There are 25 messages in this issue.
Topics in this digest:
1a. Re: fragments of new conlang: chrestomathy thereof
From: Adam Walker
1b. Re: fragments of new conlang: chrestomathy thereof
From: Padraic Brown
1c. Re: fragments of new conlang: chrestomathy thereof
From: Padraic Brown
1d. Re: fragments of new conlang: chrestomathy thereof
From: Charlie Brickner
1e. Re: fragments of new conlang: chrestomathy thereof
From: Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets
1f. Re: fragments of new conlang: chrestomathy thereof
From: Koppa Dasao
1g. Re: fragments of new conlang: chrestomathy thereof
From: Charlie Brickner
1h. Re: fragments of new conlang: chrestomathy thereof
From: Padraic Brown
2a. Re: A sort of "lexicalized syntax"-- has this been done before?
From: neo gu
2b. Re: A sort of "lexicalized syntax"-- has this been done before?
From: Padraic Brown
2c. Re: A sort of "lexicalized syntax"-- has this been done before?
From: Matthew Martin
2d. Re: A sort of "lexicalized syntax"-- has this been done before?
From: Matthew Turnbull
2e. Re: A sort of "lexicalized syntax"-- has this been done before?
From: David McCann
3a. Re: Väder/kläd er på nors k
From: Philip Newton
4a. Re: New Blog Post: Moten Part IV
From: neo gu
5.1. Grammatical gender (was: Chat. Don't join if you don't have the stom
From: R A Brown
6.1. Re: Chat. Don't join if you don't have the stomach for it.
From: Charlie Brickner
6.2. Re: Chat. Don't join if you don't have the stomach for it.
From: Koppa Dasao
6.3. Re: Chat. Don't join if you don't have the stomach for it.
From: Matthew Turnbull
6.4. Re: Chat. Don't join if you don't have the stomach for it.
From: Jim Henry
7a. Re: Conlang regional variations
From: David McCann
8a. New York Times article on conlangs in Hollywood
From: Gary Shannon
8b. Re: New York Times article on conlangs in Hollywood
From: Roger Mills
9. Re: Väder/kläd er på nors k
From: Charlie Brickner
10a. Re: 9D grammar
From: Matthew Turnbull
Messages
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1a. Re: fragments of new conlang: chrestomathy thereof
Posted by: "Adam Walker" [email protected]
Date: Mon Dec 12, 2011 6:04 am ((PST))
Not so much with Hebrew. In fact the ~a/ah endings of male names have
been a real problem for me in C~a. Noah~Noa, Jonah~Juna, Micah~Mica
and others have all been problematic because they look very female and
take the feminin articlf. Solutions have varied.
On 12/12/11, Wesley Parish <[email protected]> wrote:
> FWIW, Dana in Lithuanian or Latvian, I forget which, is a male name.
> And following the Romance languages lead, one might decide that all
> names ending in -o are male - but in one of my stories, both the male
> and the female have names ending in -o - Praleyo (the male) and
> Vheratsho (the female).
>
> I think the " -a equals female gender" is mostly a Romance language
> habit. (With an infusion of various Semitic influences - Arabic,
> Hebrew, even Aramaic.)
>
> Just my 0.02c worth
>
> Wesley Parish
>
> On 12/12/2011, at 8:44 PM, R A Brown wrote:
>
>> On 11/12/2011 14:20, Sam Stutter wrote:
>> [snip]
>>
>>> I'm going to apply Lesson 5 of Xenolinguistics here "if
>>> theres any sign of females, their names will end in an
>>> unstressed -a". I totally do this all the time too.
>>
>> I think you are probably right with the list I've snipped.
>> But to totally do that all the time with natangs, at least,
>> will not give correct results, nor will it, I suspect, with
>> conlangs.
>>
>> I remember, many years ago when I taught Latin, a young
>> student getting more and more puzzled as he translated a
>> passage from Cicero. Finally he realized that _Dolabella_
>> was a male!
>>
>> In fact quite a few names of males end in unstressed -a in
>> Latin.
>>
>> But maybe in that branch of conlangs known as _exolangs_
>> "if theres any sign of females, their names will end in an
>> unstressed -a" is a truism. If this is so, IMO it shows an
>> remarkable lack of imagination among the authors of those
>> 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 (14)
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1b. Re: fragments of new conlang: chrestomathy thereof
Posted by: "Padraic Brown" [email protected]
Date: Mon Dec 12, 2011 6:43 am ((PST))
--- On Mon, 12/12/11, R A Brown <[email protected]> wrote:
> But maybe in that branch of conlangs known as _exolangs_
> "if thereâs any sign of females, their names will end in
> an unstressed -a" is a truism. If this is so, IMO it
> shows an remarkable lack of imagination among the authors of those
> conlangs.
