Questions or discussions about Almea or Verduria-- also the Incatena. Also good for postings in Almean languages.
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Re: Lé

Post by zompist »

roninbodhisattva wrote:Are the case markers derived from serial verbs?
Probably not... I played with that sort of thing plenty in Uyseʔ.

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Re: Lé

Post by vec »

Drydic Guy wrote:Also Proto-Curymo-Lebiscurene.
What a fun idea, though.
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Re: Lé

Post by BGMan »

Nice.

In fact, while recently reading the Wikipedia article on Thai, I've switched completely to IPA and consider the Romanization they use now to be garbage.

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Re: Lé

Post by Penelope »

Still reading through, but I'm intrigued to note that the Be have a concept of PMS; there's some evidence that it's a culture-bound syndrome in the real world. I'd be interested to learn more about how the Be see menstruation. I'm guessing it's not much like the famous Gloria Steinem essay? :D

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Re: Lé

Post by Mornche Geddick »

The acronym PMS only appears in the English gloss - in the original it's "Is the matriarch menstruating or what?" If, as I suggested in the Beic Culture thread, Almean women have voluntary control over the cervix as over the anal sphincter, that would change their experience of menstruation, so that it would be far less of a burden. It would therefore make an ancient female-dominant culture more likely.

Mind you, I have always thought PMS was a myth.

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Re: Lé

Post by Salmoneus »

... yes, I'm sure that what's been keeping women back is their annoyance over menstruation. THAT'S the factor that's shaped economics since the dawn of civilisation.
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Re: Lé

Post by Yiuel Raumbesrairc »

Mornche Geddick wrote:Mind you, I have always thought PMS was a myth.
My transsexual friend experiences PMS the very hard way. At least, she doesn't have the whole blood thing. (Though she wish she had. for other reasons.)
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Re: Lé

Post by zompist »

I've tried to avoid giving Almean humans any remarkable powers. (Though concentrating examples of normal terrestrial-human variation is fine. It appears that the anti-fertility effects of breastfeeding vary quite a bit; it could be that this is a common trait among the Bé.)

Steinem was writing satirically, but glorifying and spiritualizing experiences limited to one sex is certainly not something only men do... check out the '70s lesbian feminists, some of whom wrote as if lesbian relationships were the only true type of love. I picture menstruation, like birth, being considered a positive thing in Bé society. (It's the mirror image of it being considered a shameful negative and an excuse to restrain women further, as in many earthly male-dominant cultures.) But this sort of cultural valuation is going to be variable and maybe not as important as it sounds... cultural values hardly compel obedience.

I'd expect more practical helps to be available in Bé society, where female inconveniences will automatically receive the attention of inventors, physicians, herblorists, clothing designers, etc.

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Re: Lé

Post by So Haleza Grise »

Salmoneus wrote:... yes, I'm sure that what's been keeping women back is their annoyance over menstruation. THAT'S the factor that's shaped economics since the dawn of civilisation.
Nobody's suggesting that though, are they?
Duxirti petivevoumu tinaya to tiei šuniš muruvax ulivatimi naya to šizeni.

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Re: Lé

Post by Salmoneus »

So Haleza Grise wrote:
Salmoneus wrote:... yes, I'm sure that what's been keeping women back is their annoyance over menstruation. THAT'S the factor that's shaped economics since the dawn of civilisation.
Nobody's suggesting that though, are they?
Err. yes, they are.
...[if] Almean women have voluntary control over the cervix as over the anal sphincter, that would change their experience of menstruation, so that it would be far less of a burden. It would therefore make an ancient female-dominant culture more likely.
So exchange a slightly hyperbolic "the" for "a significant", and yes, I was pretty much paraphrasing. [A degree of hyperbole is sort of de rigeur for sarcasm]
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Re: Lé

Post by Mornche Geddick »

Doesn't sound like a remarkable power to me. (Menstruation is not even a necessary condition of being female. In most mammalian species, the endometrium is reabsorbed.) It's not telepathy, it's something that might very well occur in the natural course of evolution. It would need nothing other than a change to the peripheral nervous sytem of the sort that gives us greater control over our vocal organs, for example.

The selective benefits could be very large indeed. 1) With voluntary control over the cervix a female could make sure she didn't smell of blood when predators were around (endangering both herself and her companions). 2) Childbirth would be easier, faster and safer.

I venture to predict that if a hominid species had appeared which had this ability, (other things being equal), they would have out-competed us. Moreover, I predict that if this trait appeared in the present-day human population, it would spread until all women had it.

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Re: Lé

Post by Drydic »

Mornche Geddick wrote:Moreover, I predict that if this trait appeared in the present-day human population, it would spread until all women had it.
EVOLUTION DOES NOT WORK THAT WAY.

Thank you.

edit: UNLESS you meant that somehow the women with this feature would somehow outcompete the current model (lol), which given modern medical technology is not very convincing (yes Non-Western World but on the timeframe such a change as this would operate on medical tech would be far, far, more widespread than it is currently).
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Re: Lé

Post by Salmoneus »

How does ANY of that matter for economics? The glass ceiling on women's salaries is not because they smell of blood and thus have to work harder at hiding from the sabretooths!

[And how would it make childbirth quick and easy? Childbirth is difficult and dangerous because the size of a baby's skull (well, the size of a baby in general, actually) is very large relative to the size of a woman's pelvis.]
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Re: Lé

Post by dhok »

Am I the only one who's seeing Hebrew instead of diacritics?

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Re: Lé

Post by Thomas Winwood »

Change your browser's text encoding to UTF-8.

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Re: Lé

Post by Mornche Geddick »

Oh dear, I do seem to have upset a couple of people.

