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There are 25 messages in this issue.
Topics in this digest:
1. Re: Advanced English to become official!
From: Mike Ellis <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
2. Re: Advanced English to become official!
From: Christian Thalmann <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
3. Re: Advanced English to become official!
From: Andreas Johansson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
4. Re: Gender Bending Moro
From: Joseph Bridwell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
5. Re: Advanced English to become official!
From: Joseph Bridwell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
6. Re: Gender Bending Moro
From: "David J. Peterson" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
7. Re: Advanced English to become official!
From: Mike Ellis <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
8. Re: Advanced English to become official!
From: Thomas Wier <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
9. Pleasantries
From: scott <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
10. Re: Gender Bending Moro
From: Patrick Littell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
11. Re: Pleasantries
From: Patrick Littell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
12. Re: OT Cardinal Points (was Re: Clockwise without clocks)
From: Steg Belsky <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
13. Re: Advanced English to become official!
From: Muke Tever <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
14. OT: Re: Gender Bending Moro
From: # 1 <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
15. Re: Dimorphic conlang?
From: Patrick Littell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
16. Noygwexaal Babel text
From: Geoff Horswood <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
17. Re: OT: Re: Gender Bending Moro
From: Joe <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
18. Re: Gender Bending Moro
From: "B. Garcia" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
19. Re: Dimorphic conlang?
From: Geoff Horswood <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
20. Re: Gender Bending Moro
From: Andreas Johansson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
21. Re: Advanced English to become official!
From: Andreas Johansson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
22. Re: Gender Bending Moro
From: "David J. Peterson" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
23. Re: Gender Bending Moro
From: Tim May <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
24. Re: Advanced English to become official!
From: Christian Thalmann <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
25. Re: Gender Bending Moro
From: "B. Garcia" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
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Message: 1
Date: Sat, 2 Apr 2005 18:48:49 -0500
From: Mike Ellis <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Advanced English to become official!
Muke Tever <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>Pascal A. Kramm <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>> On Sat, 2 Apr 2005 09:56:57 +0100, Joe <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>>
>>> Problem is, Pascal's German, so it's bound to be imperfect.
>>
>> Oh my, what an ugly arrogant attitude >:(
>> I can really hear the contempt in your voice... Why don't you say right
>> away: "Germans are lower than dirt."
>
>I don't think it would have to do with your ethnicity, merely with that
>you are working with a language non-native to you. If an American-English
>speaker attempted a spelling reform of German, similar remarks could be
>expected.
Another problem is that it seems to be a pronunciation reform as well, with
the changes conveniently based around speaking English with a German accent.
Either that or this eliminates distinctions in spelling that remain in
pronunciation -- but again the distinctions that "don't need" to be kept in
spelling are again German-skewed (s/z, T/t, a/@ ...). A person could, for
example, make a spelling reform based on speaking English with the Hong Kong
accent so frequently heard here in Vancouver (using <wif> for "with" instead
of AE's <wit> etc.) but this would also seem to go beyond spelling.
It's not a bad attempt (for sure it's *visually* less ugly than most
spelling reforms I've seen), but don't expect it to catch on among the
native speakers.
M
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Message: 2
Date: Sun, 3 Apr 2005 00:20:10 -0000
From: Christian Thalmann <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Advanced English to become official!
--- In conlang@yahoogroups.com, "Pascal A. Kramm" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Well, then go and create your own spelling reform, rather than talking
> someone else's work bad just because he's a "German".
Sheesh, as if there hadn't been enough reform proposals
already. Heck, even I've done two of those in my early
conlang days.
I'll have to agree with the general opinion that the
proposed spelling is suboptimal for the needs of the
English language. You neglect several important phonemic
distinctions, and some choices (like |ei eu| for [ai oi])
appear to have no other motivation than to make it look
like German. In this light, the name "Advanced English"
even seems to suggest that advanced = German.
What would you think if somebody made a German spelling
reform abolishing all umlauts and writing ch's as k's,
since foreigners tend to mispronounce them anyway, and
maybe spell /ai au S v/ as |ij ou sh v|, and have the
nerve to call it "Advanced German"? Vie vurde dir das
gefallen?
Your ideas certainly have a certain appeal as a thought
experiment, e.g. for a fictional alternate-history story
setting where the Germans won WWII and "Germanized" the
English world. If you want it to be fit for real-world
English, it needs more work. And a more modest attitude
wouldn't hurt either.
-- Christian Thalmann
PS: The most realistic English spelling reform (and I do
agree that one is due) that I've heard proposed so
far is to assign exactly one (the most common)
pronunciation to each English grapheme, and
regularize only those words which deviate. For
example, |ea| would stand for [i:], so beard, hear,
mean, read etc would all retain their spelling, but
heart and head would become hart and hed. This way,
English would still feel like English to the native
speakers, and the reform would be much more likely
to be accepted.
Is there a website with an explicit "master plan"
for this concept? If not, I'd be tempted to write up
such a plan. Maybe with the help of a dedicated
Yahoo!Group?
Argh... please stop me before I fall for the
auxlanger syndrome. ;o)
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Message: 3
Date: Sun, 3 Apr 2005 02:22:24 +0200
From: Andreas Johansson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Advanced English to become official!
Quoting Mike Ellis <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
> Muke Tever <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> >Pascal A. Kramm <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> >> On Sat, 2 Apr 2005 09:56:57 +0100, Joe <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> >>
> >>> Problem is, Pascal's German, so it's bound to be imperfect.
> >>
> >> Oh my, what an ugly arrogant attitude >:(
> >> I can really hear the contempt in your voice... Why don't you say right
> >> away: "Germans are lower than dirt."
> >
> >I don't think it would have to do with your ethnicity, merely with that
> >you are working with a language non-native to you. If an American-English
> >speaker attempted a spelling reform of German, similar remarks could be
> >expected.
>
> Another problem is that it seems to be a pronunciation reform as well, with
> the changes conveniently based around speaking English with a German accent.
> Either that or this eliminates distinctions in spelling that remain in
> pronunciation -- but again the distinctions that "don't need" to be kept in
> spelling are again German-skewed (s/z, T/t, a/@ ...).
It's not entirely clear to me how collapsing a/@ is German-skewed ... ?
Andreas
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Message: 4
Date: Sun, 3 Apr 2005 00:35:25 -0000
From: Joseph Bridwell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Gender Bending Moro
> Having just seen Sin City, and being too disturbed to fall asleep,
> I decided to send an e-mail about something truly amazing our
> class discovered about Moro today (Kordofanian language of
> Sudan).
