Kirtumur: Difference between revisions

Kirtumur has two nouns classes, based on [[w:Animacy|animacy]], which can also be called genders (animate and inanimate). The class of a noun is determined by its meaning. Humans, gods, all living organisms, stars and planets belong to animate gender, while everything else belongs to inanimate gender. Groups living beings are inanimate, even though the singular subjects that comprise them are animate. This animacy distinction is marked on nouns with different case forms, but it also shows itself in pronominal and verbal agreement. There is no sex-based gender in Kirtumur, although several nouns are gender-specific (e.g. masculine or feminine), such as: ''ŋiraŋi/(ŋir)pekhi'' ("woman/man"), or ''calme/alle'' ("masculine/feminine"). The addition of ''pekh'' ("male") or ''eraŋ'' ("female") to the noun usually signifies gender in other terms such as ''ama'''pekhi''''' ("father"), but it is rarely used, unless the speaker needs to specify gender, otherwise gender-neutral words are preferred. This sometimes leads to confusion, when the gender of a historical figure is unknown, because it was never mentioned. A different example of it is how different gods were sometimes portrayed as men and sometimes as women on ancient tablets, and most of the time they are considered androgynous because of this.