People, Gender and Family Relations
Keywords: gender, gender identity, family, relatives, social rank, politeness
The Common language has a relatively peculiar system for managing family relations in that it does not have native relationship terms that inherently encode the gender of the referent. So there aren't Old Common words like 'mother' or 'father', only 'parent', and this influence is reflected in High Common to a large degree. It is possible to express the natural gender of the referent, but not obligatory. As well, some terms for family relations also form the basis for polite or impolite address terms that communicate relative age and rank.
Gender
The original Old Common language was progressive in that it did not have gender as an inherent quality to any of its words for familial relations. Gender could be added optionally using modifiers. It was less progressive in the fact that it only provided clarifying words for a strictly male/female binary distinction.
Modern Common recognizes and manages the distinctions between biological sex and gender identity and recognizes the latter and even the former exists on a sort of continuum. It does not necessarily do an especially good job of this, however - see the attached article on sexual and gender identity.
The aim in this article is to provide a base for the most commonly used words - gender, sexuality and sexual identiity and orientation is a much bigger topic to which we will eventually return in a future article. Suffice it to say that while actual Common-speaking communities vary considerably in their progressive bona fides, the NWO elite society is actually very open and progressive on this topic, and their High Common standard language reflects this attitude. In general, the treatment of sexual and gender minorities in NWO-controlled territories is a relative bright spot in an otherwise highly problematic record on human rights.
Similarly, while sexuality and gender might be considered connected topics, we will also leave a discussion of sexuality for another time.
The two original gender modifiers of Common encode male or female. They are considered modifiers of material in the modifier sequence. They cannot be used as adverbs by themselves, although they can move with a term they modify as a compound that could become a verb. They are:
| Type | Modifier | Term | Prefix |
|---|---|---|---|
| Female | lijy | lijyn | l(i)(j)-' |
| Male | cejy | cejyn | c(e)(j)-' |
The freestanding word versions were the only ones existing in Old Common. The term versions are derived by ordinary appication of the suffix -(y)n and they mean a female or male person or animal, or femininity and masculinity in general. During the middle period, the prefix versions began to appear, and they were codified as part of the standard language in the early modern period. The prefixes follow the following rules based on the term they are applied to:
- If the term begins with a consonant, the (j) is dropped and the first syllable of the term itself is stressed (the li or ce is always unstressed).
- If the term begins with a vowel other than the nucleus vowel of the prefix (i for li and e for ce), then the prefix works as above, but the j is not dropped.
- If the term begins with the nucleus vowel of the prefix, then the nucleus vowel and the j are dropped and there is no change to the stress pattern.
These prefixes can be applied to any word for a thing that can have a biological sex or gender identity, not just humans and not just family terms. High Common speakers will almost always respect the gender identity of the referent rather than the biological sex when using gendered terms - the exception will be in contexts where biology is most relevant, as with the siring and bearing of children, but even then the tendecy towards respecting the referent's identity is strong. With non-humans, the salient characteristic will always be biological sex.
Davidson spoke about this topic and tried to explain his reasoning. He said he wanted to reflect a society that placed the same value on men and women, so he was careful to make sure there was no way to construe one gender term as derived from the other or secondary. It was pointed out that he chose nucleus vowels that aligned with the concrete gender for the masculine and the abstract gender for the feminine. Davidson allowed that that was a deliberate aesthetic choice, but not important since as modifiers they don't have gender and since when derived into terms with -(y)n, both would be abstract anyway.
This gender-neutral system of Common ran headfirst into a society that was more open to the ideas of gender equality and respect for gender and sexual minorities than it had been in decades and centuries past, but was nowhere near ready for this degree of agnosticism about gender, and still very much isn't. Therefore, we saw the appearance of the shortened prefix forms for gender that allowed gender to be tied more intimately to words for people if desired, and the borrowing of certain explicitly gendered vocabulary, as people refused to be shaped by the language they were speaking and shaped it instead.
Family Relations
Family relation terms will mostly be understandable to English speakers, with a few notable differences. What is interesting is that these words did not start out as terms of general social address in Old Common but picked up these connotations in the middle and early modern periods, continuing to the present day, as the fictional society that spoke Old Common was peaceful, respectful and egalitarian, and the modern society that actually speaks High Common is neither peaceful nor egalitarian and hence a whole different kind of respectful. The table below gives the basic relationships.