I've always taken it to mean the author in question simply isn't a
conlanger beyond the most basic of levels. Got a swashbuckling girl
elf that needs a name? Make sure it's got some Rs and Ls and stick
an A on the end, per the expected foreign=Romance algorithm: Larranelea.
Then, if you *really* feel ambitious, try to figure out what "larrano"
means, so you can weave that into the narrative.
Padraic
> -- Ray
Messages in this topic (14)
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1c. Re: fragments of new conlang: chrestomathy thereof
Posted by: "Padraic Brown" [email protected]
Date: Mon Dec 12, 2011 6:59 am ((PST))
--- On Mon, 12/12/11, Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets <[email protected]> wrote:
> > FWIW, Dana in Lithuanian or Latvian, I forget which,
> > is a male name.
>
>
> In Slavic languages, shortened forms of male names often
> end in unstressed
> -a, like Sasha, from Aleksandr, or Pasha, from Pavel, or
> even Vanya from Ivan.
I love how the "shortened form" of Ivan, Vanya, is actually *longer* than
the original name!
> In Moten, names are generally epicene, like everything in
> the language. Gender is just not marked.
Also true in Talarian. Names, since they belong to active beings that act
as agents, should be of animate gender. To that end, names that are of the
inanimate gender tend to get an extra animate termination tacked on the
end. I'd already mentioned Patarus (Peter), which has a very clear
inananimate -ar termination to which an additional ending has been placed.
Of course, if the person finds himself the recipient or object of an
action, the animate termination generally falls away: weytati Patarus-co
makam, Peter sees me; but weytâ akâ Patar-to, I see Peter.
> Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets.
Padraic
Messages in this topic (14)
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1d. Re: fragments of new conlang: chrestomathy thereof
Posted by: "Charlie Brickner" [email protected]
Date: Mon Dec 12, 2011 8:02 am ((PST))
On Mon, 12 Dec 2011 12:49:43 +0100, Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets
<[email protected]> wrote:
>In Moten, names are generally epicene, like everything in the language.
As they are in Senjecas. Many mammals, both wild and domesticated, can be
referred to by an epicene generic word or by words specific to the sex in the
manner of horse, stallion, mare: écwes, yháyes, gíbes.
deer = yórhkes, stag = κérhmhes, doe = súúkes
If there is only an epicene word, the feminine prefix ii- or the masculine
prefix nor- can be affixed to the word.
There are also words for the young of many animals, such as calf, fawn, lamb,
etc.
With respect to proper names, the item after which the person is named (or
the newly created name) takes the -us ending of loquent beings.
If a girl is named after the rose, mhrhódis, she would be called mhrhódus;
if
named after joy, báyas, she would be called báyus.
Charlie
Messages in this topic (14)
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1e. Re: fragments of new conlang: chrestomathy thereof
Posted by: "Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets" [email protected]
Date: Mon Dec 12, 2011 8:07 am ((PST))
On 12 December 2011 15:59, Padraic Brown <[email protected]> wrote:
> >
> > In Slavic languages, shortened forms of male names often
> > end in unstressed
> > -a, like Sasha, from Aleksandr, or Pasha, from Pavel, or
> > even Vanya from Ivan.
>
> I love how the "shortened form" of Ivan, Vanya, is actually *longer* than
> the original name!
>
>
To be fair, in Cyrillic they have the same number of letters: ÐÐ°Ð½Ñ vs.
Ðван, as well as the same number of phonemes. Still, so much for
"shortening" when the result is as long as the starting point!
--
Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets.
http://christophoronomicon.blogspot.com/
http://www.christophoronomicon.nl/
Messages in this topic (14)
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1f. Re: fragments of new conlang: chrestomathy thereof
Posted by: "Koppa Dasao" [email protected]
Date: Mon Dec 12, 2011 8:25 am ((PST))
Shorten forms aren't the correct term for these names. They are pet names.
By the way, you might add Evitchka for Eva.
Koppa Dasao
___
Norway isn't the solution, but the appendix that's cut out!
2011/12/12 Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets <[email protected]>:
> On 12 December 2011 15:59, Padraic Brown <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>> >
>> > In Slavic languages, shortened forms of male names often
>> > end in unstressed
>> > -a, like Sasha, from Aleksandr, or Pasha, from Pavel, or
>> > even Vanya from Ivan.
>>
>> I love how the "shortened form" of Ivan, Vanya, is actually *longer* than
>> the original name!
>>
>>
> To be fair, in Cyrillic they have the same number of letters: ÐÐ°Ð½Ñ vs.
> Ðван, as well as the same number of phonemes. Still, so much for
> "shortening" when the result is as long as the starting point!
> --
> Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets.