About all I can find on-line is that Moro is also
called "Dhimorong", is/was in the Nile-Congo family. Supposedly SIL
did a enthographic study of Moro speakers in 1971
> So, there you have it: A virtually undocumented language until
> now strikes a blow for women's rights!
If you find out more, I'd be interested.
> ObConlang, I immediately thought of Laadan. When I went to
> look it up, though, it appears that the site I was familiar with
> has disappeared... That site actually had some of the grammar
> online. The sites I can find now are a kind of history of the
> construction of the language, and a blog.
I'd not looked at the sites for Láadan in quite some time. It does
seem that they're down to the ones Ms. Elgin maintains. If you've
any interested, we are going to be going some classes on the Laadan
list on YAHOO starting in about 10 days.
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Message: 5
Date: Sun, 3 Apr 2005 00:58:03 -0000
From: Joseph Bridwell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Advanced English to become official!
> Sheesh, as if there hadn't been enough reform proposals
> already. Heck, even I've done two of those in my early
> conlang days.
Perhaps it's more apropos to ask which conlangers with English as 1st-
lang haven't done this at some point? I did when I was 15.
> Is there a website with an explicit "master plan"
> for this concept? If not, I'd be tempted to write up
> such a plan. Maybe with the help of a dedicated
> Yahoo!Group?
Maybe OPENRITE on YAHOO? I'm not sure of their unstated goal.
> Argh... please stop me before I fall for the
> auxlanger syndrome. ;o)
Too late. The best that can be done is help you to cope with it -
psych meds, AuxA 12-seto meetings, etc. ;-)
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Message: 6
Date: Sat, 2 Apr 2005 17:29:16 -0800
From: "David J. Peterson" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Gender Bending Moro
Joseph wrote:
<<
About all I can find on-line is that Moro is also
called "Dhimorong", is/was in the Nile-Congo family. Supposedly SIL
did a enthographic study of Moro speakers in 1971
>>
That's because there's a dearth of information out there. There
was a grammar written about the dialect that my class isn't
working with, and the grammar was exceedingly poor (e.g.,
they said that prepositions are the class of words that can come
before or after a noun and which modify it adverbially in
some way [and which can occur as prefixes or suffixes]).
Other than that grammar, Moro has been referred to in surveys
of Kordofanian languages. So what you get is a look at the
distribution of stops in about 20 different languages from the
same language family, and there might be a sentence or two
on Moro. Hopefully we'll be able to get some information out
there after this class.
Joseph also wrote:
<<
I'd not looked at the sites for Láadan in quite some time. It does
seem that they're down to the ones Ms. Elgin maintains. If you've
any interested, we are going to be going some classes on the Laadan
list on YAHOO starting in about 10 days.
>>
Well, I'm not *that* interested (or non-busy). I just thought since
the point was to have a women's language, it might be interesting
to see that this one feature, which is so often mentioned in discussions
of language and gender (non-grammatical), actually falls on the
other side of the gender-line in a natural language.
-David
*******************************************************************
"A male love inevivi i'ala'i oku i ue pokulu'ume o heki a."
"No eternal reward will forgive us now for wasting the dawn."
-Jim Morrison
http://dedalvs.free.fr/
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Message: 7
Date: Sat, 2 Apr 2005 20:42:48 -0500
From: Mike Ellis <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Advanced English to become official!
Andreas Johansson wrote:
>> Either that or this eliminates distinctions in spelling that remain in
>> pronunciation -- but again the distinctions that "don't need" to be kept in
>> spelling are again German-skewed (s/z, T/t, a/@ ...).
>
>It's not entirely clear to me how collapsing a/@ is German-skewed ... ?
>
> Andreas
Gah. That should've been a/V .
M
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Message: 8
Date: Sat, 2 Apr 2005 20:50:43 -0600
From: Thomas Wier <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Advanced English to become official!
I assume Andreas intended this for a general audience...
---- Original message ----
>Date: Sun, 3 Apr 2005 02:20:26 +0200
>From: Andreas Johansson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>Subject: Re: Advanced English to become official!
>To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
>Quoting Thomas Wier <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
>
>> > >-Curious: Why did you use "ae" for schwa, rather than "a",
>> > > when you use "a" for carrot [V]?
>> >
>> > I chose this to distinct between normal a and schwa. The carrot
>> > [V] is just a short a, so I wrote it as such.
>>
>> In most dialects of English, including the English spoken by most
>> nonnative speakers whose use you value so highly, there is no
>> phonemic distinction the carrot [V] and the schwa [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
> Hm. I'm not sure that's true of the RPoid Englishes that are traditionally
> taught in European language classes. Can't seem to think of any minimal
> pairs, tho.
>
> A candidate could be the negating prefixes _an-_ [EMAIL PROTECTED] and _un-_
> [Vn].
> I suppose it's arguable that they're phonemically /&n/ vs /@n/,
I don't think you can say that _an-_ has an underlying representation
with /@/. The schwa allophones of /&/ are all predictable based
on the usual nonstressed vowel reduction processes: _anaphora_ [@'n&[EMAIL
PROTECTED]@]
vs. _anaphor_ ['&[EMAIL PROTECTED] (_ana-_ works the same way as negating
_an-_).
I suspect the real difference between "cut" and "anaphora" has more to
do with vowel-length than anything qualitative.
> but
> the contrast is still realized as [EMAIL PROTECTED] vs [V] whether or not we
> recognize
> separate phonemes /@/ and /V/ or not.
I wasn't arguing they're phonetically identical, only for
the lack of a *phonemic* contrast (i.e., one at the underlying
representation). I should also say that one phonologist professor
I knew told me as much that for many English speakers there is no
contrast.
>Now, I won't pretend to know what proportion of non-native speakers have had
>such phonologies inflicted on them.
I should probably admit that my claim to that end was rather more
impressionistic and anecdotal than empirical. In my experience,
nonnative speakers tend to have problems realizing stressed [I]
and [U], but more rarely with [V]. Typically, if they have
problems with [V], e.g. by realizing it as a short [a], then
they tend to treat both [V] and [EMAIL PROTECTED] positions the same, which
suggests a basic lack of contrast. (This of course is not
rigorous proof of the fact, though.)
