Re: A New Language

On 08/19 13:15  John Cowan wrote:
> Jan van Steenbergen scripsit:
>
> > If two people with a surname can have only one child with a surname, one of the
> > two will disappear.
> > If none of the two partners has a surname, no new surname will emerge.
> > So, after a while, there will be only one surname left, and its possessor or
> > one of his heirs is doomed to die childless, so that the whole surname concept
> > eventually disappears.
> >
> > How do you handle that problem? Perhaps by offering the possibility that =
> > people
> > can be "knighted" with a surname because of extraordinary merits?
>
> Indeed, perhaps it is better to think of these names as titles of nobility
> ("Baron X") rather than surnames as Westerners know them.
> In the U.K., where only a peer's eldest son becomes a peer, there are very
> few really ancient peerages -- most are modern creations.
>
I think something like this would have to be adopted.  I think using a
surname among the Gwonentan (lit. 'the speakers' for want of a better
working ethnicity) is like being the McClan of McClan.

I did find bn's ideas screwy enough that I should adopt some of them.
Possibly not the right of murder one though, too anti-social. :)

- andrew.
--
Andrew Smith, Intheologus                         hobbit@griffler.co.nz
alias Mungo Foxburr of Loamsdown
http://hobbit.griffler.co.nz/homepage.html

The tribe need a father who is afraid only of ceasing to love them well.
                                                       - James K. Baxter