Re: Montanian

At 12:16 pm -0400 23/9/01, Sally Caves wrote:
>How about a "penised khu"?  <G>
Great minds thin alike  :)

That's exactly what I thought when Nik asked the question below:
>
>
>----- Original Message -----
>From: Nik Taylor <fortytwo@...>
>To: <CONLANG@...>
>Sent: Sunday, September 23, 2001 9:32 AM
>Subject: Re: Montanian
>
>
>> joe wrote:
>> > Actually, there is no default gender, khu can mean woman just as
>> > much as man.
>>
>> Then how do you specify "man"?
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At 12:13 pm -0400 23/9/01, Sally Caves wrote:
>Androcentric languages are not uncommon.
I agree, but after agreeing twice with Sally, I have to part company with
her next sentence or so.

>After
>all, andro/anthro in Greek meant "human," not
>"man" as in "male-being."
No, no, no!

The two Greek words are *not* related.

The _d_ in the _andro-_ prefix is intrusive, it was originally *anro-, *anr
being a zero ablaut form of _aner_ which is, indeed, the vocative in
ancient Greek; the nominative _ane:r_ is from *aners_.  This is of IE
origin and is cognate with the proper name _Nero_ is Latin and with
Umbrian _ner-_ and Sanskrit _nar-.  _ane:r_ (gen. andros).  The Greek word
means "adult male" and nowt else.

_anthro:pos_ is of non-IE origin (as far as one can tell).  It means "human
being", "person".  Though generally given masculine gender as far
grammatical agreement is concerned, there are examples from Pindar,
Herodotos, Isokrates, Aristotle and Antiphon inter alios where the word is
given feminine gender.  It is, in fact, strictly epicene.

The same distinction BTW is found in Classical Latin.  _homo_ (gen.
_hominis_) is epicene and, indeed, can be found with feminine gender in
ancient writers (tho masc is more common).  It simply means "person",
"human being".

If one wants to mark the human as an adult male the word must _uir_ (gen.
_uiri).


> still troubles, though,
>because "woman," then, is always marked as an
>exception to the norm.
Not in Greek or Classical Latin.

Returning to Sally's opening sentence in the second email: "Androcentric
languages are not uncommon", while I cetainly agree, it is also a truism
that epicene language are not uncommon, i.e. the unmarked form can refer
equally well to male or female - one marks both maleness & femaleness, cf.
Japanese:
inu (dog [sex irrelevant]) - o-inu (male dog) - me-inu (bitch)
tori (bird) - ondori (male bird, cock) - mendori (female bird, hen)

FWIW I find Montanian usage neither 'natural' nor logical.  It merely
relects the position in English & some other western languages.  It is
certainly not universal.

Ray.







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A mind which thinks at its own expense
will always interfere with language.
                     [J.G. Hamann 1760]
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