Re: Second person/polite pronouns (fuit Re: Another Ozymandias)

On 7/26/06, Benct Philip Jonsson <bpjonsson@...> wrote:
>  Of course they don't know about the
> _pluralis majestatis_ any more than they know about
> the real stylistic value of the "V-forms" in Swedish.
I find that surprising - the first part, I mean.  The "royal we" is a
very well-known phenomenon among even young and uneducated
Anglophones...

My conlangs have only the singular/plural distinction.  I consciously
avoided degrees of formality/familiarity/politeness as a sort of
correctional overcompensation to avoid some of the pitfalls associated
with alien languages. At the time it felt like every time some SF
author "created" an alien language [in quotes because most of the time
the reader encountered the alleged language only in English
translation] it was described as being chock full of all sorts of
esoteric distinctions governed by intonation and/or vocabulary choice;
stereotypical exotica stuff.  I wanted to avoid any such
association.... but perhaps that decision warrants revisiting.



--
Mark J. Reed <markjreed@...>