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Riism (Riismo in Esperanto) is a modification of Esperanto to simplify it, to make it symmetric, and to incorporate non-sexist language and gender-neutral pronouns into it.
How Riismo modifies Esperanto
In Riismo:
- The epicene third-person pronoun ri replaces the third-person masculine and feminine pronouns li and ŝi. One no longer uses the pronouns li or ŝi.
- The infixes -iĉ- and -in- are used in a symmetric way, and only where it is necessary to emphasise or to precisely specify a gender.
- Radicals without the infixes -iĉ- or -in- do not indicate a gender. Moreover, the gender significance is removed from the twenty words that traditionally indicate only masculine and have corresponding feminine forms with the -in- infix.
Commentary
The pronoun ri parallels the Finnish and Chinese languages, in which the third-person pronouns have no distinction between feminine and masculine. (e.g. Finnish only has hän for both she and he, and se for it.))
The infix and radical changes do not increase the number of forms. Both Riismo and Malriismo (i.e. non-riist Esperanto) have three relevant forms: an unmarked form and two marked forms. The difference lies in the gender assignments to each:
- Malriismo: The unmarked form is the masculine, and the two marked forms are the feminine and the genderless. e.g. patro "father" versus patrino "mother" and gepatro parent of unspecified gender.
- Riismo: The unmarked form is the genderless, and the two marked forms are the feminine and the masculine. e.g. patro, parent of unspecified gender, versus patrino "mother" and patriĉo "father".
Riismo does not eliminate the prefix ge- in order to allow riistoj (speakers of riist Esperanto) and malriistoj (speakers of non-riist Esperanto) to intercommunicate without confusion. A riisto communicating with a malriisto can add the prefix ge-, when neither the infix -iĉ- or -in- is used and the Malriismo usage would traditionally indicate the masculine.
However, for most words the Malriismo usage is in practice genderless, and ge- is not required. For example: dentisto is a dentist of unespecified gender in both Riismo and Malriismo, and there is no need for gedentisto. The main words where the prefix ge- can be useful are:
- avo edzo fianĉo filo frato kuzo nepo nevo onklo patro vidvo
- bubo knabo viro
- fraŭlo grafo princo reĝo sinjoro
- amiko
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