Gender asymmetry is an aspect of the constructed international auxiliary language Esperanto which has been challenged by numerous proposals seeking to regularize both grammatical and lexical gender. In the text below, when a proposed word or usage is not grammatically correct according to the standard rules of Esperanto grammar, it will be marked with an asterisk (*). Gender in Esperanto Esperanto does not have grammatical gender other than in the two personal pronouns "he" and "she" and their derivatives. Nevertheless, gender is often a fuzzy issue. In practical usage words formed with the suffix - "person" are ambiguous, sometimes used with a masculine meaning in the singular, but generally neutral in the plural. However, concepts of gender have changed over time, and many words that were once considered masculine are now neutral, especially words related to professions and animals. In older texts it is only context that disambiguates. For example, in the saying "to a happy man, even a gives eggs" (Zamenhof), the word means "cockerel/rooster", not "chicken". However, this can be confusing to those who are not familiar with that saying, as the word has become more neutral over time. In modern usage, most noun roots are lexically neutral, a couple of dozen are lexically masculine, and a smaller number lexically feminine. Most masculine roots may be made feminine through the addition of the suffix - and made to describe a group of both males and females with the addition of -. For example, means "father", "mother", and "parents", but cannot be used traditionally in the singular for "parent". For these gendered words there is no easy way to make the singular neutral equivalent. Often there is a separate root that acts like this, for example "boy" → "child"; "son" → "offspring", etc. Some neutral counterparts can be made with word-building. The meaning of "parent" can be achieved with either "genitor", or "member of the parents". However, it is more common to simply say "one of the parents" or "father or mother". The most common roots that are masculine unless specifically marked as feminine are: Kin terms: "grandfather", "husband", "fiancé", "son", "brother", "grandson", "nephew", "uncle", "father", "widower", "(male) cousin" Words for boys and men: "boy", "man" Titles: "bachelor" (a backformation from , derived from German ), "count", "prince", "king", "mister, sir" Gender-neutral roots such as "lion" and "waiter" may be made feminine with a grammatical suffix ( "lioness", "waitress"),