There are 11 messages in this issue.
Topics in this digest:
1.1. Re: Chat. Don't join if you don't have the stomach for it.
From: Padraic Brown
1.2. Re: Chat. Don't join if you don't have the stomach for it.
From: BPJ
1.3. Re: Chat. Don't join if you don't have the stomach for it.
From: Gary Shannon
1.4. Re: Chat. Don't join if you don't have the stomach for it.
From: R A Brown
1.5. Re: Chat. Don't join if you don't have the stomach for it.
From: Douglas Koller
1.6. Re: Chat. Don't join if you don't have the stomach for it.
From: BPJ
1.7. Re: Chat. Don't join if you don't have the stomach for it.
From: Adam Walker
1.8. Re: Chat. Don't join if you don't have the stomach for it.
From: R A Brown
2a. The morbid topic, was: Chat. Don't join if you don't have the stomac
From: Koppa Dasao
2b. Re: The morbid topic, was: Chat. Don't join if you don't have the st
From: Puey McCleary
3. fragments of new conlang: chrestomathy thereof
From: Wesley Parish
Messages
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1.1. Re: Chat. Don't join if you don't have the stomach for it.
Posted by: "Padraic Brown" [email protected]
Date: Sat Dec 10, 2011 6:10 am ((PST))
--- On Sat, 12/10/11, R A Brown <[email protected]> wrote:
> > Compare the Dutch 'Vadertje Tijd' (Father Time), 'Moeder
> > Aarde' (Mother Earth), 'Koning Winter' (King Winter),
>
> We have 'Father Time' and 'Mother Earth' in English also,
> even tho our language does not mark grammatical gender.
> But we don't have 'King Winter' ;)
We have 'Old Man Winter' (leastways over here in Leftpondia). And you
have 'Father Christmas' (rare here).
> > And of course, different cultures would interpret such
> > concepts differently, leading to different grammatical
> > genders in the languages way past the point where such
> > personifications had any relationship to how people
> > really view those concepts.
>
> Exactly - that's why I was intrigued that some cultures at
> some time in their past had personified death as female,
> and others as 'male.' Presumably this difference must occur in
> concultures also.
No doubt. At least in the World, the grammatical situation is often
trumped by the fact such personifications generally refer to, well, an
actual being of some sort. Talarian has only animate and inanimate
genders. And while Astifâtas happens to have been borrowed as an animate
noun, Death is still generally pictured as a feminine being. But the
tutelary spirits of, for example, the Ancestors and the national assembly,
Farfaçar and Ponxwwar respectively, are grammatically inanimate. The
former may be either male or female, while the latter is female. Obconlang:
a grammatical complication of such words is that inanimate nouns can never
be the agent of a verb. So, a slightly modified declension turns
inanimate Farfaçar into agential Farfçram. Occasionally, you get a
weird "twice declined" form like Patarus (the name Peter), which is
clearly derived from an inanimate Patar. But clearly Talarian speakers
were in some way uncomfortable with a neuter man's name and so just tacked
a common animate gender ending on the end. Such names are often declined
twice: Patarus / Patanam (acc) / Patanosáça (gen.)
> Ray
Padraic
Messages in this topic (28)
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1.2. Re: Chat. Don't join if you don't have the stomach for it.
Posted by: "BPJ" [email protected]
Date: Sat Dec 10, 2011 6:23 am ((PST))
On 2011-12-10 09:17, G. van der Vegt wrote:
>> Now clearly in languages like the Romancelangs& Welsh,
>> > where nouns are either masculine or feminine, death must
>> > perforce be either masculine or feminine. But what I find
>> > interesting is that even in languages which have a neuter
>> > gender, e.g. Latin, Greek (both ancient& modern), German
>> > and Russian, death is nor seen as neuter.
>> >
> This isn't limited to Death either, there's many similarish concepts
> that tend towards being assigned a grammatical gender. I think it have
> to do with the days where these concepts where regularly personified.
Often enough the gender of a word is 'assigned' by
accident so to speak, because the word was formed with
some meaning-bearing affix which just happens to carry
with it a certain gender, like for example abstract
noun suffixes tend to carry with them feminine gender
in many Indo-European language, much because two
suffixes used to derive abstracts and words for female
beings happened to have become homophonous in late PIE.
