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Working on a draft of a story where #goblins / #orcs who lack gender dimorphism are primarily speaking in a #language without any gendering, considering the pros and cons of various ways to avoid using gendered #pronouns.
Like, Kletchka and Grhul are female, and Shoruk and Tulkan are male, and this isn't like a secret or a twist or anything, but none of them would refer to each other in those terms, because the language they speak doesn't have #gender.
(cntd)
They / Them has occurred to me, but I am also quite partial to #Spivak #pronoun stylings...
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spivak_pronoun
...which could just mean I use 'e' instead of he or she.
I'm open to suggestions though, if anyone would like to throw any thoughts down.
@raccoon@writing.exchangeRight now I'm considering the idea of using 'e' to denote a single person pronoun, and 'ey' / 'em' to pluralize, so that everything is in this kind of weird undermining of the language. I could go a step further and change a few more things!
Although, I have to be careful not to get too far into
#FeersumEndjinn territory: as much as I like #IanMBanks as a writer, too many people seem to think that was borderline unreadable, and I'd rather be easy to read...
It's occurring to me I could make some of this come across in the wording of their dialogue, like, have them describe things in the way that would make sense in their actual language. Like if someone referred to a longsword as a "sword of great length", or arrows as something like "fly-claws".
If I do it well, I might be able to use it to convey some of their cultural mindset, how they're viewing the world...
The phrase "not even old enough for a name" went through my head, as a reference to cultures which don't name children until they hit some developmental milestone, which also applies to these goblins. Definitely going to use that.
"Orc-kind has little need for more soldiers. With lack of the big-thinker, the artist, the philosophizer... what sort of kind would orc-kind be if we were no more than the killers our ancestors were made for being?"
...IDK if I'm seeing it, but I think it could work...