User:Soap

I edit frequently, but in irregular bursts. Sometimes I make a hundred edits in a day and then go silent for several weeks, in which cases I am usually occupied with some other hobby.

I have 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.

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.

Unbalanced gender setups

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)
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. (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)