Re: Láadan and woman's speak

FFlores wrote:
>
> Barry Garcia <Barry_Garcia@...> wrote:
>
> >Hmm very good thought there ;). I was thinking the same thing, either the
> >gender system developed later, or it was a scientific language that was
> >adapted by the public. Perhaps the need for a distinction came because
> >people and technology are so linked together?
>
> Why not consider a time frame when advanced technology has indeed
> been used for a couple thousand years? That's enough for any lang
> to adopt a new gender system (maybe derived from an ancient system
> like animate vs. inanimate). It's only in our Earth, and in the
> Western civilization, that there was an Industrial Revolution --
> other civilizations could change gradually instead of explosively.
> This would give the lang time to adopt scientific and tech terms.
Scientific and tech terms definitely, but I wouldn't consider it likely
that the whole gender system would be reformed in this time. It would
possibly become irrelevant and dropped entirely, but unless there was
encouragement from the government and the scientific community to adopt
this new gender system, I'd find it unlikely for a gender system to
change so dramatically. Over a long time frame, I'd imagine it would be
more likely for no changes to occur to a gender system than a change
this radical.

Or maybe I'm just showing how little I know about the subject...

--
Robert