It was actually not the case that people assigned those
endings to certain inanimate things and concepts
because they thought these were male or female; the
association between affixes and biological gender was
secondary because the same/similar affixes were used
both for words denoting people and animals, and for
other things which didn't have biological gender, or
whose bio gender was unknown/misunderstood, as usually
was the case with plants. Death/time/whatever became
male or female because the word for it had a certain
grammatical gender, not the other way around! This said
the association can of course become pretty strong
once it is in place.
/bpj
Messages in this topic (28)
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1.3. Re: Chat. Don't join if you don't have the stomach for it.
Posted by: "Gary Shannon" [email protected]
Date: Sat Dec 10, 2011 7:50 am ((PST))
On Sat, Dec 10, 2011 at 6:10 AM, Padraic Brown <[email protected]> wrote:
---
> We have 'Old Man Winter' (leastways over here in Leftpondia). And you
> have 'Father Christmas' (rare here).
And Jack Frost
--gary
Messages in this topic (28)
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1.4. Re: Chat. Don't join if you don't have the stomach for it.
Posted by: "R A Brown" [email protected]
Date: Sat Dec 10, 2011 12:39 pm ((PST))
On 10/12/2011 14:22, BPJ wrote:
[snip]
>
> Often enough the gender of a word is 'assigned' by
> accident so to speak, because the word was formed with
> some meaning-bearing affix which just happens to carry
> with it a certain gender, like for example abstract noun
> suffixes tend to carry with them feminine gender in many
> Indo-European language,
I'm aware of that. That IMO is a secondary issue.
[snip]
> was the case with plants. Death/time/whatever became male
> or female because the word for it had a certain
> grammatical gender, not the other way around!
That looks like a circulus vitiosus when we're dealing with
monomorphemic roots. Why was _mors_, mortis (i.e. the stem
mort-) feminine in the first place? There is no obvious
grammatical reason for it. Nor AFAIK is there any
grammatical reason why _Tod_ should be masculine in German.
Why, in Latin, is noct- (nox, noctis "night") feminine, but
die- (diÄs, diÄs) normally masculine, with singular
sometimes treated as feminine if it refers to a specific day?
What determines gender assignment of _monomorphemic_
words/stems in naturalistic conlangs?
--
Ray
==================================
http://www.carolandray.plus.com
==================================
Nid rhy hen neb i ddysgu.
There's none too old to learn.
[WELSH PROVERB]
Messages in this topic (28)
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1.5. Re: Chat. Don't join if you don't have the stomach for it.
Posted by: "Douglas Koller" [email protected]
Date: Sat Dec 10, 2011 2:14 pm ((PST))
> Date: Sat, 10 Dec 2011 10:38:50 +0000
> From: [email protected]
> Subject: Re: Chat. Don't join if you don't have the stomach for it.
> To: [email protected]
> On 10/12/2011 08:17, G. van der Vegt wrote:
> >> Now clearly in languages like the Romancelangs & Welsh,
> >> where nouns are either masculine or feminine, death
> >> must perforce be either masculine or feminine. But what
> >> I find interesting is that even in languages which have
> >> a neuter gender, e.g. Latin, Greek (both ancient &
> >> modern), German and Russian, death is not seen as
> >> neuter.
> > This isn't limited to Death either, there's many
> > similarish concepts that tend towards being assigned a
> > grammatical gender. I think it have to do with the days
> > where these concepts where regularly personified.
> Yes, I think that is what I was hinting.
> Exactly - that's why I was intrigued that some cultures at
> some time in their past had personified death as female, and
> others as 'male.' Presumably this difference must occur in
> concultures also.
> In the Romlangs gender will clearly follow that of Latin
> and Romance languages. But I'm sure there must be other
> a_priori conlangs with grammatical gender. What determines
> gender in such languages?
