Re: Brainstorming a Fantasy Language

*Delurks*
I was doing something similar just recently as well.
In my conlang eladrri, which incidentally wants to have wierd orthography
issues, there are four genders.  The speakers, who are what I like to call
'unmortal' <capable of death but never by natural causes>, have over the ages
developed a system that conveys the evilness of the discussed.  I wanted them to
have this somewhat subjective system due to a long-standing mission to purge the
world of evil through unexpected means.  It's very important to the culture to
be creative and surprising due to their long lifespan - It's a great compliment
to be honestly surprised to another eladrrn.

The genders are divided by their importance to the universe - they range from
'essential' through 'beneficial but replaceable' and 'neutral' to 'irredemably
evil'.  Gender isn't usually productive, except in the cases of names and some
rare roots.  One of these is what I call the 'example root', LIE, 'liquid',
which has become four independent nouns.
lierre - water
liem - wine or other nonwater beverage
liesse - acid or other natural, harmful liquid
liekke - poison or other artificial liquid created with the intent to harm

<having forgotten the conventions, I'll put ascii-ipa codes in these // and
orthographics stay unbracketed.>
Of course, the culture's definition of these genders is rather more complex than
that.
The essential gender has endings in -r and -l, and contains natural phenomena,
nonsentient creatures, beautiful things, pleasant surprises, good art, and the
names of loved ones.
The beneficial ends in -m, -n, or -ng /N/.  Locations take this gender, always.
So do mortals, foodstuffs, and non-harmful artificial objects.
The neutral has -s, -š /S/, -z suffixes, and describes bad art, evil mortals,
and objects that cause harm.  It is generally assumed that these can be promoted
to the other genders through proper application of goodness.
The evil gender ends in -k, -kh <aspirated like in Hindi and such, causes the
following vowel to be pronounced in a 'breathy' manner>, and describes only
things that are irreversibly evil.  Weapons of mass destruction, dishonourable
weapons such as booby traps, fatal diseases, and evil immortals are described in
this gender.  It's a terrible insult to use this in the hearing of any thinking
being unless it describes one of these.

The vocabulary's getting to the point where it wants to be incomprehensible too
- eladrri has a 'mini vocab hoax' concerning its 35 words for different types of
evil.  I only plan to have about 15.  There are words, inspired by that Laadan
discussion, for emotional states that are dizzyingly wordy to express in
English, such as 'that sort of day when one feels guilty for being indoors, but
is prevented from enjoying the outdoors due to temperature issues', 'the respect
one feels for the efficiency of one performing unforgivable acts', 'the
expectant feeling just before a flash of inspiration', and 'that feeling of
regret one feels when completing an artistic undertaking'.
--
Shreyas
Lothlorien Gallery 77
http://elfwood.lysator.liu.se/loth/s/s/ssampat/ssampat.html