Re: Personal names (was Re: Story - TCOAIW)

Roberto Suarez Soto wrote:
>ObConlang: how do you deal with this in your conlangs? Do
>masculine and feminine names follow any special rule to distinguish ones
>from the other?
Rhean names are very much like English names: most of them are very old and
come from other languages and no longer have any immediately recognisable
meaning. There is also no rule which distinguishes male names from female
names, although Rhean speakers would be familiar enough with the more common
names that they would know. But to someone who does not speak Rhean, there
is no way to tell the gender of a person named, for example:
Sen (m), Ildrin (m), Zin (f), Kizi (f), Kotoli (m), Toma (m), Marza (m),
Zara (f), Dinam (f), Gunam (m), Shad (f), Charad (m), Kalke (f), Martik (m),
Marid (f), etc.

So in short, Roberto, no.

But I imagine if I ever get around to working more on Tolborese (that one
with the criss-cross agent/patient marking system, if anyone remembers),
that I'll make the gender of names more immediately apparent. Using a dead
language resurrected for religious and political reasons, the Tolbors would
also bring back with it the oldest and "purest" Tolborese names they knew
of. Most of them will be words with actual meanings in the language.

NS

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