Re: Conlang Gender (was Re: Writing Systems and BiscriptalChildren

John Cowan wrote:
>
> "Grandsire, C.A." wrote:
>
> >         I suppose they are arbitrary, as IIRC Lojban is supposed to have his
> > words coming from natlangs (well, after many distorsions that's true :)
> > ).
>
> Just so.  Of course, calling them "genders" at all is rather twisted.
> What's really happening is that you can use a letter of the alphabet as
> a pronoun, as is done in mathematics:  "bolci" (ball) can be represented
> by "by" (the name of the letter "b").  So there is the b-gender, the d-gender,
> etc. etc.
>
        Eh! I like this feature! Definitely unnaturalistic but not unnatural :)
. It's been a long time I read a grammar of Lojban, so I didn't remember
this one. Cannot it be compared with languages with classes like
kiSwahili? I think that's not so different...

--
        Christophe Grandsire

        Philips Research Laboratories --  Building WB 145
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