> Ray
The gender system of Géarthnuns went the way of the stage coach. In its early,
adolescnet, let's-make-it-Latiny-Esperantoy-Germany-Russiany days, there were
four genders: masculne, feminine, neuter, and omnal. As the system went seven
crazy, three more genders were added: masculo-feminine, femino-neuter, and
neutro-omnal. It was not a particularly a well-working system. Later, the
emphasis shifted from gender to "class": what was masculine still dealt with
masculine beings, but also included "green" things, and other animates (though
later still this limitation dissolved). Masculo-feminine still had words like
"parent", "spouse", "sibling", etc., but also included various natural
phenomena (with no rhyme or reason) and gerunds. Feminine remained feminine in
some older words, but femino-neuter shifted to be the neo-feminine, and also
included "pleasant" things. Neuter marked "unpleasant" things and certain
machines. Neutro-omnal covered a lot of territory surrounding speech and
writing. And omnal tended to deal with celestial concepts like "god", "day",
"year". All of those distinctions have really fallen by the wayside, though
they obviously permeate and influence the vocabulary in the language
(particularly if I'm creating words that would/should have existed at earlier
points in Géarthnuns history). So techinically, there are in the modern
language no "real" words for "he", "she", or "it"; those pronouns agree with
the name of the thing named, regardless of "gender" (though "söb" could be the
default "he" for an unknown male, "san" or "söit"for an unknown female).
As to "Death", as a countable event, is "sfaiks" (or older, "sfüks"), a neuter,
but also something considered "unpleasant". In the abstract, and as something
you might personify, it's "üls", a neutro-omnal, not a speech act showing that
the old system has faded away.
Kou
Messages in this topic (28)
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1.6. Re: Chat. Don't join if you don't have the stomach for it.
Posted by: "BPJ" [email protected]
Date: Sat Dec 10, 2011 2:20 pm ((PST))
On 2011-12-10 21:39, R A Brown wrote:
> On 10/12/2011 14:22, BPJ wrote:
> [snip]
>>
>> Often enough the gender of a word is 'assigned' by
>> accident so to speak, because the word was formed with
>> some meaning-bearing affix which just happens to carry
>> with it a certain gender, like for example abstract noun
>> suffixes tend to carry with them feminine gender in many
>> Indo-European language,
>
> I'm aware of that. That IMO is a secondary issue.
>
> [snip]
>> was the case with plants. Death/time/whatever became male
>> or female because the word for it had a certain
>> grammatical gender, not the other way around!
>
> That looks like a circulus vitiosus when we're dealing with
> monomorphemic roots. Why was _mors_, mortis (i.e. the stem
> mort-) feminine in the first place? There is no obvious
> grammatical reason for it. Nor AFAIK is there any
> grammatical reason why _Tod_ should be masculine in German.
Neither Latin _mort-_ nor Germanic _*dauþu-_ are
monomorphemic as a comparison with the verbs _morire_
and _*daujan_ show. The suffix in _*dauþu-_, is BTW
cognate with the _-tu-_ suffix in the many action nouns
in the Latin 4th declension and classical Sanskrit
indeclinable infinitives in _-tum_. True there is no
grammatical or semantic 'reason' why those suffixes or
any word denoting an inanimate should be associated
with masculine or feminine gender, but they were, and
often on the basis of sharing a suffix with some other
word. As for true root nouns in Indo-European those in
Vedic were feminine when nomina actionis and masculine
when nomina agentis. If that was because of some
analogy or because Vedic poets were preoccupied with
male actors I don't know.
> Why, in Latin, is noct- (nox, noctis "night") feminine, but
Because it has the same -t- suffix as _mor-t-_. The
root noun _nak_ (or possibly the cognate _nak(ts)_,
since only the nominative is preserved, and it would
shed most of a final cluster) is vestigially preserved
in Vedic, although the Ä-stem _naktÄ_ and ti-stem
_nakti_, both with typically feminine suffixes, are far
more common both there and in later Indo-Aryan.
> die- (diÄs, diÄs) normally masculine, with singular
> sometimes treated as feminine if it refers to a specific day?
No idea, but both _di_ and feminine _dia_ occur in
Romance -- even both in the same language in Old
Occitan/Provençal! Perhaps some funniness of that
conlang Written Latin going on. After all all other
words of the fifth declension are feminine, so perhaps
_dies_ became masculine on analogy with some lost word,
e.g. a cognate of Germanic _*dagaz_ (which is itself
something of a mystery, as if a derivative of _*agh-_
had picked up the initial _d_ of _*deiw-_).