==========================================================================
Thomas Wier "I find it useful to meet my subjects personally,
Dept. of Linguistics because our secret police don't get it right
University of Chicago half the time." -- octogenarian Sheikh Zayed of
1010 E. 59th Street Abu Dhabi, to a French reporter.
Chicago, IL 60637
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Message: 9
Date: Sat, 2 Apr 2005 22:00:56 -0500
From: scott <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Pleasantries
Hi all,
I have recently begun thinking about pleasantries for my conlang
wikilret. There is a formal gender and a deference infix for verbs when
the object of the sentence is of higher social standing. But I'm still
thinking about how to handle pleasantries such as please, thank you,
your welcome, etc.
So how do natlangs or your conlang handle such words or circumstances?
scott
http://homepage.mac.com/sjcaldwell/Wikilret/
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Message: 10
Date: Sat, 2 Apr 2005 22:43:01 -0500
From: Patrick Littell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Gender Bending Moro
On Apr 2, 2005 2:17 PM, Pascal A. Kramm <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> I think it's that way in Spansih and other languages (e.g. Italian), because
> thoese are primarily male-dominated societies where the womens don't have
> much influence, which reflects in the language.
> If women were to have more influence in the society (or if it would even be
> a female-dominated society), I could very well imagine that mixed-gender
> groups would be based on the female form then - not just in Moro, but
> probably also in other languages in which women have some influence in the
> society (female amazon tribes, for example).
This has been on the back-burner of my mind for some time. I've heard
quite often that things like "ninos" and the generic "man" are
artifacts of male domination, but I've always been a bit skeptical.
(Anyway, "man" was *originally* a generic term, wasn't it? Like
"anthropos" and "homo", right?)
This is just a subjective perception on my part, based on knowledge of
only a handful of languages, but I don't see a great deal of
correlation between the two. Chinese is completely neutral in the
(spoken) 3rd person, and for professional terms, but I seriously doubt
this is either the effect or cause of a sexually egalitarian society.
Same with Turkish. (Actually, I can only think of examples of
gender-neutrality in societies that are *more* male-dominated than
European ones :-P)
Since someone is going to bring it up eventually, I figure I'll do it:
Proto-Semitic polarity. The plurals of masculine nouns being feminine
and plurals of feminine nouns being masculine. (Scads weirder than
Moro, in my opinion, although probably not indicative of any sort of
excessive gender-bending among ancient Semitic peoples.) There's
still bits of this in Arabic, mostly of the masculine singular =>
feminine plural variety. I can't say I understand the details, so
I'll leave it to one of our resident Semiticists to fill me in. Did
this also work with explicitly sexed groups? I think it doesn't with
modern "walad" (boy); "awlad" (boys) is still masculine (right?), even
though most of the nouns I know in that plural-class go through
polarity.
This issue -- gender in language and its relationship with sexual
politics -- is one I've always wondered about, but I've never managed
to find much cross-linguistic data about it. Or really any data at
all; usually I just hear it asserted as a truism. Does anyone have
any pointers to studies about this? Especially about, as Pascal
mentioned, societies that are more female-dominant?
--
Patrick Littell
PHIL205: MWF 2:00-3:00, M 6:00-9:00
Voice Mail: ext 744
Spring 05 Office Hours: M 3:00-6:00
--
Watch "reply-to"!
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Message: 11
Date: Sat, 2 Apr 2005 23:08:09 -0500
From: Patrick Littell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Pleasantries
On Apr 2, 2005 10:00 PM, scott <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> I have recently begun thinking about pleasantries for my conlang
> wikilret. There is a formal gender and a deference infix for verbs when
> the object of the sentence is of higher social standing. But I'm still
> thinking about how to handle pleasantries such as please, thank you,
> your welcome, etc.
>
> So how do natlangs or your conlang handle such words or circumstances?
>
>
> scott
> http://homepage.mac.com/sjcaldwell/Wikilret/
>
My favorites come from some natlangs of Guinea, and probably a number
of their relatives in surrounding countries.
Pular (Fula):
Greeting: "Tanna alaa?" ("Is there evil?")
Response: "Jam tun." ("Peace only.")
"Jam tun" can be used as a response to scores of greeting questions,
like "How's the wife 'n kids?" or "How did you sleep?" "Praise God!"
is also a common response.
Here's the cognate expression in Maninka:
Greeting: "Ta na te?" ("Is there no evil?")
Response: "Tana si te." ("There is no evil.")
There's probably an endless number of variations on these themes.
"Tana ma si?" ("Did you sleep without evil?")
"Ta na te i bada?" ("Is there no evil at your place?")
"Tana ma tele?" ("Is there evil in your day?")
"Here tele na?" ("Did you pass the day in peace?")
And my favorite:
"I sen nani sira?" ("Did you sleep with four legs?")
No, I don't know, and I ain't gonna ask.
Peace Only!
Pat
--
Patrick Littell
PHIL205: MWF 2:00-3:00, M 6:00-9:00
Voice Mail: ext 744
Spring 05 Office Hours: M 3:00-6:00
--
Watch "reply-to"!
________________________________________________________________________
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Message: 12
Date: Sun, 3 Apr 2005 08:16:10 +0300
From: Steg Belsky <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: OT Cardinal Points (was Re: Clockwise without clocks)
On Apr 2, 2005, at 10:56 PM, Joseph Bridwell wrote:
> Knowledge of NSEW for me is influenced by my decades as a Pagan -
> mentally establising cardinal points from the sun etc. is nearly a
> subconscious process for me when I visit any place (though Seattle
> seems to have been the most problematic for me because of the many
> grey cloud-covered days).
How does that work? What's the reason for establishing cardinal
points/direction?
The reason i'm asking is because, for comparison, i've also picked up
ways to recognize cardinal directions (although i'm not quite at the
'nearly subconscious' point yet) for religious reasons, since as a
traditionally observant Jew i need to pray 3 times a day in a specific
direction (Jerusalemwards).
-Stephen (Steg)
"Dime ladino d'ande venes
ke te kero konoser
Dime si futuro tenes
Yo te vo a defender."
~ de un artikolo en el listserv Ladinokomunita
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Message: 13
Date: Sat, 2 Apr 2005 22:03:56 -0700
From: Muke Tever <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Advanced English to become official!
Christian Thalmann <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> PS: The most realistic English spelling reform (and I do
> agree that one is due) that I've heard proposed so
> far is to assign exactly one (the most common)
> pronunciation to each English grapheme, and
> regularize only those words which deviate. For
> example, |ea| would stand for [i:], so beard, hear,
> mean, read etc would all retain their spelling, but
> heart and head would become hart and hed. This way,
> English would still feel like English to the native
> speakers, and the reform would be much more likely
> to be accepted.