>
> http://christophoronomicon.blogspot.com/
> http://www.christophoronomicon.nl/
Messages in this topic (14)
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1g. Re: fragments of new conlang: chrestomathy thereof
Posted by: "Charlie Brickner" [email protected]
Date: Mon Dec 12, 2011 8:45 am ((PST))
On Mon, 12 Dec 2011 17:25:04 +0100, Koppa Dasao
<[email protected]> wrote:
>Shorten forms aren't the correct term for these names. They are pet names.
>By the way, you might add Evitchka for Eva.
Technically, in English, they are called hypocoristic forms or hypocorisms.
Other, more colloquial, terms are 'terms of endearment' and 'diminutives'.
Charlie
Messages in this topic (14)
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1h. Re: fragments of new conlang: chrestomathy thereof
Posted by: "Padraic Brown" [email protected]
Date: Mon Dec 12, 2011 9:20 am ((PST))
--- On Mon, 12/12/11, Charlie Brickner <[email protected]> wrote:
> >Shorten forms aren't the correct term for these names. They are pet
> >names. By the way, you might add Evitchka for Eva.
>
>
> Technically, in English, they are called hypocoristic forms
> or hypocorisms.
> Other, more colloquial, terms are 'terms of endearment' and
> 'diminutives'.
Or nicknames, or, well, shortened forms! It all amounts to roughly the
same idea.
> Charlie
Padraic
Messages in this topic (14)
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2a. Re: A sort of "lexicalized syntax"-- has this been done before?
Posted by: "neo gu" [email protected]
Date: Mon Dec 12, 2011 6:23 am ((PST))
On Sun, 11 Dec 2011 22:57:01 -0500, Matthew Martin
<[email protected]> wrote:
> I was reading "Atoms of Language" and got the idea from the book
> to create a conlang where basic word order (SVO, OVS, OSV, etc)
> depended on the particular verb and the branching direction
> depended on the particular adjective (some branch left, some right).
> E.g. sentences with the verb "to eat" might be OVS, but sentences
> with the main verb "to snore" might be OSV.
Are there any semantic criteria that determine which verb has which
syntax?
> I think the author said this was unattested in natlangs. Has it
> already been done conlangs?
I have a conlang where active univalent verbs are SV and stative ones
are VS, but that's not quite the same thing.
> I've been calling this "lexicalized syntax" but a google search seems
> to imply that this is this bit of jargon is already being used to
> describe what sounds like idioms-- memorized phrases that are that
> way because they are memorized as a block.
>
>Here is the longer post I wrote...
>http://www.suburbandestiny.com/conlang/?p=484
>
>Matthew Martin
Messages in this topic (8)
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2b. Re: A sort of "lexicalized syntax"-- has this been done before?
Posted by: "Padraic Brown" [email protected]
Date: Mon Dec 12, 2011 7:13 am ((PST))
--- On Sun, 12/11/11, Matthew Martin <[email protected]> wrote:
> I was reading "Atoms of Language" and
> got the idea from the book to create a
> conlang where basic word order (SVO, OVS, OSV, etc)
> depended on the particular
> verb and the branching direction depended on the particular
> adjective (some
> branch left, some right). E.g. sentences with the verb "to
> eat" might be OVS, but
> sentences with the main verb "to snore" might be OSV.
I've toyed with something similar, but using verb classes rather than
particular verbs. So, eat, drink, breathe, read, see, hear, ingest, suck,
swallow, enter -- any verb where something goes from outside to inside --
triggers a certain word order. In my system, both EAT and SNORE would
trigger the same word order, because both verbs involve something (food /
air) going from outside to inside.
And of course, there are only so many word orders to choose from, so other
groups might trigger the same basic order. You might also try even broader
categories, like "transitive verbs trigger OVS" while "intransitive verbs
trigger VSO" then pick some small / odd categories to mop up some other
orders. Or something bizarre like "combination A + B of speaker / hearer"
triggers SVO, while reversing the combination to "B + A of speaker /
hearer" triggers VSO. While "A + A" triggers OVS. Or age of speakers or
some other external / social triggering system. A and B could be genders
or social status groups or familial groups or members of different towns.
So, since we're both boys, I'd tell you some gossip in OVS, but when you
go home and tell your wife the same story, it would be told in SVO. If
she meets a cousin who lives in a different town, even though the cousin
is also female, she would tell the same story in OSV. The cousin goes home
and tells her own sister, the order would revert back to OVS, since they're
both girls.
> Matthew Martin
Padraic
Messages in this topic (8)
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2c. Re: A sort of "lexicalized syntax"-- has this been done before?
Posted by: "Matthew Martin" [email protected]
Date: Mon Dec 12, 2011 7:19 am ((PST))
>> E.g. sentences with the verb "to eat" might be OVS, but sentences
>> with the main verb "to snore" might be OSV.
