User:Soap

I edit frequently, but in irregular bursts. Sometimes I make sixty edits in one day and sometimes I only make one edit in sixty days. In the latter case it usually means I am usually occupied with some other hobby.

I am also User:Poswob Rare. When editing from the Soap account, I am on a mobile device and do not have a sidebar. Soap has become my secondary account despite being the original.

I have well over 100 languages in the sense that each of them has a place on the map, a list of sound changes, and an ancestor somewhere along the line that has a dictionary from which I can derive words for the daughter. But the vast majority of my languages are no more than that, and I only have two that are well developed enough to write in: Poswa and Pabappa. And since Poswa originated as an improved version of Pabappa, the two languages have the same goals, and I consider myself a loyalist.

My newer conlangs are named with exonyms, usually English words such as Play and Gold. Major projects get short names such as these, and these names usually have some specific meaning related to the culture of the speakers. For example, the Players founded their nation on the basis of the abolition of child labor. Minor projects get names that have no relation to the culture whatsoever, but typically follow some pattern that I can recognize, such as being named after different verses in a song.

Many of my languages would be starkly out of place on Earth, as Teppalan languages that evolve unusual characteristics often keep evolving in that direction rather than returning to "normal". I think of it by analogy to the evolution of species, where, for example, animals who evolve a specialized trait will commonly become even more specialized over time rather than returning to the same generic animal body plan.

Poswa is my favorite language, and overall the one I think I've done the best on, but Pabappa is more accessible for readers, so I still maintain and use Pabappa.

Links of convenience

• category:Language families of Teppala
• scratchpads
• User:Soap/scratchpad unorganized scratchpad
• User:Soap/samples little used
• Special:Contributions/Poswob_Rare
• Special:Contributions/Soap

Unbalanced gender setups

This is a hobby of mine and is one of the few language traits that is not reflected in Poswa or Pabappa.

1. 1 man + 999 women = 1000 men (IE)
   • pregnant women addressed with male pronouns if baby is known to be a boy.
     • Pregnant women addressed in the plural, which is epicene. (some Languages of Teppala; possibly Icecap Moonshine at least in verbs)
2. Genders take different positions on an animacy hierarchy. (Many Languages of Teppala if babies are considered a separate gender)
   • nom-acc for males, erg-abs for females (some conlangs; proposed for pre-PIE plural feminine)
   • Accusative case of males is the same as the nominative case of females, though this is a superficial resemblance only; they behave as normal nominatives and accusatives. (Late Andanese)
3. Males cannot be the agent of certain verbs without a morpheme showing which woman gave them persmission to do so; or the opposite. (Icecap Moonshine; resembles Poswa and Pabappa 's treatment of sentient animals)
4. Genders behave differently with respect to some other grammatical function. (Many Languages of Teppala)
   • Many semantically inanimate objects (umbrella, purse, dishes) are assigned to either the masculine or feminine gender, with a great imbalance in who gets what; men and women need extra morphemes to possess objects not of the "proper" gender, even if these are very common. (Moonshine)
   • certain verbs automatically take on a more violent of forceful meaning if subject is male, unless an extra morpheme is added. (Late Andanese)
5. Deities are always grammatically masculine, even if female in form (claimed for Tamil, apparently false)
6. male gender associated with broken objects or unpleasant things. (Jmo; some English feminists sarcastic use of male- as a variant form of mal-)
7. masculine has to be indicated with a suffix; unmarked form is usually feminine (Láadan; with is defined both as "woman" and "human", rather like the inverse of English man)
   • Feminine has to be indicated with a suffix; unmarked form is usually masculine unless the descriptor is syntactically associated with females , as with nursing, menial labor, etc (IE)
8. When a masculine agent is the owner of some object, the third person is used for that object, but when a female possessor is found, her person (and gender) is used.