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Re: Writing Systems and Biscriptal Children

From:Padraic Brown <pbrown@...>
Date:Wednesday, December 1, 1999, 18:08
On Wed, 1 Dec 1999, andrew wrote:

>Am 11/30 17:08 nicole perrin yscrifef: > >> So, obligatory conlang reference: those of you who do have gender in >> your language, is it masc/fem? and are masculine nouns more powerful?
Powerful!? That's a curious idea! Physically powerful or otherwise?
>Brithenig is masc/fem. A quick skim down the first 120 nouns of my >working lexicon revealed that gender allocation to nouns is equally >balanced. Abstract endings and verbal nouns tend to favour feminine but >these are a very small minority. I guess that where natural gender is >concerned masculine forms predominate (chauvainism!), but gramatical
For what it's worth, I think a number of these could be considered "common gender", since the roles can be taken as either m. or f. Most of these words are marked masc. in the dictionary (but I wouldn't hesitate to use lla failidur (manager) where appropriate. Some are marked common (antegessur, ancestor) where I truly thought it best. Especially since there is no way of divining gender from the noun, the inherent or gramatical gender seems rather a purist (though not a bad!) notion - It's just like the etymology/spelling reform thread going on: the Brithenig article points the astute speaker to more ancient forms of the noun, but does little to inform the mob.
>gender is equally divided with some important words being feminine. The >impersonal pronouns commonly default on the feminine, (sa, 'she', and a, >'that.f'). The exception is yno, 'one' which is derived from yn of, 'a >man'. > >I find gramatical gender a pleasing part of Brithenig
Agreed. It's also historically accurate - it _is_ a Romance language, after all!
>and I would probably incorporate it in future language projects.
I've always used gender in some way or another. Kernu has m./f.; Tallarian has animate/inanimate; Arrana has a kind of optional gender system that isn't necessary for language function. Padraic.
> >- andrew. >-- >Andrew Smith, Intheologus hobbit@earthlight.co.nz > > "Piskie, Piskie, say Amen > Doon on your knees and up agen." > > "Presbie, Presbie, dinna bend; > Sit ye doon on mon's chief end." > - Attributions unknown. >