Re: Insult (jara: Weekly Vocab 8)

Sally Caves wrote:

[Someone wrote]
> > > My favorite insult:  "Your parents were brothers!"
> Ailly!  What if you don't have a word in your language for "parent"?  Just
> "mother" or "father"?  In Teonaht, "parents" in the plural is "nippanand,"
> your "momdads."  How utterly hetero of the Teonim...
Same problem in Kash, indeyama /inde+ama/ 'mother-father', as well as
Indonesian ibu-bapak. It would be, I think, considered strange, though not
impossible, for two Kash brothers to form a union.  Maybe even taboo, I'm
not sure.  Unlike Le Guin's ambisexual* Gethenians, Kash males can't
physically give birth, though a couple could adopt, foster etc., or they
might have had children in a m/f relationship. Just like here, mostly.

Off the record, in NYC days, I knew a set of identical (male) twins who were
lovers.  Not totally unusual, according to them.......

*Not sure that's the right word; those who've read The Left Hand of Darkness
know what I mean.  "Kemmer" between siblings was tabooed, though it
happened, and gave rise to several very touching tales in the book.

In the book, LeG used "he" to refer to them, but in one or two ancillary
stories, published later, she used "she", resulting in very interesting
contrasts/connotations, at least for the Engl.-speaking reader.

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