Radaro Report (La 4-a de Aprilo)

To “-in-” or not to “-in-“

One of the most hotly debated points in the Esperanto community is how to indicate gender through grammar. Most talked about is the “riisomo” where one uses the pronoun “ri” for people who aren’t gender binary or for people whom the speaker isn’t sure what their gender is. One other point of discussion is whether or not to use “-in-” for words to make them feminine, specifically for professions. 

For example:

Kelnero – “waiter”

Kelnerino – “waitress”

Nowadays, “kelnero” can mean both a female or male waiter, while kelnerino is specifically a female waiter. One could specify that the waiter is male by using “Virkelnero” or “man-waiter” but it isn’t often used, and is somewhat comical. I should mention there is an affix, “-iĉ-” that exists which indicates the noun is masculine, but it is a neologism and in my experience not very popular. 

In other romance languages, when to indicate gender would be pretty straightforward, in Italian it would be strange if I called my female professor “professore” rather than “professoressa”. However, in Esperanto, would it be better to be as specific as possible, or maintain a vagueness, rather than going down a rabbit hole of trying to correctly gender every noun? Ultimately it’s up to the preference of the speaker and the context in which it is used. As a good rule of thumb though, if someone asks you to use a certain affix to describe themselves, you should modify how you reference them accordingly.

Keeping with the discussion from above, this word means “waiter” or one who serves you at a restaurant. Borrowed from German Kellner and Yiddish קעלנער‎ (kelner). Compare Polish kelner, dialectal Russian ке́льнер (kélʹner), Romanian chelner. (source)