proposals surface repeatedly, as they derive from the existing resources of the language. These are the masculine suffix *-iĉo, workarounds and expanded uses of the epicene prefix ge-, and the epicene pronoun *ŝli.
Read more about this topic: Gender Reform In Esperanto
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—Bible: New Testament, 1 Corinthians 10:13.
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—Herman Melville (1819–1891)
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—Mary Stewart Van Leeuwen. Excerpted from, Gender Grace: Love, Work, and Parenting in a Changing World (1990)