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Sure Esperanto is great. We all (members of this guild) think that. But still, there are some details I wonder why the inventor(s)/developer(s) of Esperanto wanted to have as they are:

1. "Maleity" (what's the English word?). A language of peace should be queer. That's it.
Esperanto isn't. Just look at the suffix -in, which denotes female version of the word. And then we have a ge- prefix for words that are both male and female (gepatroj=parents).
That means that every word is male, if you don't specifically mark them as female or neutral. Does that sound allright? No, it doesn't. Should be that every word is neutral unless you don't mark it as male or female, shouldn't it?
Also, it would be a great idea, when you create a new language, to not separate he from she. It really isn't necessary, and somewhat hinders sexual equality. I think that in Finnish you don't distinguish between them.

2. Single you pronoun. There is one: ci. But why isn't it used? Maybe I should start using it and others will learn what it is and see the advantage of it...

Yeah, I hear you on that one. Esperanto isn't a perfect language. But then again, when it was created (before women [at least in America] really had a say in things) In modern-day society it makes no sense, but back then, I suppose it did.

In the constructed languages guild, they have a nifty link to a language-creating guide. On the website it links to, the author links to a page with the irregularities of Esperanto.

On a side note, I believe "ci" means something like "thou" and really wouldn't make much sense in modern life, either.

I also generally ignore the "in" prefix. After all, is it really totally appropriate to tell the world about the fact that your cat is a girl? I'll still use "ge" because as far as I know, "patroj" means "fathers" and there's no gender-neutral word for "parent." Please correct me if I am wrong heart

See, the problem (in my opinion, and in the collective opinions of people who regard Esperanto as a sexist language) is that the words for "parent" (gepatro) and "mother" (patrino) are formed from the word for "father" (patro), whereas it would make more sense if they had a root for "parent" and then formed the words for "mother" and "father" from that root... for example, patro could have been assigned the meaning "parent," and then father and mother would be virpatro/patricxo and patrino, respectively.


When I speak Esperanto, I deliberately attempt to equalize "-in-" and "vir-/-icx-". If I want to refer to, say, an Esperantist who just happens to be female, I will use "esperantisto" instead of the gender-biased "esperantistino" which calls unnecessary attention to the fact that this person is a woman.

Interestingly, though, I keep the linguistic gender bias intact when I'm talking about animals. I refer to my (male) dog, Zack, as a "hundo" (not "virhundo"), and yet I refer to female dogs as "hundinoj". I'm not sure why exactly I do that. I think it might be because we tend to have special words for female animals in English -- a female dog is a b***h, adult female cattle are cows, a female bird is a hen, etc. -- and so I feel obligated to specify what sex an animal is, lest the listener assume that the female animal to which I am referring is male.

i think the hardest thing is the question words "kiu, kiam, kio, etc..." I always have trouble remembering which ones are which neutral

Then we'll just have to teach you!

Hey, did you know there is a variant of Esperanto, called Riism (Riismo)? Perhaps it's only me who is behind the news ("new" meaning at least 1991) sweatdrop but I just found out.

Anyways, the variant basically adds two rules to the language:

• Ri as genderless third-person pronoun. That is, li and ŝi are substituted, to ultimately remove difference between genders.
• The -iĉ- suffix, which is the opposite of the official -in-. Also, the "unsexifying" ge- prefix is removed since the need of it disappears.

Read what I read at http://eo.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riismo

What I don't like is what I said in the initial post: there are different pronouns for he and she respectively, plus the thing with the -in suffix. Riism solves this problem, and therefore I prefer it.

o-o
Esperanto is pretty simple to pronounce. Ĥ might take some practice but it's not that complicated and even though you're supposed to roll your r's any type of r is acceptable. Only others I can think of are things like "Kiuj" which sounds like a cross between key-ewwie and Kiwi.XD
I don't think you need to learn another language before it to make it easier. It's easy already. Although it's true learning a second language makes any after easier.