Re: Montanian

Androcentric languages are not uncommon.  After
all, andro/anthro in Greek meant "human," not
"man" as in "male-being."  It still troubles, though,
because "woman," then, is always marked as an
exception to the norm.  "Man," "mankind," "anthro,"
these are the words for "human" and "humanity" in
many natural languages.

Speaking of "breasted male,"  which I take to mean
"breasted human being" in your language (?), the
derivation of "woman" in Old English is _wyfman_,
"female man."  The word "man" simply meant
human being.  It was coopted, of course, to mean
"human male," but the word that designated "human
male" in Aelfric's time was _wer_, not _mann_.  The
words for the sexes used continuously by Aelfric:

    wifhades, werhades:  "female," "male."

So when Eufrasia (i.e. Euphrosyne) of the Saints Tale
in Old English was discovered after her death to be
a woman and not a monk (she had disguised herself
as a monk in order to live the life of a holy man), they
spoke of her reverently as a _wifhades man_, "a person/
man of the female sex."

Sally Caves
scaves@frontiernet.net


----- Original Message -----
From: Adam Walker <dreamertwo@...>
To: <CONLANG@...>
Sent: Sunday, September 23, 2001 12:48 AM
Subject: Re: Montanian


> >From: joe <josephhill@...>
> >Date: Sat, 22 Sep 2001 22:40:32 +0100
> >
> >
> > > joe wrote:
> > > > (montanian for woman is translated as "Breasted Man")
> > >
> > > Interesting!  What's "Man" then, in the sense of "adult male human"?
> > > Just the plain root "Man"?  Are there *any* words that differentiate
> > > between male and female?  What about "father" and "mother"?
> > >
> >
> >Person/man is khu. There are no single words that differentiate. Tallak
khu
> >means woman,when necessary to differentiate and lhallud is parent. Tallak
> >lhallud is only used when it is absoloutly necessary to differentiate
> >between father and mother.
> >
>
> So the default gender on all words is male?  there are no "female" words
in
> the language making all feminine references highly marked.  Is there a
> concultural reason for this extreme bias?
>
> Adam
>
>
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