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Gender asymmetry is one of the aspects of the constructed language Esperanto that is most frequently targeted for criticism. There are numerous proposals to regularize both grammatical and lexical gender. In the text below, when a proposed word or usage is not grammatically correct according to the standard rules of Esperanto grammar, it will be marked with an asterisk. == Gender in Esperanto == (詳細はgrammatical gender other than in the two personal pronouns ''li'' "he" and ''ŝi'' "she". Nevertheless, gender is often a fuzzy issue. In practical usage words formed with the suffix ''-ul'' "person" are ambiguous, sometimes used with a masculine meaning in the singular, but generally neutral in the plural. However, concepts of gender have changed over time, and many words that were once considered masculine are now neutral, especially words related to professions and animals. In older texts it is only context that disambiguates. For example, in the saying ''al feliĉulo eĉ koko donas ovojn'' "to a happy man, even a ''koko'' gives eggs" (Zamenhof), the word ''koko'' means "rooster", not "chicken".〔Kalocsay & Waringhien, ''Plena analiza gramatiko'' (1985:61)〕 However, this can be confusing to those who are not familiar with that saying, as the word ''koko'' has become more neutral over time. In modern usage, most noun roots are lexically neutral, a couple of dozen are lexically masculine, and a smaller number lexically feminine. Most masculine roots may be made feminine through the addition of the suffix ''-ino,'' and made to describe a group of both males and females with the addition of ''ge-.'' For example, ''patro'' means "father", ''patrino'' "mother", and ''gepatroj'' "parents", but ''gepatroj'' cannot be used in the singular '' *gepatro'' for "parent". For these gendered words there is no easy way to make the singular neutral equivalent. Often there is a separate root that acts like this, for example ''knabo'' "boy" → ''infano'' "child"; ''filo'' "son" → ''ido'' "offspring", etc. Some neutral counterparts can be made with word-building. The meaning of "parent" can be achieved with either ''gener-into'' "genitor", or ''ge-patr-ano'' "member of the parents". However, it is more common to simply say ''unu el la gepatroj'' "one of the parents" or ''patro aŭ patrino'' "mother or father". The most common roots that are masculine unless specifically marked as feminine are: *Kin terms: avo "grandfather", edzo "husband", fianĉo "fiancé", filo "son", frato "brother", nepo "grandson", nevo "nephew", onklo "uncle", patro "father", vidvo "widower", kuzo "(male) cousin" *Words for boys and men: knabo "boy", viro "man", bubo "brat" *Titles: fraŭlo "bachelor" (a backformation from fraŭlino, derived from German ''Fräulein''), grafo "count", princo "prince", reĝo "king", sinjoro "mister, sir" Gender-neutral roots such as ''leono'' "lion" and ''kelnero'' "waiter" may be made feminine with a grammatical suffix ''(leonino'' "lioness", ''kelnerino'' "waitress"), but there is no comparable way to derive the masculine; there was not even originally a word for "male".〔''Plena analiza gramatiko,'' § 32(A)〕 Words without a feminine suffix may take a masculine reading, especially in the case of people and domestic animals; ''koko,'' for example, means "chicken", but is read as masculine in ''koko kaj kokino'' "rooster and hen". Zamenhof used the nominal root ''vir'' "man, human male" to make words for animals masculine. Originally this took the form of a suffix ''-viro,'' but in response to criticisms that the resulting words such as ''bovoviro'' "bull" were ambiguous with mythological man–animal hybrids such as cherubs (also ''bovoviro''), Zamenhof switched to using ''vir'' as a prefix in his translation of ''Genesis'' in the 1920s.〔''Plena analiza gramatiko,'' § 372〕 This usage has spread, and ''vir-'' is now widely used as a prefix in the case of animals (''virleono'' "male-lion", ''virhomo'' "male-human"), but as a separate adjective ''vira'' for professions (''vira kelnero'' "male waiter"), with ''-viro'' now considered archaic, though neither of these conventions is as common as feminine ''-ino.'' Moreover, the prefix ''vir-'' is idiomatic, as ''virbovo'' (man-bovine) could still mean either "bull" or "minotaur/cherub"; it is only by convention that it is generally understood to mean "bull", and writers have coined words such as ''taŭro'' "bull" to bypass the issue.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Gender reform in Esperanto」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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