Re: Personal Conjugation based on Closeness

On Fri, Mar 28, 2003 at 01:13:54PM -0800, Arthaey Angosii wrote:
> Emaelivpeith HS Teoh:
> >Wow. This begins to sound like the approximately 150 different terms
> >Chinese has for various relatives, which is the source of 50% of the
> >conversations/arguments at family reunions... *shudder*.
>
> Ooo, do tell me more.  :)
This is somewhat off-topic I suppose, but basically, in the various
Chinese "dialects"/languages, you have to address a family member with the
correct term based on their relationship with you. There are several lines
of distinction:
- your father's relatives and your mother's relatives have a *different*
  set of terms, as do your in-laws if you are married.
- on your father's side, cousins who are children of your uncles are
  called by a special set of terms, and cousins who are children of aunts
  are grouped together with cousins on your mother's side.
- uncles and aunts older than your father/mother are called by different
  terms than uncles and aunts who are younger. Their respective spouses
  are also likewise distinguished.
- uncles and aunts who are cousins of your parents (as opposed to
  siblings) are called by different terms as well.
- younger/older siblings/cousins each have different terms in addition to
  the father's brother's children vs. everyone else distinction.
- grandparents' siblings have their own set of terms (which are also
  distinguished by which set of grandparents is involved).

On top of all this, in more traditional Chinese families (mine happens to
be quite modernized and has dispensed with this cumbersome bureaucracy)
you are *expected* to remember the *order* of your aunts/uncles/inlaws/
etc.. E.g., you have to remember who's the 1st uncle on the father's side,
the 3rd aunt's husband on your mother's side, etc., etc.. So you have to
address them as "1st uncle", "2nd uncle", etc., with "uncle" being the
proper term depending on whether he's your father's brother or mother's
brother, etc., etc.. Very confusing.

And to add to the confusion, quite often none of the family members even
know what you're supposed to call them, esp. if they are a distant
relative and hence require more obscure terms; this often results in
endless discussions over the precise terminology you are to use to address
them. It doesn't help that most people don't even know the precise meaning
of the more obscure terms, so you've discussions to the effect of "no,
term X refers to your father's sister's husbands' in-law's step-daughter's
mother, not the one on your mother's side, so term Y is more appropriate."

The reason for all this complication is because you aren't supposed to
call people by their names if they're in an older generation; you *have*
to call them by the proper term. Quite often, the term itself becomes
their "name" as far as you're concerned.

[snip]
> >Muahahaha, the Ebisedi know where you live! :-P
>
> And will come get me through your fountain-things (which I can't for the
> life of me remember the names of, and yes, searching the archives is just
> far too hard -- open a browse? pah! <grin> )?
Nah, you can't travel through the fountain-things, they are more like
geysers or volcanoes, so all that'll happen is that you'll get shot into
the air with your pants on fire. Well, you *could* travel through them if
you were a _`yKasanii'_ in the highest rank...

There is a specific term for teleportals: jyy'i ["dZy:?i]. The fact that
it has a similar swirly appearance to the _vyy'i_ by NO means indicates
that it is safe to step near a _vyy'i_, let alone travel through one.

> Yeah, well, you come invade us, we'll sic our flying noodles on you.  ;)
LOL... nah, the Ebisedi are not invading types. They are in fact more on
the defensive side. Some of the other Ferochromon denizens are probably a
lot more dangerous than the Ebisedi.

[snip]
> >people won't anticipate which nouns need tagging!), but you use the
> >former/latter/other meaning and put the tag on the first pronoun that
> >refers back to that noun.
>
> In which case, it's more like Asha'ille than I first thought.  :)
Maybe Cresaea is connected to the Ferochromon! ;-)

> >The tags are optional. Of course, you'll have to make good use of them if
> >you want people to understand what you're talking about! :-)
>
> Unless you're practicing your bureaurocrat-speak, that is.  <grin>
Sure. But you won't be able to get away with that easily in Ebisedian
culture. Not by smart-mouthing your way through, nope. Somebody attempting
to do that will likely get labelled an uncivilised blabber who doesn't
know what he's talking about, and be promptly stripped of whatever social
rank he may have had.

[snip]
> >so I can get away on a technicality. That's my excuse and I'm sticking to
> >it. :-)
>
> Speaking of getting away on technicalities, I had to add a new stress rule
> to make up for the fact that my oft-used |emaelivpeith| (and the former
> |emaelivpar|) should have had an accent on the <ae>.  So now syllables with
> <ae> are stressed as a rule, and no accent mark is needed.  :)
Ah, the joy[1] of changing your conlang only to discover a bit later that
you've already perpetrated now-illegal words so much that you'll have to
re-introduce them as exceptions or permissible bendings of the rules. Ask
me about the precise spelling of nullar conveyant nouns sometimes... or
even just conveyant nouns in general. I still can't get those vowel
gradations straight. :-/

[1] Or pain, as the case may be.

[snip]
> This comparison of our languages is fun!  Well, perhaps not for the rest of
> the list, but... :)
[snip]

People should join in; this is a great way to show off your language AND
actually have somebody read it. :-P


T

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strategy" -- Bill G., 1999.

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