>
> What determines gender assignment of _monomorphemic_
> words/stems
> in naturalistic conlangs?
>
The whim of the author, obviously, as always in conlangs.
Anyway the 'reason' why _morte_ is feminine in Italian
is lost in prehistory, and was not caused by anyone
imagining personified Death as female. Believing that
is to put the cart before the horse.
/bpj
Messages in this topic (28)
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1.7. Re: Chat. Don't join if you don't have the stomach for it.
Posted by: "Adam Walker" [email protected]
Date: Sat Dec 10, 2011 3:59 pm ((PST))
On Sat, Dec 10, 2011 at 1:53 AM, R A Brown <[email protected]> wrote:
> On 10/12/2011 02:51, Padraic Brown wrote:
> Methinks it's nothing more or less than the simple fact that
> 'death' {la morte) is grammatically feminine in Italian, as
> it is in Latin and the Romance languages :)
>
> <snip>
>
> Now clearly in languages like the Romancelangs & Welsh,
> where nouns are either masculine or feminine, death must
> perforce be either masculine or feminine. But what I find
> interesting is that even in languages which have a neuter
> gender, e.g. Latin, Greek (both ancient & modern), German
> and Russian, death is nor seen as neuter.
>
> ObConlang
> In conlangs that have grammatical gender how does 'death' fare?
>
>
Well, Carrajina , despite it being a Romlang, has three genders and _il
morri_ is in the neuter gender by virute of ending in -i so it takes the
neuter article, _il_. I've enver really thought about personifying Death
in any of my conlangs since I don't tend to think of it in those terms,
despite it being such a common image in western civilization and even
occurs to some very limited extent in the Bible in passages like those that
speak of Dath as the final enemy to be conquered or Christ's triumph over
Death leading captivity captive or in revelation where it speaks of Death
and Hell being cast into the pit before the final remaking of all things.
I'm not sure, but I suspect that Death personified would have a change of
gender to _ul Morru_ or _al Morra_ the Dead-man or the Dead-woman which is
rather creepy sounding as either of thouse (sans capitalization) would be
used to identify the body of the departed as a male of female corpse. Icky
stuff, but then post Black Death the throughout the whole range of the
plague people became a bit preoccupied with morbid images.
Adam whose time line is fast approaching that ever-so-lovely period
Messages in this topic (28)
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1.8. Re: Chat. Don't join if you don't have the stomach for it.
Posted by: "R A Brown" [email protected]
Date: Sun Dec 11, 2011 1:25 am ((PST))
On 10/12/2011 22:20, BPJ wrote:
> On 2011-12-10 21:39, R A Brown wrote:
[snip]
> ............. True there is no grammatical or semantic
> 'reason' why those suffixes or any word denoting an
> inanimate should be associated with masculine or
> feminine gender, but they were, and often on the basis of
> sharing a suffix with some other word. As for true root
> nouns in Indo-European those in Vedic were feminine when
> nomina actionis and masculine when nomina agentis. If
> that was because of some analogy or because Vedic poets
> were preoccupied with male actors I don't know.
I.e. true, in fact, that you have not answered my original
question which, admittedly, I was addressing to conlangs
rather than natlangs.
If you recall, I initially pointed out that St Francis sang
about 'Sister Death' not because of some feeling of
pro-feminism or any modern concept, but simply because _la
morte_ is grammatically feminine. Had Francis been German
rather than Italian he would have sung of 'Brother Death' -
but he wasn't.
That, surely, _agrees_ with what you earlier wrote:
"Death/time/whatever became male or female because the word
for it had a certain grammatical gender, not the other way
around!" - which is precisely what I said.
I merely observed that even in languages like Latin, Greek,
German and Russian, which possess a neuter gender, 'death'
and many other concepts were assigned masculine or feminine
_grammatical gender_. I merely asked, because this is after
all a *conlang* list, what criteria conlangers used in
assigning gender in a conlang with a grammatical gender system.
