Re: CHAT: I'm back

Julia "Schnecki" Simon wrote:
> Is there a (con)cultural reason behind this? IIRC, in Sumerian stars
> and mountains are classified as animate because they're associated
> with deities, and deities are obviously animate. So, is there perhaps
> a spirit/deity/whatever associated with gold but none associated with
> copper; or are noble metals considered to be higher in the animacy
> hierarchy than common metals; or is gold traditionally used in certain
> artifacts with moving parts but copper isn't; or...?
Short answer, it just happened that way.  :-)  I had some vague notions
of what the distinction would be, but, to a considerable extent, I also
allowed whim to rule when devising a word.  However, later I began to
pick out accidental patterns.  For example, I noticed that I'd made Gold
animate while Copper and Iron were inanimate, so I decided the rule was
valuable metals were animate, others were inanimate.  Thus, when I came
up with a word for "silver", I made it animate.  I noticed that I made
bow-and-arrow (a single term for the collective unit) animate, while
knife was inanimate, so I decided the rule was that projectile weapons
are animate, non-projectile weapons are inanimate.  Thus, spear would
also be inanimate, and if the gender system is still active when
gunpowder is developed (I know descendant languages lost the genders,
but I'm not sure of the timing of that development), then the gun would
likely be animate.

I may devise a concultural explanation, or it may just be "one of those
things", possibly a vestige of an older system, or possibly just arbitrary.

Reply