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The gender system of my daughter's conlang
I've been helping my 10-year-old daughter develop her first conlang recently. Last night, we were discussing gender systems, and she came up with the following
Masculine Men, boys, things particularly associated with men
Feminine Women, girls, things particularly associated with women.
Earth Solid objects and substances, landscape features, terrestrial animals, plants.
Air Birds, insects and other flying creatures, the wind, anything in the sky except for the sun and moon.
Fire Anything hot
Water Liquids, the sea, rivers and lakes, fish and other aquatic creatures, the moon (because of its influence on the tides).
I thought this was a particularly creative idea, and my daughter wanted me to share it.




I love this (and am reminded of Avatar: the Last Airbender as well)!
Congrats to her for the early conlang inclination and to you for supporting It. A Brand new and fresh system, really creative and natural.
Fantastic! A lucky girl to have a glossopoetic Da to look up to!
And a luckier Da to have a glossopoetically inclined daughter who won't roll her eyes at the mere mention of declension!
Question for the young glossopoet: can things (or people) fall into two or more gender categories? What if a girl borrows her brother's shirt to wear --- will its gender change now that it is associated with the girl wearing it? (Surdeclination here?)
What are some cultural implications of this system? Or has she not worked on who speaks this language yet?
I agree, this is really creative!
So the sun goes under "Fire", right?
How does the gender get shown in the language? On adjectives, determinatives, numerals, nominal affixes...? Or maybe just on pronouns? Or is it too early to say yet?
Too early to say yet. I suppose that's the next thing to work on.
That's interesting. So I guess most straight up objects, say a table or a ball, would be gramatically earth?
Solid objects are usually Earth, unless there's a reason for them to be something else. For example, women's clothing might be feminine.