OK - even if most of the gender assignments in IE languages
are ultimately due to that of formative suffixes, you do
seem to admit that some, at least, were roots words which
did carry gender. But the formative suffix explanation
merely pushes the question back one stage, not answer it.
Why did various formative suffixes confer a particular
grammatical gender on a noun?
But, as I say, I was addressing the question to conlangs
rather than natlangs such as the IE and Semitic ones.
[snip]
>> die- (diÄs, diÄs) normally masculine, with singular
>> sometimes treated as feminine if it refers to a
>> specific day?
>
> No idea, but both _di_ and feminine _dia_ occur in
> Romance -- even both in the same language in Old
> Occitan/Provençal! Perhaps some funniness of that
> conlang Written Latin going on. After all all other words
> of the fifth declension are feminine, so perhaps _dies_
> became masculine on analogy with some lost word,
Indeed, all other 5th declension nouns are feminine, thus
one would have expected _diÄs_ to be feminine, and it was
almost certainly the 'feminine attraction' that accounts the
use in the singular when referring to a specific day. But
the word held onto its 'masculinity' in most contexts and
its descendants in Spanish and Portuguese still do: el día,
o día.
But, methinks, there is more than just derived gender,
formative suffixes etc going on. We do find examples of
gender change. It is well known that Latin neuters normally
became masculines in the Romancelangs. So we find Latin
_mare_ "sea" turning up dutifully as Italian _il mare_,
Spanish _el mar_ and Portuguese _o mar_ - but the French and
Romanians feminize it, thus: _la mer_, _marea_ (final -a
being the feminine article). Analogy with _terra_ "earth"
is the usual explanation. But why only French & Romanian
and not the others?
The Latin _pÅns, pontis_ "bridge" is masculine (why?) and
generally retains that gender in Romance, hence. e.g. French
_le pont_. But in Portuguese it is feminine _a ponte_.
Also the word was borrowed by the ancient Brits and survives
in modern Welsh as the feminine _pont_ "bridge" ~ y bont
"the bridge" (feminine nouns have 'soft mutation' after the
definite article.
So IMO there is more going on than just gender of formative
suffixes.
But:
>>
>> What determines gender assignment of _monomorphemic_
>> words/stems in naturalistic conlangs?
>
> The whim of the author, obviously, as always in
> conlangs.
With respect, that is a non-answer. At that level we may as
well not ask any conlanger why s/he does this, that or the
other. "Oh, it's just my whim."
OK - I'll put it another way. "Why whim cause you, dear
conlanger, to assign grammatical gender to objects 7 other
concepts in your conlang?"
> Anyway the 'reason' why _morte_ is feminine in Italian
> is lost in prehistory, and was not caused by anyone
> imagining personified Death as female. Believing that is
> to put the cart before the horse.
Where, in this thread, did anyone actually suggest this!
Let me summarize what I _did_ say:
1. St Francis personified Death as 'Sister Death' because
_morte_ has feminine gender in Italian.
2. Italian _morte_ is feminine because it is derived from
Latin _mors, mortis_ which was also feminine.
3. Why, as Latin has a neuter gender, did it make _mors_
feminine? [Your answer: because it contains the formative
suffix -t-. My supplementary question: Why does that make
it feminine? Note: I say _feminine_ (grammatical), *not*
female.]
4. What factor/ consideration/ whim determines _grammatical
gender_ in conlangs that have such gender?
{Sigh}
I was merely trying to give an off-topic subject a _conlang
twist_ because I was under the impression that this was a
conlang list! But over recent months it seems that
whenever I try to do this my words inevitably get
misunderstood or misrepresented - which I find very tedious.
As someone wrote to me privately quite recently "I'm not
sure why it seems to be open season on you right now."
--
Ray
==================================
http://www.carolandray.plus.com
==================================
Nid rhy hen neb i ddysgu.
There's none too old to learn.
[WELSH PROVERB]
Messages in this topic (28)
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________________________________________________________________________
2a. The morbid topic, was: Chat. Don't join if you don't have the stomac
Posted by: "Koppa Dasao" [email protected]
Date: Sat Dec 10, 2011 4:39 pm ((PST))
I think I should mention my old signature....