| Relationship | Term | Comments |
|---|---|---|
| kin, related | zereu | General modifier for family or kin. |
| family | zereun | Term for family or kin. |
| relative | zereunka | Term for an individual relative, 'one who is related'. One might also just say 'zereun'. |
| mother/father (parent) | anno | This is the Old Common word for parent. |
| mother | lijánno | Mother and father terms are among those commonly used with the more intrinsic gender prefix |
| father | cejánno | See note for mother, above. |
| mother (intimate - mommy) | mamma | The terms 'mamma' and 'pappa' were borrowed from languages Common was in contact with during the late early and middle periods as intimate or childish words for Mommy and Daddy - sometimes shortened down to ma and pa. |
| father (intimate - daddy) | pappa | See note for 'mommy' above, |
| grandparent | onno | This is the Old Common word for grandparent. This term is less commonly genderised in the same fashion as anno - it tends to exist as the non-gendered form, with a regular gender modifier if desired, or the intimate/affectionate terms. Lijónno and cejónno are attested, however. |
| grandmother (intimate) | omma | As with mommy/daddy above, the 'grandma'/'grandpa' words were borrowed during the middle period from languages Common was in contact with, probably German in this case, and in this case also analogised to the similar-looking native word. |
| grandfather (intimate) | oppa | See note for grandmother, above. |
| great grandparent | akpeonno | A compound of 'akpe', 'big', and onno. Gendered if desired with regular modifiers, but if a prefix is used, it applies to the onno root, rather than the compound as a whole. |
| great great grandparent | kawasakpeonno | Any number of greats can be made by taking an ordinal number and compounding it to the front of akpeonno. |
| older sibling (brother/sister) | akki | There is no native general term for brothers and sisters in general, you would normally have to say sometime like 'akki pi ikki' to refer to all of your siblings. |
| older sister | lijákki | Intrinsic gender forms of sibling words are commonly used. |
| older brother | cejákki | See above |
| younger sibling (brother/sister) | itti | Relative age is conflated with rank in NWO societies, so the older/younger distinction is considered important. Davidson, however, stated he decided to follow the example of Mandarin, a language he spoke, as a purely aestheitc choice. |
| younger sister | litti | See above |
| younger brother | cejítti | See above |
| sibling | siplin | A general technical term borrowed from English during the early modern period to mean older and younger siblings combined - in practice little used except in technical contexts. |
| twin | kawan | Twin siblings are referred to as 'kawan'. Similar terms can be derived for triplets, etc., but in fact it is normal to refer to your triplet sibling as 'kawan' as well. If needed to disambiguate, 'identical twin' is 'winys kawan', with the modifier 'winys' derived from the term 'win', 'self', and fraternal twin is 'ik winys kawan'. |
| elder aunt/uncle | noakki | The words for younger and elder aunts and uncles are less likely to be gender derived with a prefix and to be just used on their own. If desired, a regular gender modifier is used. These titles commonly extend to the aunt or uncle's spouse, as in our society. |
| younger aunt/uncle | noitti | See elder aunt/uncle above |
| great aunt/uncle | akpenoakki | The term for great aunts or uncles is derived exactly like a grandparent, with 'akpe', 'big'. The elder form is always used, never the younger form. 'Greats' can be derived in the same fashion as grandparents. A gender prefix, if present, is applied to the 'noikki' root, otherwise, a gender modifier can be applied to the whole construction if desired. |
| cousin | sepu | Sepu is only ever gendered using regular modifiers and has no age rank distinction - hence is it often used as an intimate/affectionate term for equals, even those unrelated. |
| second cousin | kawas sepu | Relations like second cousins, removed cousins, etc., are outside the scope of this article. The system in Common is similar to English, and ordinal numbers can be used to express degress of separation. |
| maternal | lijynys | Abstractifying the feminine and masculine modifiers with the suffix -(y)nys gives a more removed form, which is used to specify if a distant relation is on the male (paternal) or female (maternal) side of the family tree. |
| paternal | cejynys | See lijynys, above. |
| friend | ema | Friend is included here because it can be used to derive a term for casual love interest. |
| romantic partner (dating) | lijéma/cema | The terms lijéma and cema translate approximately as girlfriend and boyfriend, calqued directly from Enlgish with attestation by the middle period. The gender prefix forms are used, if the free modifiers are used it means more 'friend who is a girl' than 'girlfriend'. |
| romantic partner (cohabiting) | kawanca | The word 'kawanca' means 'partner' with the strong implication of romantic partner. It is derived form 'kawa', two, transformed into a verb meaning to double with the addition of -(y)n, and then into an ergative thematic noun with -ca. It means literally approximately 'one who doubles'. |
| spouse | katen | 'Katen', 'spouse', is a word from Old Common. In High Common it implies being legally married, but does not necessarily require it. |
| wife | likáten | By the middle period, speakers often used the gender prefixes to refer to wives and husbands in favour of the neutral form. |
| husband | cekáten | See 'wife' above |
| son/daughter | ife | 'Ife', froim Old Common, means offspring without implying anything about age - they could be child or adult offspring. To specify a child, the words 'pojuk' or 'welun' may be used. |
| daughter | life | It is relatively common to refer to one's offspring with gendered terms using the gender prefixes, but it is also relatively common to use the neutral word. |
| son | cejífe | See 'daughter' above |
| grandchild | sinkuife | Words for grandshild or great grandchild can be derived using the gendered terms above rather than the neutral term. In this case, the gender prefix is applied to the root 'ife' and not to the front of the compound as a whole, like 'sinkulife' for 'granddaughter' |
| great grandchild | kawassinkuife | Words for however many greats removed grandchildren are derived by compounding an ordinal number with 'sinkuife'. |
| nephew/niece | polit | The word for niece or nephew, 'polit', can take gender prefixes if desired, and is more often used with standalone gender modifiers if gender needs to be speciifed. It is more likely than closer relation terms to be used in its neutral form. |
This discussion does not go into the genealogical complexities of distant cousins, although the system is barely outlined in talking about second cousins. There is a system, and a lot of variation based on the cultures associated with the family tree being traced.
