Used to refer to a person of unknown sex, which will be translated into English as "he" according to the translator (that'd be Steven). Remember this when you're tempted to infer that somebody is male from the use of "he" to refer to him; at least in the Paarfi books. Interesting questions arise from this; I was just commenting on the words Emperor and Empress in another message (about the date). If Dragaeran has a non-sex-specific pronoun for people, I wonder if it has non-sex-specific words for various jobs, as well. It would make sense. (Or perhaps it simply *lacks* the sex-specific forms; there may be no way to imply that a a ruler is male in Dragaeran with one word; you might have to say "the emperor is male" to get it across.) -- David Dyer-Bennet, dd-b at dd-b.net / New TMDA anti-spam in test John Dyer-Bennet 1915-2002 Memorial Site http://john.dyer-bennet.net Book log: http://www.dd-b.net/dd-b/Ouroboros/booknotes/ New Dragaera mailing lists, see http://dragaera.info