>
> Is there a website with an explicit "master plan"
> for this concept? If not, I'd be tempted to write up
> such a plan. Maybe with the help of a dedicated
> Yahoo!Group?
I actually did start doing this once, when I was a computer lab assistant
with lots of free time... I don't know if I still have all my data, but I
started going through all the monosyllables in my dictionary and noting down
all the patterns and the characteristic pronunciations. I'm not sure how
far I got; I'm sure I remember it wasn't very far (maybe through a few
vowel phonemes; consonants are easy).
The hard part is making "new" spellings look natural. There doesn't appear
to be any way to regularize the spelling of "have" and making it still look
English.
*Muke!
--
website: http://frath.net/
LiveJournal: http://kohath.livejournal.com/
deviantArt: http://kohath.deviantart.com/
FrathWiki, a conlang and conculture wiki:
http://wiki.frath.net/
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Message: 14
Date: Sun, 3 Apr 2005 00:29:23 -0500
From: # 1 <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: OT: Re: Gender Bending Moro
Patrick Littell wrote:
>This issue -- gender in language and its relationship with sexual
>politics -- is one I've always wondered about, but I've never managed
>to find much cross-linguistic data about it. Or really any data at
>all; usually I just hear it asserted as a truism. Does anyone have
>any pointers to studies about this? Especially about, as Pascal
>mentioned, societies that are more female-dominant?
Yes that may be interesting
Before asking what you mean by "female-dominant" you should precise what is
"domination" for you?
Is it the fact of doing the majority of the tasks? the fact of making the
major decisions in the family's house? in the tribe/village? the fact of
being the financial support? the fact of bringing/gaining/finding/hunting
food?
Sexual domination's not easy to define because one may say that even in the
most male-centered, if the women disapeared, the men would not be able of
taking good care of children and cooking food and that this makes the women
important enough to mean they dominate..
***
I've recently made an essay at school about such kind of thing and this post
may be an occasion to talk about it:
I've analysed the conditions that led to the humanity and the leading of
most of the countries and politics by men. It is a comparision between human
civilisations (of european origins and from other independant ethnies) and
animals societies (ants, pinguins(those of antartica, not from the North
Pole, I think they're both called "pinguins" in english), lions, naked mole
rats, elephants..)
My searchings led me to the conclusion that, for all animal species, "the
males will do only what the females are unable to do alone because of the
surrounding environment or of the animal's physiology" and the only reasons
why men had got responsabilities that, in fact, women can do is because of
some factors that no more exist now.
Like the giving of birth that's now safer for women, the way to getting food
is now easier with agriculture, the huge cities now reducing the possibility
of having to face predators etc..
I included the fact that some inferior animals totally or almost totally got
rid of the males
My final conclusion is that the women who ask for more political and social
rights are simply the consequence of the societythat divated from the
natural path and that now tend to get back to the natural equilibrium of the
women being the center of the specie and the man doing what they really
can't do alone
I predict that someday, women will probably lead and men will follow them
like male lions and elephants
When I explain my conclusion to my friends, I add this that's not in the
written version:
The good point for women: You'll someday get the superiority you asked and
fight so long for and get rid of those violent men that ruined the world
with wars and fights
The good point for men: We'll someday have nothing to do with women bringing
you food and caring your children and we sleeping and taking no important
and risked decisions
***
I've not tought of what would be a language spoken in such world of woman's
leading and man's "vedging" concerning the genders but if the majority of
the actions would be done by women it's probably them that would determine
the gender of a group
That's to ask if men would even talk.. what would they have to say? "ho
great! food's there, I'll finally can get a sixth nap before going to sleep
my night." Nothing very useful, they'd only have to understand women to
follow their directions
Are there precedents of tribes, ethnies, groups in witch one of the genders
had no right (or use) of speaking?
I know the recently dead nushu language were spoken only by women, but I
don't think it's the same thing...
- Max
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Message: 15
Date: Sun, 3 Apr 2005 00:23:33 -0500
From: Patrick Littell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Dimorphic conlang?
On Apr 2, 2005 1:30 PM, Joseph a.k.a Buck <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Have any of the conlangers here ever developed a language wherein a sentient
> species' physiological or social dimorphism was reflected in the language in
> other than a minor way (e.g. m/f manifesting as specifically male pronouns &
> female pronouns?
>
Hmm, you mean like, say, sentient walruses or elephant seals labeling
everything (relatively) small as feminine and things that are
downright huge as masculine? Noun classes by weight: everything less
than 4,000 pounds is feminine by default.
Or sentient cats or somesuch using the feminine as a respect marker?
Like a wise tom referred to as "she" out of respect. ;)
[These are probably answers to some question unrelated to the one
you're asking, but once I latch onto a tangent I cannot be
stopped!...]
Or, for seriously eusocial species, like sentient bees or ants, a
three-gender system for drones, workers, and queens. (And no plural
of queen :) In less eusocial species, specific genders for maters and
non-maters. In sentient wolves, four genders: masculine, feminine,
alpha-masculine, and alpha-feminine.
Along the same lines as the elephant seals: An avian race categorizing
all brightly-colored things as masculine, and all monochrome, brown,
or drab-colored things as feminine. (Mandrills, too!)
[Back on topic... in Le Guin's "The Left Hand of Darkness", the
hermaphroditic natives are always neuter except when they're in
estrus, in which case they gain the pronoun for whichever sex they've
assumed. Although "perverts" -- those "stuck" in one sex, like the
narrator, a Terran male -- get these pronouns all the time.]
In butterflies, genders of age (larval, pupoid, adult) as well as (or
instead of) those of sex. For species with female polymorphism like
the Papilionidae, more than one feminine adult gender. In neotenic
species, like the "Trilobite larva" Duliticola paradoxa: larval
masculine, pupoid masculine, adult masculine, and larval feminine.
Err... I'm done now.
--
Patrick Littell
PHIL205: MWF 2:00-3:00, M 6:00-9:00
Voice Mail: ext 744
Spring 05 Office Hours: M 3:00-6:00
--
Watch "reply-to"!
