Lenmoct

Hi all.

This is my first mention of my newest language (sketch), Lenmoct.
The name is pronounced ['lEm:VC] and means mother-goddess.
My goal was to create a reverse-sexist conlang with an interesting-
looking orthography.

After all the endless discussion on CONLANG over ways to treat
agent-patient relationship in Accusative, Ergative, and other systems,
I thought it would be interesting to make a gender based system,
where feminine nouns are assumed to be the subject, and masculine
nouns assumed to be the object.  This was fun!

So:

Cil cgot ci tddan.  Nanmad cg, cioa casa.
[jIl xVt jI TraN  Na'madx j9 'kasa]
the-general-fem woman the-general-masc man.  hit-present-fem
the-specific-masc, the-inverse-masc scream-masc
There is a woman and a man.  She hits him, who (and he) screams.

So basically, every word in the sentence declines for gender.  But in
Lenmoct,
this is necessary, because things change when the man hits.

Dda tddan lom cgot.  Cioa nanma ciu, li casat.
[ra TraN lVm xVt  j9 'Nama ju lI 'kasat]
the-general-inverse-masc man the-general-inverse woman.
the-specific-inverse-masc man hit-present-masc the-specific-inverse-fem,
the-specific-fem scream-present-fem
There is a man and a woman.  He hits her, who (and she) screams.

That first sentence (there is...) is necessary in Lenmoct, because it tells
you the players in the story and what gender and inversion they will
have.  It never has a verb, because general articles like cil and ci can
point
things out without telling you anything about them.  So, in Lenmoct,
it is perfectly acceptable to say "the boy" and stop.  Of course, unless
there is a boy in front of you and you are pointing at him, the listener
is likely to say "Go cg?," or "Which?"  But that's another story.

Because standard (non-inverse) sentences, filled with general (non-inverse)
articles, seem so much more elegent to the Lenmocto, it is accepted
to use that introductory sentence to assign your own genders to nouns.
In other words, if you start out with "Cil tddan" (the-general-fem
man-masc),
the listener knows that the man will take the active role in the story and
be the subject of most of the verbs.  However, for everyday utterences,
a simple inverse sentence is fine and normal, because it takes to much
time to have an intro sentence before every utterance.

I guess that's it for now.  What do y'all think?  (::prays::) Please let
this email
attract interest.  Please let it spark a discussion.  Please don't let it
sit there
unreplied to for weeks like G'oxajo or my other sketches...

Jake

P.S.  Yes, I do have words with no vowels.  For example, cg [x].  If it is
unpronouncable one can add an i to make cgi.  Also ci, though it looks
like it has a vowel, really doesn't, because ci- is the spelling for [j].
However,
this article often is pronounced [jI] or [jI_0], so that i doesn't just sit
there
acting useless.

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