Re: Constructed natlangs

Brian Betty wrote:
> Not to be snide, any language which has a form for 'one gender' technically
> has separate male & female forms. But you are correct - in Chukchee, the
> perception of native speakers is that there is a Chukchee norm from which
> the femlang is derived; technically, there is Chukchee and a Chukchee
> femlang.
But the question is, can women use the "male" forms?  If there are forms
which can be used only by women, but not corresponding male-exclusive
forms, then it would make sense to classify the female form as a subset
of the lang, but if there are male-exclusive *and* female-exclusive
forms, then it would make sense to classify both as subsets of the lang,
or seperate dialects.

Conlang speculation: I doubt that there are any cultures with totally
distinct languages for men and women (as opposed to merely dialects),
but what if ...?  Something like that exists with the Natives.  Except
for the more settled Native societies (many are still nomadic
hunter-gatherers), male adults live in seperate groups, with females,
children, and the elderly living in other groups.  These groups only
come into contact for trading and for the mating season.  Now, these
male groups are comprised of males from many groups, usually related
groups.  Anyhoo, in some regions, males have their own language (with,
of course, many dialects), an exclusive language which no female, nor
children, are allowed to know.  Learning this male-language is a part of
the rites of passage.  I don't know any details yet about the Faithful
Ones' Male-language, but it's probably distantly related to Watya'i'sa.

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