Re: Dimorphic conlang?

On Apr 2, 2005 1:30 PM, Joseph a.k.a Buck <zhosh@...> wrote:
> Have any of the conlangers here ever developed a language wherein a sentient
> species' physiological or social dimorphism was reflected in the language in
> other than a minor way (e.g. m/f manifesting as specifically male pronouns &
> female pronouns?
>
Hmm, you mean like, say, sentient walruses or elephant seals labeling
everything (relatively) small as feminine and things that are
downright huge as masculine?  Noun classes by weight: everything less
than 4,000 pounds is feminine by default.

Or sentient cats or somesuch using the feminine as a respect marker?
Like a wise tom referred to as "she" out of respect. ;)

[These are probably answers to some question unrelated to the one
you're asking, but once I latch onto a tangent I cannot be
stopped!...]

Or, for seriously eusocial species, like sentient bees or ants, a
three-gender system for drones, workers, and queens.  (And no plural
of queen :) In less eusocial species, specific genders for maters and
non-maters.  In sentient wolves, four genders: masculine, feminine,
alpha-masculine, and alpha-feminine.

Along the same lines as the elephant seals: An avian race categorizing
all brightly-colored things as masculine, and all monochrome, brown,
or drab-colored things as feminine.  (Mandrills, too!)

[Back on topic... in Le Guin's "The Left Hand of Darkness", the
hermaphroditic natives are always neuter except when they're in
estrus, in which case they gain the pronoun for whichever sex they've
assumed.  Although "perverts" -- those "stuck" in one sex, like the
narrator, a Terran male -- get these pronouns all the time.]

In butterflies, genders of age (larval, pupoid, adult) as well as (or
instead of) those of sex.  For species with female polymorphism like
the Papilionidae, more than one feminine adult gender.  In neotenic
species, like the "Trilobite larva" Duliticola paradoxa: larval
masculine, pupoid masculine, adult masculine, and larval feminine.

Err... I'm done now.


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Patrick Littell
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