________________________________________________________________________
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Message: 16
Date: Sun, 3 Apr 2005 03:55:51 -0400
From: Geoff Horswood <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Noygwexaal Babel text
As ever, comments welcome.
ga-beejbelcwiriyuygoor
/ga "be:j.bEl'kwI.rIN'UN.gO:r/
ga-beejbel.cwiriy.uygoor
the(h)-Babel.stair.downward_shaft
The Staired Shaft of Babel[1]
1a. ceš šemgwexaal fa šemeyaal puur-i-teywin gwelmux
1b. /kES SEm'gwEx.a:l fa SEm'EN.a:l pu:r i 'tEN.wIn 'gwEl.mUT/
1c. cek kem.gwexaal fa kem.eyaal puur-i-teywin gwel.mux
1d. now one.speech and one.tongue the(m)-S-world_c
speak.obl_3co(m)_3ev
1e. Now the whole world had one language and one tongue.
2a. soo ec ziywaaru i-gooras riybiruy, taan ey-šiinaar nen hweej
anšand, far taan uloor hweej etenarand.
2b. /so: Ek zIN'wa:.ru i 'go:r.as rIN.bIr'UN, ta:n EN 'Si:.na:r nEn
hwe:j an'Sand, far ta:n U'lO:r hwe:j 'Et.En"ar.and/
2c. soo ec ziy.waaru i-gooras riybir.uy, taan ey-šiinaar nen hweej
anš.and, far taan uloor hweej etenar.and
2d. as to right.turning[2] S-people(co)[3] migrate.obl_PTC(3ev), in
the(a)-Shinar cavern they(w_co) find.obl_3co(w)_3ev, and in there
they(w_co) settle.obl_3co(w)_3ev
2e. As men moved eastwards, they found a plain in Shinar, and they
settled there.
3a. ec nuut: "aaj, va-bayeer ariinjoorcilac looygax laa vaš cuuraw!"
hweej gweland.
ec malec looygax lonaaruy tiywilven, far ec domon fant hweej
lonaartiland.
3b. /Ek nu:t a:j, va baN'E:r ar'i:n"jO:rk.il.ak 'lo:N.gaT la: vaS
'ku:r.aw hwe:j 'gwel.and/
/Ek 'mal.Ek 'lO:N.gaT lOn'a:r.UN tIN'wIl.vEn, far Ek 'dom.on fant
hwe:j lOn"a:r.tIl'and/
3c. ec nuut: "aaj, va-bayeer ariin.joorc.ilac looygax laa vaš
cuuraw!" hweej gwel.and
ec malec looygax lonaar.uy tiywil.ven, far ec domon fant hweej
lonaar.til.and
3d. to each_other: "Come, OBJ-they(h_co) complete.bake.obl_PTC(2ev)
bricks(co) we(co) let make!" they(w_co) say.obl_3co(w)_3ev
to stone brick be_substituted.obl_PTC(3ev) line.obl_3co(h)_3ev,
and to mortar tar they(w_co) be_substituted.CAU.obl_3co(w)_3ev
3e. They said to each other, "Come, let's make bricks and bake them
thoroughly."
They lined with brick instead of stone, and used bitumen for
mortar.
4a. taan aaren-naa: "aaj, dan abforqiinuygoor mogadoor[4] laa vaš
cuuraw, tooru-gaar ec aarn xalan laa vaš salm, fa loc
puu-teywenjuugen laa vaš miyvaardanuuler," -hweej gweland.
4b. /ta:n 'a:.rEn na: a:j, dan ab.for"Di:n'UN.go:r 'mO.ga.do:r la:
vaS 'ku:r.aw, 'to:.ru ga:r Ek a:rn 'Tal.an la: vaS salm, fa lok
pu: 'tEN.wEn"ju:.gEn la: vaS mIN"va:r.dan'u:.lEr, hwe:j
'gwel.and/
4c. taan aaren-naa: "aaj, dan ab.forq.iin.uygoor moga.door laa vaš
cuuraw, tooru-gaar ec aarn xalan laa vaš salm, fa loc
puu-teywen.juugen laa vaš miy.vaardan.uuler," -hweej gwel.and
4d. in that-time: "come, with
depths.penetrate.prs_PTC(2ev).down_shaft wall.city us(co) let
build, this-way to self(co) name us(co) let enflame, and on
the(m)-earth.surface us(co) let not.disperse.obl_3co(w)_2ev" -
they(w_co) said.
4e. Then they said, "Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a
shaft that reaches to the depths, so that we may make a name for
ourselves and not be scattered over the face of the whole earth."
5a. šut ga-cuurawuymogadoor fa ga-cwiriyuygoor palis
puur-il-abtaanabšem narmox.
5b. /SUt ga 'ku:r.aw.UN"mO.ga.do:r fa ga 'kwI.rIN"UN.go:r pal.is pU:r
il ab'ta:n.ab.Sem 'nar.mOT/
5c. šut ga-cuuraw.uy.moga.door fa ga-cwiriy.uygoor pal.is
puur-il-ab.taan.ab.šem nar.mox
5d. but the build.obl_PTC(3ev).wall.city and the-stair.down_shaft
see.obl_PTC(1ev) the(m)-S-deep.in.deep.one[5]
ascend.obl_3sgl(m)_3ev[6]
5e. But the LORD came up to see the city and the staired shaft that
the men were building.
6a. "ni ey-šemgwexaalgwelan šemgoorosotaaran tooru-tii manuuis hweej
joytiland, ey eenuris hweej manuuis cam-tii, ec va-hweej
miytolmanuugax otaaruleer," puur-il-abtaanabšem gwelmox.
6b. /ni EN 'Sem.gwE"Ta:l.gwE.lan SEm'go:r.Os.O"ta:r.an to:r.u ti:
man'u:.Is hwe:j 'jON.tIl.and, EN 'e:n.Ur.Is hwe:j man'u:.Is kam
ti:, Ek va hwe:j 'mIN.tOl.man"u:.gaT O'ta:r.U.le:r, pu:r Il
ab"ta:n.ab'SEm gwEl'mOT/
6c. "ni ey-šem.gwexaal.gwel.an šem.gooros.otaar.an tooru-tii manuu.is
hweej joy.til.and, ey eenur.is hweej manuu.is cam-tii, ec
va-hweej miy.tol.manuu.gax otaar.uleer," puur-il-ab.taan.ab.šem
gwel.mox
6d. "if the(3sgl_a)-one.language.speak.prs_PTC_1ev
one.people.be.prs_PTC_1ev this-thing do.obl_PTC_1ev they(w_co)
begin.CAU.obl_3co(w)_3ev, then project.obl_PTC_1ev they(w_co)
do.obl_PTC_1ev any-thing, to OBJ-they not.un.do.able
be.obl_3co(w)_2ev," the(m)-S-deep.in.deep.one
speak.obl_3sgl(m)_3ev
6e. The LORD said, "If as one people speaking the same language they
have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be
impossible for them.
