Readalong

TPG:Preface:P.xiv Dragaeran word gya

David Dyer-Bennet dd-b at dd-b.net
Mon Jun 17 16:40:35 PDT 2002

Starshadw at aol.com writes:

> In a message dated 6/17/2002 1:24:08 PM Mountain Daylight Time, dd-b at dd-b.net 
> writes:

> > 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.) 
> > 
> 
> No, that doesn't seem right, or else they wouldn't have two words - they 
> would have simply one.  So Zerika would be the Emperor, not the Empress.  Why 
> have two words at all?  Unless you want to indicate that perhaps the Emperor 
> title is the "higher" title, with "Empress" being the lesser (ie, the Emperor 
> is called Emperor and his/her consort is called Empress).  But again, Zerika 
> proves this wrong because she is called the "Empress" and not the "Emperor."

Is that simply an artifact of the translation into English, where the
gender is key?  Where calling a woman the "emperor" would sound funny? 
-- 
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