Dear Journal,
Oct. 23rd, 2008 10:22 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccastareyesYesterday I went to the fabric store for Halloween supplies and figured out how to thread the bottom needle of my sewing machine. I also started a discussion on third gender pronouns on NaNoWriMo's board that has yet to turn into a fight.
So, Darynese, my conlang, has a boatload of genders -- not just masculine, feminine and neuter. Since I'm writing in English, I can mostly ignore them. Problem is when your characters decide to make an Issue about gender.
Okay, so Darynese pronouns are gendered. All of them, though let's just stick to third-person singular pronouns. Yaimi (and yumi) is feminine -- 'she'. Yaomi (and yomi) is masculine -- 'he'. There's also a 'I'm talking about a hypothetical singular person pronoun' and a bunch of things for inanimate objects, animals, plants and places and times -- 'it'.
Yaemi is the pronoun referred to gods and spirits (and also ideas and concepts). The old standard dialect used to use it to refer to people who were believed to be mediums between our world and the spirit world -- with a change in religion, this has fallen out of use, and is generally the sign of being a pretentious idiot. One of the other dialects kept this, and the old religion. One of the characters is going to be making an issue of this in my NaNo, and insisting on the right pronoun. Another just uses it and would like others to do the same. 'It' has all the wrong connotations here, he/she would gloss over an issue of characterization, so I have to drag out a set of third-gender pronouns, while acknowledging that it sounds awkward as hell in translation. Which it does in the original as well.
Currently, I have 'se' in place, but that's not set in stone. And I don't even know how to handle the first and second person pronouns, to get the idea that it's a dialectal thing that the main dialect thinks is either outdated or sounds pretentious. I suppose I could switch to the third person 'one' -- for example:
One threw the ball to you. You caught the ball from one. The ball is one's -- it is one's ball. One would throw the ball to oneself.
Well, I could use the singular (royal) 'we', or start capitalizing all my pronouns, like people do when referring to God.
At least one of the bonuses to this is that it's supposed to sound unusual and strange.
So, Darynese, my conlang, has a boatload of genders -- not just masculine, feminine and neuter. Since I'm writing in English, I can mostly ignore them. Problem is when your characters decide to make an Issue about gender.
Okay, so Darynese pronouns are gendered. All of them, though let's just stick to third-person singular pronouns. Yaimi (and yumi) is feminine -- 'she'. Yaomi (and yomi) is masculine -- 'he'. There's also a 'I'm talking about a hypothetical singular person pronoun' and a bunch of things for inanimate objects, animals, plants and places and times -- 'it'.
Yaemi is the pronoun referred to gods and spirits (and also ideas and concepts). The old standard dialect used to use it to refer to people who were believed to be mediums between our world and the spirit world -- with a change in religion, this has fallen out of use, and is generally the sign of being a pretentious idiot. One of the other dialects kept this, and the old religion. One of the characters is going to be making an issue of this in my NaNo, and insisting on the right pronoun. Another just uses it and would like others to do the same. 'It' has all the wrong connotations here, he/she would gloss over an issue of characterization, so I have to drag out a set of third-gender pronouns, while acknowledging that it sounds awkward as hell in translation. Which it does in the original as well.
Currently, I have 'se' in place, but that's not set in stone. And I don't even know how to handle the first and second person pronouns, to get the idea that it's a dialectal thing that the main dialect thinks is either outdated or sounds pretentious. I suppose I could switch to the third person 'one' -- for example:
One threw the ball to you. You caught the ball from one. The ball is one's -- it is one's ball. One would throw the ball to oneself.
Well, I could use the singular (royal) 'we', or start capitalizing all my pronouns, like people do when referring to God.
At least one of the bonuses to this is that it's supposed to sound unusual and strange.
