Gold nouns
The Gold language, also known as Diʕìləs,[1] has grammatical gender for animate objects and some inanimates. The gender system was retained by some of its descendants, being most prominent in Moonshine, but even in Moonshine the system was less full than in Gold.
Basic structure
The Gold gender system is based on consonants only, with each consonant corresponding to a different gender. The gender setup divides people not just into males and females, but into different age groups as well. There are more feminine genders than masculine ones, and in some descendant language, the masculine gender is even swallowed up by one of the neuter or epicene genders, leaving the feminine genders intact.
Reflections in daughter languages
All languages descended from Gold lost much of the gender system when they lost their noun classifier prefixes, but the Khulls branch of the family retained it most. And in one of Khulls' daughter languages, Moonshine, the gender system actually grew back up again, based on suffixes rather than prefixes, and for the first time included some vocalic reflexes of the consonants.
| Gender | Gold | Khulls | Moonshine | Babakiam | Thaoa | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Epicene | p | p | p | p | p, ph | Used for humans in groups of mixed or unknown genders. |
| Greater Feminine | m | m | m | m | m, ph | Used for adult women and females in general. |
| Lesser Feminine | s | s | s | s | š | Used for adult women and females in general, but contains few words. |
| Unisex | d | l, r | l, ř | — | č | Used for babies and children who are young enough to be perceived as genderless. |
| Neuter | — | ʕ | — | b | h | Used for animates of indistinct gender and for some inanimates. |
Similarity to Andanese
The Gold gender system was descended from the noun classifier system of Gold's own parent language, Tapilula. A sister language, Andanese, preserved this noun classifier system with little change, and this setup closely resembles the Gold gender system. However, in Andanese, there is no distinction between the various animate genders and the other noun classes; they all are seen as equal parts of a whole.
Notes
- ↑ Used for appearance, as the later name Ǯìlṡ is difficult to type.
