Re: Genders (was Re: Láadan and woman's speak_

Robert Hailman wrote:
> during that time the language probably would have had some sort of
> gender that had later been lost. The techno-gender could very well be
> the first one, though, but that would suggest a younger language to me,
> perhaps one too young to belong to a technologically advanced
> civilization.
Well, sure, in the distant past there might've been a gender system, but
you were talking about another system existing at the same time this
techno-gender was evolving.

> Any gender system is possible, for sure, but how common are these
> systems? If you checked one language at random, it would probably have a
> more Indo-European-like gender system, I'd imagine.
Yeah, most languages use something like animate/inanimate or
human/nonhuman, or male/female/inanimate.  I think that
animate/inanimate is most common.  But there's no need to make your
language average!  If it's possible, why not put it in?

> It depends on the civilization that engineered it. I'm thinking:
> Technologically advanced civilization begins to expand rapildy. Conquers
> areas that don't speak the language. Unable to integrate conquered areas
> into official language.
Unlikely.  Those areas would, depending on the civilization, either be
forced to abandon their language, or those languages would be used
alongside their own language, and quite probably, eventually the more
advanced culture's language would dominate.  Conquerors rarely make
linguistic concessions, the few cases where they do (like the Normans
invading England), the conquerors were few in number, and at
approximately the same technological language.

> Of course, this requires incredible government backing of the new language.
Probably virtually tyrannical "backing", in other words, *forcing* it on
the people.  But the notion is implausible.  There'd be no advantage to
this auxlang that wouldn't exist for the dominant civilization's
language.  MAYBE, if there were several equally advanced civilizations
that merged, an auxlang might be accepted, but more likely one would
dominate after a lengthy period of polylingualism.

However, say a colony was established by an international group, and
they chose an auxlang for their colony.  Furthermore, suppose that this
colony develops into a powerful civilization, and eventually dominates
their parents.  I'm thinking, of course, of the way that English
developed from a minor language into the dominant language of Earth, due
in part to the socioeconomic dominance of the United States.

ObConlang: That's how Selenese became the dominant language of the Solar
System and later the Democratic Union of Worlds.  Selenese was a creole
that evolved in Armstrong City, an American colony that was passed back
and forth between the major terrestrial powers, each time gaining a
different group of colonists speaking another language, all these
languages evolved into Armstrong City Creole, which, after independence,
also was spread to the other cities in the Armstrong City League (most
of which also had creoles as the ordinary speech).  Armstrong City
Creole was also influenced by the creoles and languages of these other
cities, and was standardized shortly after independence by the Language
Board of Armstrong City, and named Selenese, but popularly called Lunago
(from Luna + Japanese go, language).  The Armstrong City League became
the dominant nation on Luna, founding new cities of their own, and
becoming the dominant power in the Solar System.  Until the Plagues,
Selenese never made much headway on Earth, tho, they kept using World
English as a lingua franca.

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the city of God!" - Ralph Waldo Emerson
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