Lesson 15 - Sex

This chapter is not as interesting as its title suggests!

Unlike most European languages Esperanto has no nouns that are associated with a particular sex. In French and Spanish a noun can be masculine or feminine, in Swedish it can be neuter or common, and in German and Russian it can be masculine, feminine or neuter. This so-called gender of nouns does not exist in Modern English, and it does not exist in Esperanto either. However, words that denote persons or animals often exist in two forms, one for male persons and animals, and another for female persons and animals. In English this distinction is made in word pairs like man/woman, brother/sister, actor/actress, bull/cow, but this distinction is not made as frequently as in other European languages. The English word friend can for instance denote a man or a woman, but in Spanish we have amigo and amiga, in German Freund and Freundin, et cetera. In Esperanto the situation is comparable to that of French and German.

There has been a lot of discussion about this feature of Esperanto. Some people believe that this distinction is not politically correct in modern society. These people also resent the system of creating words for female persons by deriving them from the words for males. Others are not happy with the fact that the system of building words for male and female beings is not totally consistent and that there are no clear rules for deciding whether in certain cases a male, a female or a neuter word should be used (this is largely based on the practice in most European languages).

There have been attempts to reform this part of Esperanto, but they have not been very successfully and many people indeed believe that such a drastic reform would not be in the interest of the spread of Esperanto, which owes much of its success to the fact that is has remained basically unchanged (save for an increase in vocabulary) since it was published in 1887.

The basic idea is that words for female beings are created by attaching -ino to roots. This is simple enough, but the big problem are words for male beings. Some roots are traditionally considered to indicate male beings (e.g. vir- and onkl-) while others are considered to indicate beings whose sex is unknown or irrelative (e.g. hund- and fish-).

Traditionally words that denote family members are considered to indicate male persons in their basic forms, as the following table shows:

**Family members**
Esperanto	English	Esperanto	English
patro	father	patrino	mother
filo	son	filino	daughter
frato	brother	fratino	sister
avo	grandfather	avino	grandmother
nepo	grandson	nepino	granddaughter
onklo	uncle	onklino	aunt
kuzo	male cousin	kuzino	female cousin
nevo	nephew	nevino	niece

So what if we do not know the sex of a family member or do not want to specify it? Here the prefix ge- comes to the rescue. This prefix may originally have been invented to create collective words that combine both sexes, such as gepatroj (parents), but there is actually no rule that limits its use to plural words. So, we can use ge- to create sexless words like gepatro (parent), gekuzo (cousin, either male or female), gefrato (sibling) and genepo (grandchild).

Note that we can often use infano instead of filo or filino, but infano basically means a person who has not grown up yet, and it is perhaps better not used when speaking about somebody's adult children. In that case to use the word gefilo or even ido (descendant, offshoot) can be used.

The distinction between male and female is not so strict with respect to many words that denote other persons than family members. The word anglo means Englishman, and anglino means Englishwoman, but it is not uncommon to use anglo as well to refer to a person from England whose sex is unknown or irrelevant. And the plural form angloj is almost always used for English persons of either sex, instead of geangloj. If you want to make clear that you mean a specific sex (if it cannot be deduced from the context) you can best use anglaj viroj (or viraj angloj) if you are talking about Englishmen. If you are talking about English women you can of course just use the unambiguous anglinoj. Using of words that denote male persons for both sexes is actually quite common in many European languages, including English. We say for instance In a kingdom the king is the head of state", rather than "In a kingdom the king or queen is the head of state".

The roots for words that denote animals are nearly always considerd to be not associated with a particular sex. So, hundo can be used for either a male dog or a bitch. The word hundino obviously means bitch, but what is the word for a male dog? One possibility would be vira hundo, but usually the root vir- is used as a prefix to form the names of male animals, so we get virhundo. Here are a few names of animals:

**Animals**
Esperanto	English	Esperanto	English	Esperanto	English
azeno	ass	virazeno	jackass	azenino	jenny-ass
bovo	ox^*	virbovo	bull	bovino	cow
chevalo	horse	virchevalo	stallion	chevalino	mare
cervo	deer	vircervo	stag	cervino	hind
hundo	dog	virhundo	male dog	hundino	bitch
kapro	goat	virkapro	he-goat	kaprino	she-goat
koko	fowl	virkoko	cock	kokino	hen
leono	lion	virleono	male lion	leonino	lioness
porko	pig	virporko	boar	porkino	sow
shafo	sheep	virshafo	ram	shafino	ewe

^* The word ox is used here meaning bovine animal (cf. German Rind, French boeuf). The Esperanto word for ox in the more usual meaning of castrated bull is okso or kastrita virbovo.

