Hi! Henning Hraban Ramm a écrit :
So, as several other posters already said: It's not the words who are to blame, but the speakers and their mind sets...
Let me just add a comment about he/she and the willing of the speakers. In Esperanto, there is li = he ŝi = she (same pronunciation) ĝi = it (pronounce ĝ like j in just : dj) The neutral is used when you do not specify the gender (like speaking about a cat without specifying male or female) or when there is no gender (for an object). But Zamenhof, the initiator of Esperanto, said you also use it for young humans, like babies. So it is a real neutral form. But people want to keep their own use (the use from their language) and only keep ĝi for objects. (even if, for example in English, one uses "she" when speaking about ones boat!!) Some other want to have "ŝli" as neutral. Other again want to suppress li and ŝi and only have "ri". There is no solution to the problem; any solution will find people not agreeing for one or another reason. But one has to try to avoid discrimination. Alain