Re: Gender classes, which to use?

Sally Caves wrote:
>
> On Fri, 27 Nov 1998, Didier Willis wrote:
>
> > The main idea behind this is that the Almaqerin society was
> > mainly matriarchal (though this is changing in modern times),
> > and that female beings are respected.
>
> Hmmm.  This is surprising, Didier.  Reading your post down to this
> point, I had assumed that your system was patriarchal, since it
> gives special marking to the feminine--indicating that it's the
> "other" albeit the "respected" entity--while leaving the masculine
> absolute or neutral. I had rather thought it would be the reverse:
>
> vehdr  human
> i.vehdr  male human
>
> Compare   prince and princess, and Old English mann and wifmann,
> i.e. "human" and "female human."
>
> It's usually (at least in the languages I know and that's not saying
> much) the sex that is considered different that gets the different
> marking, as in our tiresome discussions of the "genderless" "he":
> "he" and "man" mean both he/she and man/woman because the one is
> considered the default and the other the exception.  Sorry to raise
> this "feminist" perspective, but there it is.
>
> Sally
Your question is welcome, since it is something I tried to
address in Almaqerin. This point already caused me some trouble when
I was writing the grammar, and I hope that the explanation given
below sounds logical and possible.

When I began working on this topic, I wanted something different
from French, where masculine is the default gender. For instance
we have "ils/elles" for "they", with "ils" (masculine) prevailing
over "elles":

   Le Roi et la Reine mangent / Ils mangent
   (The King and The Queen are eating / They[MASC.] are eating)

Conversely, feminine prevails over masculine in Almaqerin:

   u.Norg cu ui.Narg i.garvelean / leanath i.garve
   (The King and the Queen FEMIN.-eat-3rd / They FEMIN.-eat)

   [BTW the gender is marked on the verb, not on the pronoun]

Now, it must be assumed that both genders were initially marked
("o" for the masculine and "i" for the feminine). As a matter of
facts these particles are not really genders -- or if they are,
they are not directly related to "sex" but rather to a social
rank. In the matriarchal almacian society "i" was used mainly
for women and skills usually attributed to women, but it was
truly a 'respect' mark seen also in other 'genderless' words
such as "city" (i.varn), the city name "Almaq" (i.Almaq)
and a few other words, e.g. "dispersion" (i.mathan) [*].

Originally sex genders were denoted by endings or mutations, as it
appears in my other language Sitarwelas which derives from the same
proto-language (e.g. kambre "horse" / kambri "stallion" / kambru
"mare"; nozek "king" / nazku "queen").

Though Almaqerin abandoned these differentiations in most cases, a
few words still differ in the masculine and feminine forms, such as
Narg/Norg is the example above.

As mentioned above, the particles "o" and "i" appeared to be social
markers, which tended to evolve and to get used as genders. The "o"
particle was progressively dropped in most constructs, and therefore
masculine and neuter were no more distinguished (but please note
that I am not saying here that masculine became the default gender;
it is rather the reverse, i.e. neuter becoming the default gender
when not otherwise marked).

However the "i" marker was kept (since its removal would have
lowered the social role played by woman in the ancient city).

On the other hand "o" is still used in some peculiar cases,
but the distinction between neuter and masculine has become
fuzzy.

Hence the puzzling fact that feminine is explicitely marked
in Almaqerin...

A few other subleties are documented on the Web site, and I quote
them here for completeness.

  [Grammar - demonstratives]
     tenu.leneis "this one", but teni.leneis "this one f."
     (instead of tenui)

     ---> _tenui_ is more correct gramatically, since it is
          composed of _ten_ (demonstrative) + _u_ (definite
          article) + _i_ (femine marker). But it is considered
          as impolite, and the 'indefinite' form _teni_ is
          preferred (because it is irreverent to point out a
          woman or to show her with one's finger).

   [Miscellaneous texts - How to say "Hello"]
      When two almacians meet, they use to say _nyesem_, which can
      be interpreted as "affectionate thoughts".
      When an almacian man encounters a woman, he should use the
      respect form _na nyesem_, or even a more formal _i.nyesem_.
      Usually the woman simply answers _nyesem_, but she may also
      keep silent and just smile.
      When an almacian meets a foreigner, he does not say anything.
      However, if this foreigner is a good friend, the almacian may
      decide to show his friendship and say _o.nyesem_ (_o_ is the
      old masculine marker). Should the foreigner be a woman, the
      almacian would simply say _nyesem_. [**]

Here again you might find this quite puzzling (in the first case,
an *indefinite* pronoun is used for women, from an external point
of view this might seems to contradict the matriarchal aspect).
I had some pleasure imagining this system, which I hope
nevertheless to be consistent throughout. I sometimes think it
would be a real nightmare for (male) foreigners visiting Almaq,
risking many breaches of etiquette if they wish to address
almacian women :^)

Didier.
-- -

Notes:
[*] the dispersion is respected because feared by the inhabitants
    as an old prophecy told that the city would once be destroyed
    and its inhabitants would be scattered all over the world
    -- Without entering into the details, this is of course a
    reminiscence of the story of Babel adapted my constructed
    mythos, were the two cities Almaq and Sitar appear to play the
    roles of several 'biblical' cities (Babel, Babylone, Sodome and
    Gomorrhe[sp?]).
[**] The two last example show that almacians tend to disregard
     foreigners (since the markers are not used in the standard
     way). This is indeed a xenophobic attitude, and to tell the
     truth, almacians often feel they are superior to other people.
     That's a bad point for them...
-- -