Grammatically, these words typically are all almost exclusively used as nouns. The big exception is 'anno', 'parent', which can mean to spawn, birth, or give rise to something and may be applied metaphorically. It can also mean to act as a parent towards a child. The gendered terms are occasionally used in this way, as in the sentence 'Ja Toni tene cejánno a pocuk', 'Tony fathered the child', or 'Tony is the child's father', as you might say in a context of speculating about a child's paternity.
In addition, there are a number of fictive kin relationships to consider. In many cases, people will use full kin terms above for fictive kin, but the terms below are used if needed to specify fictive versus blood kin, or if there is an explicit desire to distance the relation.
| Relationship | Term | Comments |
|---|---|---|
| Relationships by marriage (step kin and aunt or uncle's spouse) | katen- | To express the ides of any step relation, or the spouse of an aunt or uncle, take the base relationship tem and prefix it with 'katen-', 'spouse'. Examples: 'katenife' would be 'step child' and 'katennoakki' would be elder aunt or uncle's spouse. If a gender prefix is used it is applied to the head of the compound, and agrees with the gender of the person, not the person through whom the relationship is mediated. |
| Relationships through one's own spouse (in-laws) | katenys- | In-laws are derived by taking the term for 'spouse', 'katen', deriving as a term with -(y)s, and then compounding. The difference between 'katen-' and 'katenys-' may not seem to flow naturally, but that's just the idiom in Common. Take any relationship word and prefix it with katenys- and is specifies that the relationship is through your significant other. |
| Half relations | akáwas- | Half relations are derived by taking any relationship term and prefixing it with 'akáwas-'. So 'akáwaslife' would be 'half-sister'. |
| Fictive aunts and uncles, or aunts and uncles without regard to birth order | no'i | By the middle modern period, the practice of using the term for aunt or uncle for a non-related adult who is a friend of the family that the parents want the children to see as being like kin started to appear in Common. The problem with this is that the native terms contrast the birth order and hence rank of the person with the parent. This is not always a problem but can be sensitive. The solution has been to coin the contraction 'no'i' that leaves out the part of the word that reveals the birth order. It subsequently has been occasionally used as a general word for blood aunts and uncles. It typically is not used with a gender specifier. |
Social Respect Terms from Kin Terms
In addition to the use of kin terms for bona fide family relations, kin terms have formed the basis of many terms of respectful address for non-related persons as the New World Order society has developed more and more naked social class and social stratification. There are respect terms which are not derived from kin terms, but we will list some of the ones that are here.
| Term | Meaning | Usage |
|---|---|---|
| anno | parent | Addressing an elder or clear social superior such as a boss. You're not saying they are your parent, just that they are a parent. Compare to terms of respect in Bahasa Melayu ('bapak'). |
| akki | elder sibling | General address for a social superior in an unclear situation. A common application is customer service, for a server to address all customers as 'akki' |
| itti | younger sibling | General polite address for a social inferior in an unclear situation. A common application is customer service, for a customer to address server as 'itti'. This is considered friendly and polite. If the intention is to belittle or be rude, 'pocuk', 'child' could be used instead. |
| ife | son or daughter | The usage is similar to itti, but more likely to be employed if the person is much younger than you. |
| onno | grandparent | Polite address to a much older person, implies they are your social superior, but lacks the implication of a command relationship like anno. |
| no'i | aunt/uncle | The fictive kin term for aunt or uncle is another polite address for older people, especially social superiors, but does not imply they are very old or that there is a command relationship. Might be used in a customer service situation with an older customer instead of akki. |
| sepu | cousin | A polite and friendly way to address an equal. |
| ema | friend | Similar to 'sepu', comes across a little more personal and familiar. |
The use of kin terms in personal address conveys an attempt to be warm and personal while acknowledging the social standing of the other person relative to your own, including relative age.
