Tagalog is a lot closer, the only gendered words are Spanish loan words (except maybe mom/dad), because of course they are.
Pronouns:
he/she - siya
his/her - niya
Relations (add “na lalaki” for boys, or “na babae” for girls) :
son/daughter - anak
brother/sister - kapatid
grandson/granddaughter - apo
In English, I ask how many brothers and sisters someone has, but in Tagalog I just ask how many siblings they are. Ilan (how many) kayong (are you) magkakapatid (siblings as a group)? They can give a simple answer, or specify boys and girls, it’s great! Asking about boys/girls takes too long, so nobody bothers.
I kind of like them but I just wish the “base” was neuter e.g. avo would be grandparent, then avino could stay grandmother and something else could be grandfather. Overall I think the modularity is neat
i.e. optional suffixes to highlight social gender, but the default was neuter? I’d like it better than the current system, but I think that the suffixes aren’t even necessary - if you need to specify the gender, you can simply plop some additional word and call it a day.
That’s a piece of criticism in retrospect though. Social awareness of gender issues was way lower in Zamenhof’s times than now, not really blaming him.
I can offer you Esperanto. No inherent gender but they got cases. And also gendered endings for people words.
Tagalog is a lot closer, the only gendered words are Spanish loan words (except maybe mom/dad), because of course they are.
Pronouns:
Relations (add “na lalaki” for boys, or “na babae” for girls) :
In English, I ask how many brothers and sisters someone has, but in Tagalog I just ask how many siblings they are. Ilan (how many) kayong (are you) magkakapatid (siblings as a group)? They can give a simple answer, or specify boys and girls, it’s great! Asking about boys/girls takes too long, so nobody bothers.
Esperanto still has those weird -in- and -iĉ- suffixes. They aren’t a grammatical gender system, but… come on.
I kind of like them but I just wish the “base” was neuter e.g. avo would be grandparent, then avino could stay grandmother and something else could be grandfather. Overall I think the modularity is neat
i.e. optional suffixes to highlight social gender, but the default was neuter? I’d like it better than the current system, but I think that the suffixes aren’t even necessary - if you need to specify the gender, you can simply plop some additional word and call it a day.
That’s a piece of criticism in retrospect though. Social awareness of gender issues was way lower in Zamenhof’s times than now, not really blaming him.