ÐÅо ÆÐ°Ð¼Ð°Ñ ÑнÑÐµÑ ÐÐ¾Ñ Î´ÐµÐ³Ð°Ñ ÆÐ°Ð¼Ð°Ñ Ñн моÅÑ Ð½Ðµ
ÆÅемÑÑеÅÑ, мÑÑеÅÑ.
Gro hamaz intex Mox degaj hamaz in mori ne fremiteri, miteri.
May they in Death receive the peace they didn't get in dying.
A blessing traditionally given to honor all those who died in the
Negan invasion. First used by King Qakhomatze, later written down in
the appendix of all editions of the book "Negan invasion" published
after King Qakhomatze died.
The blessing is also used in books citing "Negan invasion".
The blessing are always written in both scripts.
When spoken, it is often followed by a minute of silence.
Koppa Dasao
___
ÐеҫаÑÐ»Ñ Ð²ÐµÑно!
Les Miserables forever!
2011/12/11 Adam Walker <[email protected]>:
> On Sat, Dec 10, 2011 at 1:53 AM, R A Brown <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>> On 10/12/2011 02:51, Padraic Brown wrote:
>> Methinks it's nothing more or less than the simple fact that
>> 'death' {la morte) is grammatically feminine in Italian, as
>> it is in Latin and the Romance languages :)
>>
>> <snip>
>>
>
>
>> Now clearly in languages like the Romancelangs & Welsh,
>> where nouns are either masculine or feminine, death must
>> perforce be either masculine or feminine. But what I find
>> interesting is that even in languages which have a neuter
>> gender, e.g. Latin, Greek (both ancient & modern), German
>> and Russian, death is nor seen as neuter.
>>
>> ObConlang
>> In conlangs that have grammatical gender how does 'death' fare?
>>
>>
> Well, Carrajina , despite it being a Romlang, has three genders and _il
> morri_ is in the neuter gender by virute of ending in -i so it takes the
> neuter article, _il_. I've enver really thought about personifying Death
> in any of my conlangs since I don't tend to think of it in those terms,
> despite it being such a common image in western civilization and even
> occurs to some very limited extent in the Bible in passages like those that
> speak of Dath as the final enemy to be conquered or Christ's triumph over
> Death leading captivity captive or in revelation where it speaks of Death
> and Hell being cast into the pit before the final remaking of all things.
> I'm not sure, but I suspect that Death personified would have a change of
> gender to _ul Morru_ or _al Morra_ the Dead-man or the Dead-woman which is
> rather creepy sounding as either of thouse (sans capitalization) would be
> used to identify the body of the departed as a male of female corpse. Icky
> stuff, but then post Black Death the throughout the whole range of the
> plague people became a bit preoccupied with morbid images.
>
> Adam whose time line is fast approaching that ever-so-lovely period
Messages in this topic (2)
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2b. Re: The morbid topic, was: Chat. Don't join if you don't have the st
Posted by: "Puey McCleary" [email protected]
Date: Sat Dec 10, 2011 6:08 pm ((PST))
Greetings!
The question of how we, in our languages, express abstractions such as
Mister Death and Miss Agriculture and Mister Geometry is of course
pertinent to the discussion on how to translate Alice In Wonderland.
Im afraid that in the Babel language (or Khlìjha language as a Princess
might call it), one cannot just say Death or Agriculture or Geometry
as an abstract sentient thing, and have one expect to understand that.
There are a limited number of abstractions that are already used as titles,
though, and the Angel of Death already has a few names, so one can talk
about Lord Qlarxhnàrxha. Words for Sun and Moon may refer to the
Emperor and Empress, and context usually makes the meaning clear. Were one
to say These virgins belong to the Moon, one probably means that these
handmaidens are the property of the current Empress. The Sun brings life
and shines upon all things could refer to the Sun or the Emperor. One
just knows the intent. Our current Emperor is also associated with Winter,
so we have some wintery words for him.
But really, these are just titles used for figures in their world.
In Chapter Seven of Alice in Wonderland, the Mad Hatter talks about Time.
He says something like, If you knew time, youd call him him
The statement Time is a he would, in Babel, just be read as a
misconjugation, like saying It were me. It would probably be mentally
corrected and forgotten.