NWO society is global and varies considerably by locality, and so it is not uncommon to find in one state that people have a more warm demeanour and use kinship terms for address all the time (e.g., na Intonésija, na Epekwit, na Spanja), and in another state people prefer more distanced terms (e.g., na Tuslan, na Kaskétija). It is necessary to pay attention wherever you are and try to mimic the local customs - carefully, it also pays to study ahead. However, such kinship terms of address are used to some degree everywhere in the NWO.
To use such a term of address, it would be used as the head term in a second person noun phrase construction. In some dialects, people are starting to get more distance in respectful interactions by using the third person rather than the second person, but that is a topic for another article, and it is generally still safe to use the second person with a term of respect anywhere in NWO territory.
Words for People (Age Terms)
Finally, we will look at some basic words to refer to people, and in particular terms denoting relative age, which can be conflated with rank.
| Term | Meaning | Usage |
|---|---|---|
| welu | young | General modifier for youth, can apply to organisms but not nonliving things. When derived with -(y)n, tends to imply a person and be reasonably polite. |
| etirek | old | General word for old, has a negative connotation of old, broken, or bad. Can readily apply to any non-human, living or non-living, but impolite to apply to a human. |
| hital | age | The term 'hital' refers to the age of any person or thing, and is used to construct the polite euphemism for 'old' for people. |
| hitalys | old (respectful) | The -(y)s derived modifier form of 'hital' is the polite word for old applied to humans. |
| xeko | grow | The general word for growth or to grow is also used in age terms for humans and animals. |
| pepe | infant | Although this looks like another borrowing, owing to its resemblance to other languages' word for baby, it is actually an Old Common word coined by Davidson himself. It generally applies to infants and babies before the toddler stage. |
| sinkun | toddler | The derived form 'sinku', from 'sinku', 'little' and -(y)n, literally 'little one', is the word generally used for very small children too young to go to school or be put to work. |
| pocuk | prepubescent child | The term 'pocuk' translates any prepubescent child, as well as being a very rude and condescending way to refer to an adult, such as in indentured labourer. |
| welun, nawynka | teenager | Young people who are still growing but old enough to be sexually active and to pursue advanced education or hold down a real job but not old enough to really be considerred full legal persons are refered to as 'welun', 'young one', or as 'nawynka', an idiomatic expression meaning roughly 'one who is multiplied by ten', or 'tenfold one'. They are roughly equal synonyms. |
| rycin | child or teenager (derogatory) | The term 'rycin' is a term for any person under the age of majority. It has a generally negative and derogatory tone, and actually derives from the English word 'urchin'. |
| atuin | adult person (respectful) | The term 'atuin' is the general word for people - it implies an adult of good social standing and has a respectful tone, like 'lady', 'gentleman', or 'mensch'. It can be used by itself as a term of approval for someone. |
| kaj | adult person (informal) | The word 'kaj' is borrowed from the English word 'guy', and means any person, usually an adult. It is informal and can be insulting in some contexts. |
| xekosyn | adult (factual descriptor) | The term 'xekosyn' just means something like 'that which has the quality of growth', and is a technical, clinical or legal word that means an 'adult'. It could apply to an animal as well as a human. The adjectival form is 'xekos'. |
| welutuin | young adult (respectful but condescending) | The term 'welutuin' refers to an older teenager or very young adult. It is generally respectful with an affectionate but potentially condescending tone. |
| hitalystuin | old person (respectful) | Combining the euphemistic modifier for old, 'hitalys', with the affix form of atuin, -(a)tuin, gives the respectful word for old person, 'hitalystuin'. |
| etirekyn | old person (disrespectful) | Combining the blunt and direct modifier for old, 'etirek', with the derivational ending -(y)n to derive it as a term, gives the disrespectful word for old person, 'etirekyn'. |
| siti hitalystuin | middle-aged person | Using the mediocritising tight binding modifier siti with 'hitalystuin' produces a generally respectful term for middle aged to vigorous older person. |
| atuinys/atuinysyn | human (general) | Common lacks a way to make a distinction between a person who is human and a person who is not - the word for human is derived from the word for person. The affix -(y)s is used as a modifier to assert the humanity of the head term, and the -(y)syn version refers to a human being or humans in general in a more neutral way than the positive connotations of atuin. |
| atuinot | humanity | The word for humanity or mankind in general is derived from 'atuin' with the derivational ending '-ot' for a kind or variety. |
| awketuin | people (general) | Means people in general or 'everyone', takes singular agreement. 'Awken' is also seen, especially when not pandering to the referents. |