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Re: The Birds and the Bees of Gender

From:Nik Taylor <fortytwo@...>
Date:Tuesday, March 30, 1999, 19:59
Padraic Brown wrote:
> > Parents are the one exception, padre/madre - this is true in ALL > > language, father and mother are always different roots. > > Just a nitpick: patro/patrino in Esperanto.
Sorry, let me rephrase that, this is true in ALL *natural* languages. It's also untrue in my own conlang. Mother is _tinani'_ (ti- = female) while father is nlannani' (n- = male, lan- = with), thus "comother". It is a technical term. The Natives never know who their father is, and never need to know, except in things like genetic research, so it's a scientific term. -- "It's bad manners to talk about ropes in the house of a man whose father was hanged." - Irish proverb http://members.tripod.com/~Nik_Taylor/X-Files http://members.tripod.com/~Nik_Taylor/Books.html ICQ: 18656696 AIM Screen-name: NikTailor