**Vocabulary**
Esperanto	English
amiko	a (male) friend
Australio	Australia
bredi	to breed
chasi	to hunt (cf. chase)
chu^*	if, whether
elekti	to choose, to elect
familio	a family
inviti	to invite
melki	to milk
mulo	mule
se	if

^* Apart from being a question word chu is also used to translate English if or whether. Do not confuse chu with se, which can also be translated as if! Se is used to start conditional clauses (e.g. "If he goes..." = "Se li iros ...")

Exercise 15-1

Translate into English:

1. Mi havas onklon en Australio kiu bredas shafojn. 2. Mi havas nur unu virshafon kaj sep shafinojn, sed mia onklo havas dumil shafojn. 3. Mi volas inviti miajn geonklojn. 4. Decembron ili ne povis veni; mia onklino estis tiam en Australio. 5. Liaj gepatroj vizitos lin jhaudon. 6. Morgau ili chasos cervojn. 7. Oni povas elekti siajn amikojn sed oni ne povas elekti siajn gefratojn. 8. Mi havas du gefratojn: unu frato kaj unu fratino. 9. Morgau lia onklino vizitos sian amikinon. 10. Se vi volas bredi hundojn, vi devas havi virhundon kaj hundinon. 11. Li havas du hundinojn sed mi ne scias chu li havas ankau virhundon. 12. La virporko kiun ili achetis hierau, estas tre granda porko. 13. Se vi invitas viajn gekuzojn nun, ili povas esti chi tie jhaudon. 14. Mi unue devas melki la bovinojn, kaj tiam mi povas viziti miajn geavojn. 15. Tiu chi avo havas ses genepojn: kvar nepoj kaj du nepinoj. 16. Miaj nevinoj vizitis miajn gepatrojn je vendredo. 17. La filinoj de mia frato estas miaj nevinoj, kaj mi estas ilia onklo. 18. La filoj de miaj geonkloj estas miaj kuzoj. 19. Li chasas chevalojn en Australio. 20. Se vi volas bredi kokojn, vi devas acheti unu virkokon kaj ses au sep kokinojn. 21. Patro estas viro kaj patrino estas virino.

Exercise 15-2

Translate into Esperanto:

1. My Australian (australia¹) uncle has horses too: three stallions and nine mares. 2. The father of a mule is a donkey and its mother is a horse. 3. If you want to breed mules you must first have a jackass and a mare. 4. Yesterday we went to our friend who sells fowl, and we bought two roosters and twelve hens. 5. My parents have a cat; he is a tom cat. 6. The cock ran out of his cage and flew into a tree. 7. His girl-friend lives in the USA. 8. Are you going to buy a jackass or a jenny-ass? 9. My grandfather had many horses and cows²; he also had sheep and pigs. 10. This stallion can jump very high. 11. I saw a stag and three hinds. 12. Three days ago I invited my brothers and sisters. 13. His family is not very large; he only has one uncle and two (female) cousins. 14. My girl-friend has one tom cat and two female cats. 15. Did you see the lioness in that cage? 16. Three months ago they bought a boar and today they bought three sows. 17. Do they sell horses or donkeys? 18. They sell horses, asses and mules. 19. Today we sold them three mares and a stallion. 20. I am going to visit my parents in Europe on Tuesday. 21. Asses are grey but horses can be white, black or brown.

¹ Names of countries are written with a capital letter in Esperanto but the adjectives derived from them are generally not.

² In English the word cow is often used as a generic term for both cows and bulls. If it is used like that (as it is here) you should translate it with bovoj rather than with bovinoj.

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