7a. "aaj, naris far ey-hweejgwexaal loo vaš eyaalevrenamal,
aaren-gaar nuut hweej miyaagruculeer."
7b. /a:j, 'nar.Is far EN 'hwe:j.gwE.Ta:l lu: vaS EN"a:l.Ev.rEn.a'mal,
'a:.rEn ga:r nu:t hwe:j mIN"a:.grUk.U'le:r/
7c. "aaj, naris far ey-hweej.gwexaal luu vaš eyaal.evren.amal,
aaren-gaar nuut hweej miy.aagruc.uleer"
7d. "Come, ascend.obl_PTC_1ev and the(a)-they(w_co).language I(sgl)
let tongue.stir.obl_3sgl(m)_2ev[7], that-way each_other
they(w_co) not.understand.obl_3co(w)_2ev"
7e. "Come, let us go up and confuse their language so they will not
understand each other."
8a. tooru-cond va-hweej veš aaren-daar ec puu-teywennay
puur-il-abtaanabšem vaardantilmox, fa ga-mogadoor cuurawuy hweej
tocuutand.
8b. /'to:.ru kOnd va hwe:j vES 'a:.rEn da:r Ek pu: 'tEN.wEn.naN pu:r
Il ab'ta:n.ab.Sem va:r'dan.tIl.mOT, fa ga mO.ga'do:r 'ku:.ra.wUN
hwe:j tOk'u:.tand/
8c. tooru-cond va-hweej veš aaren-daar ec puu-teywen.nay
puur-il-ab.taan.ab.šem vaardan.til.mox fa ga-moga.door cuuraw.uy
hweej tocuut.and
8d. this-reason OBJ-they(w_co) from that-place to
the(m)-world.realms(co) the(m)-S-deep.in.deep.one
disperse.CAU.obl_3sgl(m)_3ev, and the(h)-wall.city
build.obl_PTC_3ev they(w_co) stop. obl_3co(w)_3ev
8e. So the LORD scattered them from there over all the earth, and
they stopped building the city.
9a. aaren-cond beejbel bayeer xaldven- meqiin ey-teywennaygwexaal
taan aaren-daar puur-il-abtaanabšem eyaalevrenmox.
veš aaren-daar va-hweej ec puu-teywennay puur-il-abtaanabšem
vaardantilmox.
9b. /'a:.rEn kOnd 'be:j.bEl baN'e:r 'Tald.vEn me'Di:n EN
'tEN.wEn.naN"gwE.Ta:l ta:n 'a:.rEn da:r pu:r Il ab'ta:n.ab.Sem
EN"a:l.Ev.rEn'mOT
vES 'a:.rEn da:r va hwe:j Ek pu: 'tEN.wEn.naN pu:r Il
ab'ta:n.ab.Sem va:r'dan.tIl.mOT/
9c. aaren-cond beejbel bayeer xaldven- meqiin ey-teywen.nay.gwexaal
taan aaren-daar puur-il-ab.taan.ab.šem eyaal.evren.mox
veš aaren-daar va-hweej ec puu-teywen.nay puur-il-ab.taan.ab.šem
vaardan.til.mox
9d. that-reason Babel it(h) be_named.obl_3co(h)_3ev- because
the(a)-world.realms(co).language in that-place
the(m)-S-deep.in.deep.one tongue.stir.obl_3sgl(m)_3ev
from that-place OBJ-they(w) to the(m)-world.realms(co)
the(m)-S-deep.in.deep.one disperse.CAU.obl_3sgl(m)_3ev
9e. That is why it was called Babel- because there the LORD confused
the language of the whole world.
From there the LORD scattered them over the face of the whole
earth.
[1] (title): In Noygwexaal belief, the sky is a place of outer darkness
(though this is not the expression they would use), the home of "elvish
demons of air and star". The orcish heavens are in the utter depths of the
earth. Accordingly, I have reversed the polarity of the "tower" of Babel
to make it more understandable to the context.
[2] (verse 2): The prime direction to the Noygooras is north (they have
magnetic particles in their brain which aid them in direction-finding
underground). East is considered to be "turning right" from north.
[3] (verse 2): The subject of the sentence is marked on all regular nouns;
however, compare verse 3, where the object is marked on the pronoun
_bayeer_. This is normal; the object is marked on pronouns, except where
there is a subject-marked regular noun. Thus, "he gives it to her", would
mark the object on both "it" and "her", but "he gives a rock to her" would
mark only "her" with the object-marker, and "the man gives it to her" would
mark the subject on "the man". Confused? You will be... :)
[4] (verse 4): "Mogador" is a small village not too far from where I grew
up. It has such a Tolkienesque sound to it that I couldn't resist turning
it into their word for "city" :)!
[5] (verse 5): About the best literal translation of "LORD" is "the deep
one in the deep" or "the one deep in the deep".
[6] (verse 5): In English, as in the original, the plural form is used with
a singular subject. This is unnatural to the point of actually illegal in
Noygwexaal, so I have re-couched the language concerning the Deity in
singular form.
[7] (verse 7): This is not the usual word for "confuse", but fits the
context better than _goorxevreniix_ - "to mind-stir".
What do you think?
Geoff
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Message: 17
Date: Sun, 3 Apr 2005 09:06:49 +0100
From: Joe <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: OT: Re: Gender Bending Moro
# 1 wrote:
>
> I've analysed the conditions that led to the humanity and the leading of
> most of the countries and politics by men. It is a comparision between
> human
> civilisations (of european origins and from other independant ethnies)
> and
> animals societies (ants, pinguins(those of antartica, not from the North
> Pole, I think they're both called "pinguins" in english), lions, naked
> mole
> rats, elephants..)
Just to say - Arctic flightless seabirds are Auks, Antarctic ones Penguins.
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Message: 18
Date: Sun, 3 Apr 2005 00:09:31 -0800
From: "B. Garcia" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Gender Bending Moro
I don't know. I'm just not hugely impressed that Moro makes the
general group of children "girls" instead of "boys". Nothing really
remarkable about that IMHO. I think it's a neat little way to do it
differently though. I guess I just don't find it weird or strange or
very unique, because it was boud to occur *somewhere*).
