5 ms·

Esperanto is too problematic: nouns assume a masculine form by default and are only made feminine with a suffix.

• kaba0 4y ago
  As a synthetic language, why did they go with gendered nouns? That seems like a very illogical step.
  • mc32 4y ago
    Well, back then grammatical genders had not been conflated with sexual genders. It was, pardon the language, inconceivable, that they would be conflated. Lots of languages have gendered nouns and some have gendered verbs.
    • hackernewds 4y ago
      A table is female whereas a chair is male in Spanish. I'm sure there are problematic relationships as well. Is Google take a stance on there as well?
      • crocodiletears 4y ago
        Mesx
  • spiznnx 4y ago
    Nouns aren't actually grammatically gendered in Esperanto. But when a noun refers to something that can physically have gender, male is the root or default. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_reform_in_Esperanto https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_reform_in_Esperanto
  • DiogenesKynikos 4y ago
    Esperanto was invented by a single individual who spoke several languages but who didn't have formal training in linguistics. It basically started off as a pet project of a young (teenage) language enthusiast, so I wouldn't scrutinize his decisions too carefully or expect every decision he made to be optimal.
    • hackernewds 4y ago
      Or every decision made back then to conform to today's societal values. no language will ever meet that bar. instead of allowing this natural evolution, seems Google (and let's say 10 people at Google) seem to have decided to be the arbiters of linguistic integrity.