Re: gender in English

On Thu, 7 Sep 2000, Robert Hailman wrote:

> In Ajuk, one can have a lot of fun with this. Inanimite nouns have no
> gender on their own, but they need to take one when being personified.
> The lazy way is to make it neuter, but if I have Death, for example, I
> can make it male to give the traditional English view, or I can make it
> female, to show it, in this indirect way, as being much more
> compassionate than the traditional view dictates. Neither is "right", or
> "traditional", and you can even switch between the two in one story, as
> a hint to the behavior of the noun in question.
I like this feature. It is somewhat similar to how I used to use Gender in
Telek, but I have since changed my mind.  It didn't seem to fit the
language right.

Telek has no word for "death" and the speakers (the Telen) do not
personify it at all.  The only personifications are Lajhosa 'life' (which
also covers Nature and Love) and Jedolen 'fire' (which also covers Hatred
and Destruction).  Both words are usually inanimate, but become
animate in these contexts.

Marcus