>
>Are there any semantic criteria that determine which verb has which
>syntax?
No, I had in mind randomly assigning the basic word order with about 1/6 of the
verbs getting each variety.
I haven't decided what to do about the problem of novel verbs. It's kind of
like
the problem that the French have assigning gender to a novel new noun. I
suppose if human brains are fundamentally opposed to lexical basic order, then
people would follow the same rule (maybe SVO) for all novel new verbs, or they
might do some seemingly random assignment like French speakers do for gender
with new words.
>> I think the author said this was unattested in natlangs. Has it
>> already been done conlangs?
>
>I have a conlang where active univalent verbs are SV and stative ones
>are VS, but that's not quite the same thing.
Yeah, there definitely are languages where more than one basic order appears
but it seems to be syntax that triggers a new basic ordering instead of a
particular word. Icelandic will switch from SVO to VSO when a phrase has been
fronted but it doesn't matter which particular verb or word in the fronted
phrase.
Matthew Martin
Messages in this topic (8)
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2d. Re: A sort of "lexicalized syntax"-- has this been done before?
Posted by: "Matthew Turnbull" [email protected]
Date: Mon Dec 12, 2011 7:53 am ((PST))
I've never had trouble assigning a neologism a gender, it gets to be
femenine if it ends with a femenine ending and isn't a loanword and
otherwise it's masculine. Mostly words end up masculine.
Le camping, la television, les blue-jeans noirs. French also has a
default catagory for coining verbs (they pretty much all go into class
7 with a few exceptions) perhaps the language could just have a
default lexical word order for neologisms, or it could be based on
phonetics, so you could hear which class a new word fell into.
On 12/12/11, Matthew Martin <[email protected]> wrote:
>>> E.g. sentences with the verb "to eat" might be OVS, but sentences
>>> with the main verb "to snore" might be OSV.
>>
>>Are there any semantic criteria that determine which verb has which
>>syntax?
>
> No, I had in mind randomly assigning the basic word order with about 1/6 of
> the
> verbs getting each variety.
>
> I haven't decided what to do about the problem of novel verbs. It's kind of
> like
> the problem that the French have assigning gender to a novel new noun. I
> suppose if human brains are fundamentally opposed to lexical basic order,
> then
> people would follow the same rule (maybe SVO) for all novel new verbs, or
> they
> might do some seemingly random assignment like French speakers do for gender
> with new words.
>
>>> I think the author said this was unattested in natlangs. Has it
>>> already been done conlangs?
>>
>>I have a conlang where active univalent verbs are SV and stative ones
>>are VS, but that's not quite the same thing.
>
> Yeah, there definitely are languages where more than one basic order appears
> but it seems to be syntax that triggers a new basic ordering instead of a
> particular word. Icelandic will switch from SVO to VSO when a phrase has
> been
> fronted but it doesn't matter which particular verb or word in the fronted
> phrase.
>
> Matthew Martin
>
--
Sent from my mobile device
Messages in this topic (8)
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2e. Re: A sort of "lexicalized syntax"-- has this been done before?
Posted by: "David McCann" [email protected]
Date: Mon Dec 12, 2011 8:09 am ((PST))
On Sun, 11 Dec 2011 22:57:01 -0500
Matthew Martin <[email protected]> wrote:
In Romance languages, there's a tendency to put the verb first if it
describes a state, location or change thereof. I've kept that in
Liburnese: âArivad ajer Juan. âJohn arrived yesterdayâ
> I was reading "Atoms of Language" and got the idea from the book to
> create a conlang where basic word order (SVO, OVS, OSV, etc) depended
> on the particular verb and the branching direction depended on the
> particular adjective (some branch left, some right). E.g. sentences
> with the verb "to eat" might be OVS, but sentences with the main verb
> "to snore" might be OSV.
>
> I think the author said this was unattested in natlangs. Has it
> already been done conlangs?
Messages in this topic (8)
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3a. Re: Väder/kläd er på nors k
Posted by: "Philip Newton" [email protected]
Date: Mon Dec 12, 2011 6:47 am ((PST))
On Sun, Dec 11, 2011 at 22:37, Douglas Koller <[email protected]> wrote:
> So I hit the dictionary and find that "vær" and "klær" are rhymes, and assume
> that if this is something you blithely goad shivering, kvetching Norwegian
> children with, it must be a pithy little couplet.
Interesting! Because I've heard the saying in German, too - learning
that it actually rhymes in another language is interesting!