Hell, there's no gender in Tagalog (except in borrowed words from
Spanish) and even the 3rd person pronouns are gender neutral (leading
Filipinos to say "she" when they mean "he" and vice versa when
speaking English), but that doesn't mean the society is especially
"gender neutral".
--
Sindaká, hasemangyara tensa ku kang, taana inu jumosara ika wangkane
abarasara ika.
Nasay, haalingyaay kria siga ting seu mayuhaw. Saban, hamakotraak kria
ku kriang ura bansan.
Ating ura sindaká, ating ura sindaká, ane haligansara kria ku ting?
Ikudsara ati. Setsusaan san.
Sindaká, sinokyara ati seu kriang ura nga mura ating ura kuyan .
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Message: 19
Date: Sun, 3 Apr 2005 04:05:55 -0400
From: Geoff Horswood <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Dimorphic conlang?
On Sun, 3 Apr 2005 00:23:33 -0500, Patrick Littell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
wrote:
>On Apr 2, 2005 1:30 PM, Joseph a.k.a Buck <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>> Have any of the conlangers here ever developed a language wherein a
sentient
>> species' physiological or social dimorphism was reflected in the
language in
>> other than a minor way (e.g. m/f manifesting as specifically male
pronouns &
>> female pronouns?
>>
>
>Hmm, you mean like, say, sentient walruses or elephant seals labeling
>everything (relatively) small as feminine and things that are
>downright huge as masculine? Noun classes by weight: everything less
>than 4,000 pounds is feminine by default.
>
...
[snip]
Ha ha! _Very_ cool! I'll have to maybe try something along those lines
when I work on my Elvish language (I'm thinking of giving my elves a
eusocial ant/bee/termite-derived structure, btw, just to mess around with
the pillars of Received Fantasy Stereotype!)!
Geoff
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Message: 20
Date: Sun, 3 Apr 2005 10:40:45 +0200
From: Andreas Johansson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Gender Bending Moro
While reflecting about the overwhelming amount of physical work inherent in
making breakfast, a somewhat un-feministic possible explanation for the Moro
patterning struck me - might the "girl" word originally have meant "child", and
had its meaning restricted in the singular but not in the plural?
Andreas
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Message: 21
Date: Sun, 3 Apr 2005 11:05:03 +0200
From: Andreas Johansson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Advanced English to become official!
Quoting Thomas Wier <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
> I assume Andreas intended this for a general audience...
Indeed. I really should start always to check the headers of replies.
(Is it just me, or are we experiencing technological regression here?)
> ---- Original message ----
> >Date: Sun, 3 Apr 2005 02:20:26 +0200
> >From: Andreas Johansson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> >Subject: Re: Advanced English to become official!
> >To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> >
> >Quoting Thomas Wier <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
> >
> >> > >-Curious: Why did you use "ae" for schwa, rather than "a",
> >> > > when you use "a" for carrot [V]?
> >> >
> >> > I chose this to distinct between normal a and schwa. The carrot
> >> > [V] is just a short a, so I wrote it as such.
> >>
> >> In most dialects of English, including the English spoken by most
> >> nonnative speakers whose use you value so highly, there is no
> >> phonemic distinction the carrot [V] and the schwa [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> >
> > Hm. I'm not sure that's true of the RPoid Englishes that are traditionally
> > taught in European language classes. Can't seem to think of any minimal
> > pairs, tho.
> >
> > A candidate could be the negating prefixes _an-_ [EMAIL PROTECTED] and
> > _un-_ [Vn].
> > I suppose it's arguable that they're phonemically /&n/ vs /@n/,
>
> I don't think you can say that _an-_ has an underlying representation
> with /@/. The schwa allophones of /&/ are all predictable based
> on the usual nonstressed vowel reduction processes: _anaphora_ [@'n&[EMAIL
> PROTECTED]@]
> vs. _anaphor_ ['&[EMAIL PROTECTED] (_ana-_ works the same way as negating
> _an-_).
Fair enough. I suppose *all* unstressed [EMAIL PROTECTED]'s can be interpreted
as reduced
forms of vowels other that /@/ (/@/, for the moment, denoting the vowel of
"cut"), altho some will be irrecoverable.
> I suspect the real difference between "cut" and "anaphora" has more to
> do with vowel-length than anything qualitative.
>
> > but
> > the contrast is still realized as [EMAIL PROTECTED] vs [V] whether or not
> > we recognize
> > separate phonemes /@/ and /V/ or not.
>
> I wasn't arguing they're phonetically identical, only for
> the lack of a *phonemic* contrast (i.e., one at the underlying
> representation). I should also say that one phonologist professor
> I knew told me as much that for many English speakers there is no
> contrast.
I'm quite happy to believe that.
> >Now, I won't pretend to know what proportion of non-native speakers have had
> >such phonologies inflicted on them.
>
> I should probably admit that my claim to that end was rather more
> impressionistic and anecdotal than empirical. In my experience,
> nonnative speakers tend to have problems realizing stressed [I]
> and [U], but more rarely with [V]. Typically, if they have
> problems with [V], e.g. by realizing it as a short [a], then
> they tend to treat both [V] and [EMAIL PROTECTED] positions the same, which
> suggests a basic lack of contrast. (This of course is not
> rigorous proof of the fact, though.)
Here, people are liable to replace [V] with [a], and [EMAIL PROTECTED] with
whatever vowel is
suggested by the spelling.
Andreas
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Message: 22
Date: Sun, 3 Apr 2005 01:28:55 -0800
From: "David J. Peterson" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Gender Bending Moro
Andreas wrote:
<<
While reflecting about the overwhelming amount of physical work
inherent in
making breakfast, a somewhat un-feministic possible explanation for the
Moro
patterning struck me - might the "girl" word originally have meant
"child", and
had its meaning restricted in the singular but not in the plural?
>>
Funny you should mention that...
Moro, like Bantu languages, has noun classes that are discernible
by the prefix a given noun takes in the singular and plural (or
the letter it begins with). It just so happens that the word for
"girl" patterns with a class of inanimates, whereas "man" and
"boy" and "woman" pattern with a class of animates. So while
I don't have any historical evidence to back your idea up (and
I don't really know how I'd go about obtaining it, either...), your
hypothesis just might be true.
Barry wrote:
<<
I guess I just don't find it weird or strange or
very unique, because it was boud to occur *somewhere*).
