Re: OT: Conlangea Dreaming

Yoon Ha Lee wrote:
>
> On Tue, 10 Oct 2000, Jeff Jones wrote:
>
> > I also figured out you (YHL) were female, but for the wrong reasons: when I
> > saw "Yoon Ha Lee", my subconscious (or whatever) seeing an oriental name
> > automatically took Yoon as the surname, even though I knew that Lee was a
> > more likely surname. "Ha Lee" then sounded (to my mind) like "Holly", a
> > female given name.
>
> <bemused that it sometimes matters>
I also guessed female, but in any situation I've encountered, it
wouldn't matter. I could imagine very few (plausible, at least)
situations where it would: Someone puts a gun to my head and says, "What
is Yoon Ha Lee's gender?" is one.

<snip>

> If I ever have kids (unlikely prospect) they're getting American *and*
> Korean names, and they can pick what they want to use.
I know someone who's parent's did that, his English name is Anthony and
his Chinese name eludes me at the moment, but there is one. His parents
call him by his Chinese name, I know that much.

> > >For those who aren't sure, I'm not offended by referred to as an "it,"
> > >but I suspect I'm also in the minority there.
> >
> > To me, "it" suggests an inanimate object, and you seem to be rather animate!
> > I usually refer to a person of unknown gender as "they"; this also works
> > well if the person has multiple personalities.
>
> Oh, sure!  :-)  I use "they" as well generally...it's just that "it"
> wouldn't offend me if someone chose to use it, is all.
>
> YHL, who dislikes languages that care about sex/gender distinctions out
> of habit
ObConlang: In Ajuk, there is a cop-out as far as gender goes: for
pronouns, adjectives, numbers, verb cojugation, etc. the affix "-ap-" is
male, the affix "-ip-" is female, and the affix "-ot-" is for inanimite
objects, and the fourth affix is "-ep-", which can be used in situations
where the gender isn't known, is irrelevant, or the speaker chooses to
leave it out. Also, the third person with "-ep-" is used in situations
where we use "one" in English...

/'vom.ep/ /'srek.ep.i/   /'er.ep/   /pol.'kan.o/ /eN.gel.'iS.a/
Vomep     srekepi        erep       polkano      Engelisha
Vom -ep   srek -ep-  -i  er   -ep   polkan  -o   Engelish -a
how neut. say  neut. 3rd 3rd. neut. student acc  English  inst
How       says           one        student      in English
"How does one say 'student' in English?"

...or something like that. It's simple enough, but life has thrown a few
curve-balls my way and my minds not into this right now.

--
Robert