Cheers,
Philip
--
Philip Newton <[email protected]>
Messages in this topic (4)
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4a. Re: New Blog Post: Moten Part IV
Posted by: "neo gu" [email protected]
Date: Mon Dec 12, 2011 7:24 am ((PST))
On Mon, 12 Dec 2011 14:29:34 +0100, Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets
<[email protected]> wrote:
2nd attempt at replying
>Hi everyone,
>
>After nearly two years in the making, I've finally managed to publish a
new
>blog post about Moten grammar, entitled: "Moten, Part IV: Verbs and
Main
>Clauses"! In it I finally describe the deceptively simple Moten verbal
>system, with its 36 periphrastic forms :P (and with one example per
form!).
>Probably the main draw for this post is that I finally added a lot of
>example sentences, so that you can see how the language works in
practice.
>
>For the rest, I think this is the longest post I've ever written. I believe
>it's nicely structured though, and should be readable.
>
> The post is available directly at
>http://christophoronomicon.blogspot.com/2011/12/moten-part-iv-
verbs-and-main-clauses.html
> or through my blog's main page's address as given in my signature.
> As usual, if you have any comment/question/remark, don't hesitate
> to post a comment on my blog, or reply to this post. I hope you'll find
> it interesting. Some people have complained about the lack of replies
> to conlang-related posts lately, so let's see how this one fares! :P
I haven't read all of it yet, just skimming the last 60%, but what I've
read is very clear as well as long, especially considering the unusual
grammar (using cases as aspects?). Maybe more later.
--
neogu
>If you want to (re-)read the previous posts on Moten, they are
available
>directly at the following pages:
>http://christophoronomicon.blogspot.com/2009/12/moten
>-part-i-background-and-phonology.html
>http://christophoronomicon.blogspot.com/2009/12/moten
>-part-ii-nouns-and-pronouns.html
>http://christophoronomicon.blogspot.com/2010/01/moten-part-iii-
counting.html
>
>In the next post about Moten (which hopefully will not take two years
this
>time!), I'll talk about subordinate clauses and the use of _atom_: to
be
>and _agem_: to have, the two auxiliaries, as fully-fledged verbs.
There are
>a few surprises there, so stay tuned!
>--
>Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets.
>
>http://christophoronomicon.blogspot.com/
>http://www.christophoronomicon.nl/
Messages in this topic (2)
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5.1. Grammatical gender (was: Chat. Don't join if you don't have the stom
Posted by: "R A Brown" [email protected]
Date: Mon Dec 12, 2011 7:34 am ((PST))
On 12/12/2011 07:12, BPJ wrote:
> Dear Ray,
>
> it seems you and I never really disagreed.
No - I don't think we did.
My first
> mail in this thread was in response to what G. van der
> Vegt wrote:
>
> On 2011-12-10 09:17, G. van der Vegt wrote:
>> 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.
Ah - sorry, I missed that. Yes, I think personification is
too simplistic an explanation for the gender systems found
in IE, Semitic and IIRC other Afro-Asiatic languages. I
don't know what the current thinking is on this. I'm sure
some of our Nostratic brethren have theories :)
>
> I can see now why you found what I wrote nonsensical in
> the context of what you wrote, for which I'm deeply
> sorry.
I guess I must share the blame for not spotting who you were
replying to. Sorry.
> I guess I overreacted to the above quote from GvdW
> because I'm deeply allergic to using Mumbo Jumbo as an
> 'explanation' to anything in anthropology -- clearly
> that should be the last resort, if any last resort rather
> than "we can't know" is really needed.
Yes, from an absolute point of view, "we don't know" is the
only possible answer, short of time-travel. But I guess
there must be theories - some inevitably of the crackpot
nature, but I wondered what more academically acceptable
ideas might be.
But i get enough private emails from crackpots about
Pelasgians, so maybe I should be more careful where I lead
threads.
> Yours,
>
> /bpj
>
> P.S. As for the Vedic root nouns they were assigned
> gender based on their meaning/relation to the active
> verb: action nouns were feminine and agent nouns were
> masculine -- nothing to do with personification of
> course! I'm deeply convinced that the association of
> grammatical gender with biological gender in PIE was
> secondary.
Very likely.
> Note that the Anatolian lgs had only a common and a
> neuter gender, which probably reflects the original state
> of affairs before _*H2_ fused with the preceding vowel.
> But it's not there the controversy between us lies, I
> hope!
No, there isn't. I just have not kept up with current
thinking regarding PIE.
========================================================
On 12/12/2011 11:35, Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets wrote:
> On 12 December 2011 08:32, R A wrote:
>>
>> Why this the useful distinction between sex and gender
>> has become confused, I don't know. It's almost as tho
>> 'gender' is being used as a euphemism for the "vulgar"
>> sounding 'sex' - which IMO is silly.
>>
> Mainly because sex and gender are not confused, but have
> started to refer to different facets of sexuality: sex
> is about the physical attributes, gender about the
> psychological and social reality, which may or may not be
> in line with the physical one.