>>
Well...just about any language feature that you can think of is
bound to occur *somewhere*. I mean, if I felt that way, why
would I ever create a language? I personally, since I try to
create naturalistic languages, for the most part. Anything I
think up is bound to occur (or have occurred) somewhere, but
that doesn't make it uninteresting to me.
Barry also:
<<
Hell, there's no gender in Tagalog (except in borrowed words from
Spanish) and even the 3rd person pronouns are gender neutral (leading
Filipinos to say "she" when they mean "he" and vice versa when
speaking English), but that doesn't mean the society is especially
"gender neutral".
>>
Lots of language don't distinguish gender grammatically. And even
though there is no base word for "boy" and "girl" in Tagalog, there *is*
a base word for "man" and "woman". So Tagalog makes pretty
much as many gender distinctions as Moro (which also doesn't
distinguish gender in the pronouns or on the verbs).
Also, I wasn't *seriously* claiming that Moro culture is more
gender neutral. I never explained anything about Moro culture,
in fact, and from all indications, it seems like a society where
the man do the hunting and the work and the women do the
cooking and the housework and child rearing. This is just an
interesting fact that I personally have never seen in a natural
language before. Just because it was bound to occur somewhere,
I fail to see how it's uninteresting.
-David
*******************************************************************
"A male love inevivi i'ala'i oku i ue pokulu'ume o heki a."
"No eternal reward will forgive us now for wasting the dawn."
-Jim Morrison
http://dedalvs.free.fr/
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Message: 23
Date: Sun, 3 Apr 2005 10:37:28 +0100
From: Tim May <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Gender Bending Moro
David J. Peterson wrote at 2005-04-02 01:24:49 (-0800)
>
> Anyone familiar with a language that has gender is probably
> familiar with the following phenomenon, exemplified by the
> Spanish below:
>
> [Note: For the benefit of those who can't see diacritics, I'm
> going to leave the tildes out.]
>
> nina = girl
> nino = boy
> ninas = girls
> ninos = boys *or* children
>
> In other words, when the language lacks a generic word for "child"
> or "kid", the masculine will be used as a gender-neutral term, and
> the masculine plural will be used if there are a hundred girls and
> one boy in the room.
>
> Well, as it turns out, Moro, a real language, does *exactly* the
> opposite.
>
> ombja = boy
> Ne4a = girl
> lembja = boys
> Je4a = girls *or* children (e.g., 100 boys and 1 girl, or all boys,
> too)
>
> And there can be no mistake about this. We asked our consultant to
> tell us a story about anything so that we could transcribe it,
> figure it out, and have more than words and sentences to go by.
> The story he told us was a brief personal history. In the relevant
> part, our consultant was talking about his brother, who had five
> children (Je4a), three boys and two girls. Our consultant then
> told how he has four children (Je4a again), two boys and two girls.
>
> So, there you have it: A virtually undocumented language until now
> strikes a blow for women's rights!
>
> Well, maybe it's not as fantastic as all that, but it is
> interesting.
>
It's very interesting. The obvious question (which I've missed if
it's been asked in the other replies) is whether this is part of a
systematic pattern, as in Spanish.
The other obvious question, now that the matter of a relation between
such features and male or female dominance in society has been raised,
is whether you know anything about gender roles in Moro society that
might have some bearing on this.
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Message: 24
Date: Sun, 3 Apr 2005 09:55:58 -0000
From: Christian Thalmann <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Advanced English to become official!
--- In conlang@yahoogroups.com, Andreas Johansson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Here, people are liable to replace [V] with [a], and [EMAIL PROTECTED] with
whatever vowel is
> suggested by the spelling.
Classical German accent contrasts [a] vs [EMAIL PROTECTED] as in
"abundant" [EMAIL PROTECTED]@nt] and maybe even vs [6] as in
"summoner" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
-- Christian Thalmann
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Message: 25
Date: Sun, 3 Apr 2005 03:55:25 -0700
From: "B. Garcia" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Gender Bending Moro
On Apr 3, 2005 2:28 AM, David J. Peterson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>
> Well...just about any language feature that you can think of is
> bound to occur *somewhere*. I mean, if I felt that way, why
> would I ever create a language? I personally, since I try to
> create naturalistic languages, for the most part. Anything I
> think up is bound to occur (or have occurred) somewhere, but
> that doesn't make it uninteresting to me.
I never said i thought it was "uninteresting".
I said I wasn't impressed. There's a world of difference between the
two. I'd appreciate not being associated with things I never said.
I did say I found it a "neat way" (which is another way I say
"interesting"). Of course anything any of us think up is bound to
occur. As a species, Humans aren't *that* innovative with things that
are already around (i'm not saying they aren't innovative *at all*,
mind you).
>
> Lots of language don't distinguish gender grammatically. And even
> though there is no base word for "boy" and "girl" in Tagalog, there *is*
> a base word for "man" and "woman". So Tagalog makes pretty
> much as many gender distinctions as Moro (which also doesn't
> distinguish gender in the pronouns or on the verbs).
Yes.
What I was saying is this: Just because a language uses gender,
doesn't mean that it's necessarily swayed one way or another socially.
Those who speak Spanish as their first language in the Philippines are
no more Patriarchal than their fellow countrymen who speak the native
languages (because Filipino culture tends to be a lot less
patriarchal than say, Mexican or even Spanish culture)
>
> Also, I wasn't *seriously* claiming that Moro culture is more
> gender neutral. I never explained anything about Moro culture,
> in fact, and from all indications, it seems like a society where
> the man do the hunting and the work and the women do the
> cooking and the housework and child rearing. This is just an
> interesting fact that I personally have never seen in a natural
> language before.
I wasn't saying you did at all.
I was commenting on the all too common misconception that language
influences culture and gender views, when it really doesn't. I've not
really found typical Spanish Speakers to be any more aware of gender
in language than English speakers are of the lack of it.
Language *can* of course _reflect_ gender views (which is where get
get all sorts of chestnuts like "woman comes from womb + man,
reflecting Anglo-Saxon's Patriarchal culture, saying that all womyn
are, are men with wombs!" (yes, I HAVE heard someone say that -- a
rather rabid, zealous feminist).
>Just because it was bound to occur somewhere,
> I fail to see how it's uninteresting.
Did I say that at all?
Again, I never said I thought it was uninteresting. It is. I just said
I didn't think it was all that unique, because it's unsurprising that
some language somewhere that uses gender would use "girls" instead of
"boys" for a group of girls and boys.
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