Actually, Drydic Guy, evolution does work that way. Any heritable trait that results in an increase of reproductive fitness, will, in probability, increase in the population for as long as it remains favourable. The classic case of this is the peppered moth. But if it does remain favourable, then it will eventually dominate, and finally become universal. (The timescale is not important here, nor the source of the trait. A GMO released into the wild, will be subject to selective pressure).

It is important to notice that the degree of fitness increase need not be large. It has been calculated that a fitness increase of 1% will result in population evolution. But the individual will not even notice. It may live as long as its peers, and look no different from them. It is only when someone counts population samples that the difference will become apparent. This means that even with modern medicine a trait conferring fewer birth complications will be selected for. Better obstetrics may reduce the selective pressure, but it will never be zero.

(Other traits that might be selected for under modern western conditions could include: lower tendency to develop allergies, lower tendency to migraines, an allele producing a strong distaste for the smell of tobacco smoke.)

This argument does have one important caveat, however. When only a few individuals have the trait, the relation between their reproductive success and their fitness can be swamped by other, random factors (this is why species with small populations are in trouble. It may also mean that a favourable trait might never become established if the founder is accidentally killed. But if the number of individuals who have a favourable trait reaches a certain threshold, their overall reproductive success (arithmetic mean) will be a function of their fitness. At this point the trait is said to be established.

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Re: Lé

Post by Yng »

Yiuel Raumbesrairc wrote:
Mornche Geddick wrote:Mind you, I have always thought PMS was a myth.
My transsexual friend experiences PMS the very hard way. At least, she doesn't have the whole blood thing. (Though she wish she had. for other reasons.)
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Risha Cuhbi grammar

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Re: Lé

Post by Drydic »

Mornche Geddick wrote:Oh dear, I do seem to have upset a couple of people.

Actually, Drydic Guy, evolution does work that way. Any heritable trait that results in an increase of reproductive fitness, will, in probability, increase in the population for as long as it remains favourable. The classic case of this is the peppered moth. But if it does remain favourable, then it will eventually dominate, and finally become universal. (The timescale is not important here, nor the source of the trait. A GMO released into the wild, will be subject to selective pressure).
That isn't what you said. And grats on ignoring the rest of my post. Human technology changes the game. Hundreds of thousands of women who otherwise would have died in childbirth survive thanks to medical intervention, and thus they can go on to have more children than the ≤1 they previously had.
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Re: Lé

Post by Mornche Geddick »

I can best answer, Drydic Guy, by posting the reply I was going to give Salmoneus.

Childbirth complications are caused by a number of factors, and the size of the baby's head is only one of them. (The head may even be squeezed into an elongated shape while passing through the birth canal, an effect which is fortunately temporary.) Getting the baby through the birth canal is a complex procedure, requiring the baby's head to be nudged into the pelvic ring, then turned sideways before being expelled, after which the same thing has to be done with the shoulders. Here is the description from Wikipedia*.
The relatively large head and shoulders require a specific sequence of maneuvers to occur for the bony head and shoulders to pass through the bony ring of the pelvis. A failure of these maneuvers results in a longer and more painful labor and can even arrest labor entirely. All changes in the soft tissues of the cervix and the birth canal depend on the successful completion of these six phases:

1. Engagement of the fetal head in the transverse position. The baby's head is facing across the pelvis at one or other of the mother's hips.
2. Descent and flexion of the fetal head.
3. Internal rotation. The fetal head rotates 90 degrees to the occipito-anterior position so that the baby's face is towards the mother's rectum.
4. Delivery by extension. The fetal head passes out of the birth canal. Its head is tilted backwards so that its forehead leads the way through the vagina.
5. Restitution. The fetal head turns through 45 degrees to restore its normal relationship with the shoulders, which are still at an angle.
6. External rotation. The shoulders repeat the corkscrew movements of the head, which can be seen in the final movements of the fetal head.
Now if a woman had voluntary control over the movements of the cervix and the lower muscles of the uterus, she could do a lot to make sure these phases were successful, reducing the need for interventions such as forceps or Caesarian Section. The interesting thing is that the evolutionary advantage would be increased, if anything, by modern medicine, because the nurse could use an initial ultrasound scan to determine the baby's orientation and give the mother real-time instructions. A pre-modern culture with a sound midwifery tradition with a lot of practical knowledge (like the Bé) would also reap an added benefit if its women had this trait.

Note: Modern medicine has saved many lives of women in childbirth, but it hasn't reduced the maternal death rate to zero. Nor are fitness effects confined to the death rate, because maternal injuries or complications may have deleterious effects on fertility that show up on the population level. Therefore any heritable trait that reduced this risk would be still be favoured. I suspect that childbirth complications may never be entirely avoidable.

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Re: Lé

Post by Mornche Geddick »

Now for Yiuel Raumbesrairc.

I have never had PMS symptoms myself, nor have I ever met any other woman who admitted to having them. As for your friend, I do not know whether she may be taking hormone supplements, but if she is, perhaps she should review her treatment regimen with her doctor.

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Re: Lé

Post by Neon Fox »

Mornche Geddick wrote:
I have never had PMS symptoms myself, nor have I ever met any other woman who admitted to having them.
Seriously? Can we swap reproductive systems? I mean, I don't turn into a screaming, miserable harpy or anything, but I do get more irritable than usual and don't feel great.

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Re: Lé

Post by Yiuel Raumbesrairc »

Mornche Geddick wrote:As for your friend, I do not know whether she may be taking hormone supplements, but if she is, perhaps she should review her treatment regimen with her doctor.
My ex-girlfriend barely had anything, so it was more of a funny fact that I was shouting out here.

As for my friend, she reviews it every couple of months, and there's nothing abnormal. It might be entirely psychological anyway.
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