Yes, yes - I've heard this before; but in practice this is
not so. The forms that have a box labeled "gender" accept
only 'male' or 'female' as answers. Surely something which
referred to 'psychological and social realities' would allow
answers that do not refer to physical attributes.
I heard just yesterday on the radio, a young girl taking
about finding a baby and saying: "We had been taught at
school how to tell the gender of a baby. I looked; it was a
boy."
I don't think she was looking at the psychological and
social status of the baby - but at something quite physical!
Sorry - IME the word 'sex' in popular speech seems nearly
always used to mean "sexual intercourse" - it's only in
strictly biological contexts it gets used with other
meanings. Otherwise 'gender' now IME is used not only to
refer to 'psychological and social realities' but to actual
physical differences.
=========================================================
On 12/12/2011 13:19, Brian wrote:
> Vulgar comment alert in this message!!! Not intended to
> offend!!!
>
> Okay, that explains the term 'gender' nicely. Thank you
> for that. However, why are the terms 'masculine' and
> 'feminine' used as opposed to other possible
> class/type/kind/gender distinctions? I mean, we could
> use the gender labels 'high' and 'low' or possibly 'class
> 1' and 'class 2', etc.
Tradition - going back ultimately to the ancient Greek
grammarians. Because females tended to be denoted by nouns
belonging to 'class 1', it was called θηλÏ
κÏÏ (thÄlykós)
"woman-like, like a female", whereas males tended to be
denoted by nouns in 'class 2' which they termed á¼ÏÏενικÏÏ/
á¼ÏÏÎµÎ½Î¹ÎºÎ¿Ï (arrenikós/ arsenikós [according to dialect])
"male"; 'class 3' just got called οá½Î´ÎÏεÏÎ¿Ï (oudéteros)
"neither [of two]."
They got Latinized as _fÄminÄ«nus, masculÄ«nus, neuter_
respectively, and the rest is history ...
> I can't remember how many times I've been talking to
> someone about grammatical gender and had to use the
> phrase, "Just because it's called masculine doesn't mean
> it has balls!"
There are many similar jokes ;)
> I am being serious about this. I really don't understand
> the purpose of the current terminology when other just
> as suitable terminology could be used with less
> ambiguity.
That, alas, can be said about much of linguistic
terminology. Two millennia and more of tradition is not
easy to throw aside. Trask, quoting Corbett, writes: "most
European languages other than English have gender systems
showing some degree of correlation with sex; as a
consequence, many non-linguists (and some linguists!)
needlessly confuse gender with sex. This confusion should
be avoided: sex is a matter of biology, while gender is a
matter of grammar, and one which has no necessary connection
with sex."
But, I fear, while the confusion should IMO have been
needless, we now seem to be stuck with it.
The Bantu languages were wise enough to have more than three
grammatical genders and no one has bothered to think up new
names for the extra genders, so they just termed 'class 1',
'class 2', etc.
--
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 (46)
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6.1. Re: Chat. Don't join if you don't have the stomach for it.
Posted by: "Charlie Brickner" [email protected]
Date: Mon Dec 12, 2011 7:41 am ((PST))
On Mon, 12 Dec 2011 07:32:24 +0000, R A Brown
<[email protected]> wrote:
>Why this the useful distinction between sex and gender has
>become confused, I don't know. It's almost as tho 'gender'
>is being used as a euphemism for the "vulgar" sounding 'sex'
>- which IMO is silly.
I've always been under the impression that this was, indeed, the reason. It's
the same reason that is used by politically correct and/or prudes for altering
the pronunciation of the name of the seventh planet from the sun. I long ago
abandoned the childish giggling that would accompany the long-accepted
pronunciation.
Charlie
Messages in this topic (46)
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6.2. Re: Chat. Don't join if you don't have the stomach for it.
Posted by: "Koppa Dasao" [email protected]
Date: Mon Dec 12, 2011 7:45 am ((PST))
There used to be a question on some form called "sex". There also used
to be a bunch of people that answered it with "Yes, please".... Now
it's either called "gender" or "mr/mrs/ms"...
Koppa Dasao
___
Norway isn't the solution, but the appendix that's cut out!
2011/12/12 Charlie Brickner <[email protected]>:
> On Mon, 12 Dec 2011 07:32:24 +0000, R A Brown
> <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>>Why this the useful distinction between sex and gender has
>>become confused, I don't know. It's almost as tho 'gender'
>>is being used as a euphemism for the "vulgar" sounding 'sex'
>>- which IMO is silly.
>
> I've always been under the impression that this was, indeed, the reason. It's
> the same reason that is used by politically correct and/or prudes for altering
> the pronunciation of the name of the seventh planet from the sun. I long ago
> abandoned the childish giggling that would accompany the long-accepted
> pronunciation.
>
> Charlie
Messages in this topic (46)
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6.3. Re: Chat. Don't join if you don't have the stomach for it.