In the version of Alice that Im unearthing, the Mad Hatter is a Mad
Alchemist, and he says something like If you knew Prince Time, youd call
the Prince him.
In other words, he uses a title and pretends that Time is the Princes
name. But then the Mad Alchemist continues in a most curious fashion. Several
times where Carroll uses the word him or he, the Mad Alchemist uses a
word for Prince. (Using different words for Prince is not in this case
relevant, because thats just elegant wording in Babel. Why use the same
one when one can keep using different ones?) However, the Mad Alchemist
also keeps using different words for Time. He talks about The Timely
Prince or the Prince of Seasons. In fact, the Mad Alchemist always uses
a different term
every
time.
Here one can see that, in order to express the abstract idea of Time as a
Person, the Mad Alchemist employs two different linguistic strategies. Time
is always given some sort of Princely title, but then the words for time
are always different, to emphasize that time (or season or hour) is
not a literal name.
Now, there is also a third level of word playing here in personifying
Time.
See, a Mad Alchemist could have said, I know an Alchemist named Time,
and that would have probably made more sense. Also, in this culture
theres already a legend of the Nymphs of Time, and the obvious pun would
have been If you knew a Nymph named Time, youd call her she. However,
he chooses to call him Prince.
This is done, of course, so that the Alchemist, and the Sorcerer who tells
this story, reminds us of the theme of this story, which is of lost
Princess Alixhlìnye, literally and metaphorically growing up, and
learning about the utter absurdity of the world that adults have made. The
word Prince reminds the reader of the other noble characters, the twin
Duchesses, the Suzerain of Blood, and Princess Alixhlìnye.
And so one can find that personification in language unleashes a great
treasure trove of meaning and insight.
--
Puey McCleary
http://pueyandtheprincess.conlang.org
Messages in this topic (2)
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3. fragments of new conlang: chrestomathy thereof
Posted by: "Wesley Parish" [email protected]
Date: Sun Dec 11, 2011 5:05 am ((PST))
I've been working on a novel of sorts for the last few years, and
have decided to work out the language behind the names. this is the
current state of the names:
-aia formation
Anaia
Antaia
Irianaia
Bitanaia
Anastasaia
Apaia
Jenaia
Menaia
-oia formation
Itudoia
-eia formation
Kereia
-ais formation
Farais
-in formation
Keruin
Bin
Jean
-iun formation
Edeiun
Maiun
Biennuiun
-yi formation
Odayi
-aiohh formation
Rebaiohh
-na formation
Teraiana
Ivanna
Johanna
-nza formation
Firanza
-u formation
En Vilou
-yl formation
Karyl
Daryl
-ya formation
Meya
Bituya
-ye formation
Antuye
-we formation
Bitewe
-os formation
Boutros
-an formation
Geman
most of the formations are adjectival and most seem to derive from a
common basis, the Vowel-semiVowel-Vowel form. the -ye, -ya, and -we
forms are diminutive and intimate and are generally used by mothers
or lovers, though Meya is a non-diminutive. it is likely that the -yi
formation is a diminutive form that has taken on non-diminutive
status over time.
The only four names I know something of the meaning of, are Bitanaia
- ticklish, with all its diminutives, Bituya (a lover's intimate
diminutive) and Bitewe (a mother's affectionate diminutive); Antaia
(high-spirited),with its diminutive Antuye, a lover's intimate
diminutive; and Geman-Menaia, where Geman - worthy - loses its
adjectival ending -aia when in apposition to another adjective -
Menaia - loving, the whole name becoming a rough equivalent of Amanda
- Worthy of being loved/lovable. And Anastasaia - this is horribly
politically incorrect - an, ana generally means "high", in the
physical and various metaphorical senses. stas and stasi generally
refers to the female bosom. Anastasaia is generally regarded as one
of the "mothers" of all the humans in the Enclave, a region of almost-
space trapped between various aspects of various pre-universes'
membranes, and while some would consider that the meaning of her name
refers to her nurturing side, others with equal justification,
consider it refers to her sexual pride and appetite. I am a mere
chronicler, and would not wish to choose either side. :)
As yet there are no texts. these names are all there currently is.
Wesley Parish
Messages in this topic (1)
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