Posted by: "Matthew Turnbull" [email protected]
Date: Mon Dec 12, 2011 7:59 am ((PST))
That was always the best answer for that box, lol.
On 12/12/11, Koppa Dasao <[email protected]> wrote:
> There used to be a question on some form called "sex". There also used
> to be a bunch of people that answered it with "Yes, please".... Now
> it's either called "gender" or "mr/mrs/ms"...
>
> Koppa Dasao
> ___
> Norway isn't the solution, but the appendix that's cut out!
>
>
>
> 2011/12/12 Charlie Brickner <[email protected]>:
>> On Mon, 12 Dec 2011 07:32:24 +0000, R A Brown
>> <[email protected]> wrote:
>>
>>>Why this the useful distinction between sex and gender has
>>>become confused, I don't know. It's almost as tho 'gender'
>>>is being used as a euphemism for the "vulgar" sounding 'sex'
>>>- which IMO is silly.
>>
>> I've always been under the impression that this was, indeed, the reason.
>> It's
>> the same reason that is used by politically correct and/or prudes for
>> altering
>> the pronunciation of the name of the seventh planet from the sun. I long
>> ago
>> abandoned the childish giggling that would accompany the long-accepted
>> pronunciation.
>>
>> Charlie
>
--
Sent from my mobile device
Messages in this topic (46)
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6.4. Re: Chat. Don't join if you don't have the stomach for it.
Posted by: "Jim Henry" [email protected]
Date: Mon Dec 12, 2011 11:25 am ((PST))
On 12/12/11, Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets <[email protected]> wrote:
> On 12 December 2011 08:32, R A Brown <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>>
>> Why this the useful distinction between sex and gender has
>> become confused, I don't know. It's almost as tho 'gender'
>> is being used as a euphemism for the "vulgar" sounding 'sex'
> Mainly because sex and gender are not confused, but have started to refer
> to different facets of sexuality: sex is about the physical attributes,
> gender about the psychological and social reality, which may or may not be
> in line with the physical one. Since those are different (and not
> necessarily related) matters, it makes sense that they should be indicated
> using different words. "Gender" was the best choice, given its grammatical
> use.
Is that a typo for "not the best choice"? Because it seems that
adding the psychological meaning to the linguistic and biological
meanings has made it even more polysemous. Polysemy is sometimes
unavoidable, but when it's avoidable, it's not the best choice.
> "Sex" isn't used not because it's "vulgar", but because it refers to
> something else than what the forms you're referring to are asking.
In some people's usage, yes. But my impression is that using
"gender" to refer to a person's psychological makeup as distinct from
the set of reproductive organs they have happened later than the use
of "gender" as a euphemism for "sex" i.e. quality of being
(physically) male or female, after "sex" started to be used as a
colloquial abbreviation for "sexual intercourse". And it's also my
impression that the use of "gender" in the sense you refer to is a
minority phenomenon, more common among intellectuals than English
speakers at large. Many, maybe most people, either aren't aware or
refuse to recognize that physical sex and psychological gender aren't
the same or aren't always in sync, and thus perhaps don't feel a need
for distinct terms for each. Ray cites a recent use of "gender" to
mean "being physically male or female" in a recent message, and I've
heard a bunch of people use the word that way.
Probably "gender" is more likely to have the sense you refer to in
collocations like "gender identity" and "gender politics".
Some other observations:
"Gender" is indifferently a noun or adjective; I don't know of a
distinct adjectival form. "Sex" is typically a noun, and can be used
as an adjective by zero-derivation in some contexts, but in others one
uses the form "sexual". "Sex" as a verb means "to determine the
(phyisical) sex of"; I haven't seen "gender" used in an analogous way
as a verb.
"opposite sex" gets 15,200,000 Ghits.
"opposite gender" gets 1,740,000 Ghits; of the ones on the first page,
it looks like some use it in the physical sense, some in the
social/psychological, some in the grammatical, and some are ambiguous.
"sexual politics" gets 2,670,000 Ghits.
"gender politics" gets 1,180,000 Ghits.
"sexual identity" gets 4,290,000 Ghits.
"gender identity" gets 5,750,000 Ghits. Both these terms are used for
psychological phenomena; obviously identity of whatever kind isn't
purely biological. But it seems that the former term is mostly used
to refer to orientation, i.e. what type of people one is attracted to,
while the latter typically refers to whether one conceives of oneself
as male, female, or something more complicated.
ObConlang: does your conlang have distinct terms for "sex" and
"gender" in the senses Christophe distinguishes for them?
gjâ-zym-byn doesn't, and it probably should. But I can probably
figure out a way to do so with existing vocabulary.
And does your conlang derive one of those terms from the other, or
either from a verb meaning "to have sex (with)" or vice versa, or from
a term for noun classes or specific gendered family relationships like
father/mother or more general terms for people like man/woman, or...?
In gzb there are two root words meaning "maleness" and "femaleness",
ambiguously physical or psychological depending on context. In most
situations they're compounded with epicene noun stems to get a
person-term with a specially male or female referent; typical engelang
design there, but there's one inherently gendered kinship term, the
word for "wife" (from which "husband" and "spouse" are derived).
"Sex/gender" is derived from the root word for "femaleness" with the
generalizer suffix. "Sex" as an activity is denoted by a couple of
other, unrelated words, one for intercourse and one for sexual
pleasure as distinct from other kinds of pleasure and comfort. Noun
class/gender is something I don't think I've had occasion to refer to,
but I think I'd use the root word for "kind, type, species, category".
--
Jim Henry
http://www.pobox.com/~jimhenry/
Messages in this topic (46)
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7a. Re: Conlang regional variations
Posted by: "David McCann" [email protected]
Date: Mon Dec 12, 2011 8:22 am ((PST))
On Sun, 11 Dec 2011 10:22:54 -0800
Gary Shannon <[email protected]> wrote:
> Then it occurred to me to wonder about regional variations in
> conlangs. I've never given it any thought myself, but have any of you
> added such variations in your conlangs?
I've never bothered myself, but there was a proposal for Esperanto that
was rather interesting (Planning nonstandard language, by Manuel
Halvelik, in Interlinguistics, 1989.) to create dialects for use when
translating novels where regional, class, or period features are used.
For example:
Cayohem del mones hawas?
What money hast thou?
Arkaika Esperanto
Mi sat preparand lo kaÄaws pro lo junas birds.
Ahâm gettin thâcoops ready for thâyoung birds.
Popido (what in England we'd call Mummerset)
Messages in this topic (11)
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8a. New York Times article on conlangs in Hollywood
Posted by: "Gary Shannon" [email protected]
Date: Mon Dec 12, 2011 8:58 am ((PST))
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/12/arts/television/in-game-of-thrones-a-language-to-make-the-world-feel-real.html?_r=1&hp
All about David and "Game of Thrones". It's interesting to see our
quaint little obsession getting public exposure.
--gary
Messages in this topic (2)
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8b. Re: New York Times article on conlangs in Hollywood
Posted by: "Roger Mills" [email protected]
Date: Mon Dec 12, 2011 11:21 am ((PST))
Ya beat me to it.........:-)))))
=========================================
----- Original Message -----
From: Gary Shannon <[email protected]>
To: [email protected]
Cc:
Sent: Monday, December 12, 2011 11:57 AM
Subject: New York Times article on conlangs in Hollywood
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/12/arts/television/in-game-of-thrones-a-language-to-make-the-world-feel-real.html?_r=1&hp
All about David and "Game of Thrones". It's interesting to see our
quaint little obsession getting public exposure.
--gary
Messages in this topic (2)
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9. Re: Väder/kläd er på nors k
Posted by: "Charlie Brickner" [email protected]
Date: Mon Dec 12, 2011 9:23 am ((PST))
On Sun, 11 Dec 2011 16:37:32 -0500, Douglas Koller
<[email protected]> wrote:
>
>Det finnes inget dåligt vær,
>Det finnes bare dålige klær.
>
This saying does not translate as cleverly into Senjecas. No one word can be
used for bad in this saying. A storm can be bad, as in severe. Clothing
can
be bad, as in inadequate. Neither one is evil.
dúúo mhéðrhos vúúla ne. dààmi nënék oútos:
dúúo = bad, i.e., severe, furious
mhéðrh-os = weather-NOM
vúúl-a = there.be-IND
ne = not
dààmi = only
në-nék- = NEG-adequate-ELIS
oút-os = clothing-NOM
Charlie
Messages in this topic (1)
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10a. Re: 9D grammar
Posted by: "Matthew Turnbull" [email protected]
Date: Mon Dec 12, 2011 9:30 am ((PST))
Hey, I just got a chance to look at the page, nice font! anyway, I like the
way you derive nominals from verbs using the definate article, and liked
the amount of detail in the syntax sections, but I think you need more
examples on the morphology page, since I wasn't sure what you meant by
realtional noun, nor how exactly the clitic system works.
On Thu, Dec 8, 2011 at 5:08 AM, neo gu <[email protected]> wrote:
> On Tue, 6 Dec 2011 00:39:46 -0500, neo gu <[email protected]>
> wrote:
>
> I've converted the phonology page to IPA, at worst you should get
> boxes. I'll fix the rest later. I also made some minor morphosyntax
> changes.
>
> http://qiihoskeh.conlang.org/cl/o/9D/9DIntro.htm
>
> --
> neogu
>
Messages in this topic (9)
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