Just a heads up, I will be taking a 2 week hiatus from posting information on Eridanian to focus more on developing two of my other conlangs, Shyiyma and Skirma.  Links below if intrigued.

http://www.tumblr.com/blog/shyiyma

http://www.tumblr.com/blog/skirmaconlang

***Before discussing it is important to note that all 5 types of sexes are adjectives; I have tried to use them as such below in english.  It is uncommon to see them used without the formal person marker, to-.

In order to accurately describe chotámn, or sex markers, we must first delve a little into the biology of Eridanians.  As previously stated, conditions on their home planet were favorable to a humanoid shape; this means two legs, two arms, a torso, neck, head…and a prehensile tail?  However, the anatomical similarities pretty much stop there, at the level where the exterior environment has the most impact on the evolution of a species.  When it comes to a thing like reproduction, the similarities are few.

All Eridanians are born with 3 sets of sexual organs, out of a possible 5.  These organs are contained at the base of the tail (essentially where the human butt is), and during prepubescence they are non-functional.  The five types of sexual organs are called to-kííkwyn, to-hěmààrí, to-tělydh, to-íěpçů, and to-wéchym; there is no point in attempting to compare these organs to human ones, I guess I’ll just eventually have to draw them out (if anyone cares enough, lol).  Once an Eridanian has reached sexual maturity (about 11,000 years) they will have the option of having sex.  The first time they have sex, they will have to choose an organ to use - once used, the other two will soon shrivel and naturally fall off.  That will then be their biological sexual identity (which says nothing about their outward personal representation).  The hěmààrí, íěpçů, and wéchym types receive genetic material for reproduction from the kííkwyn and tělydh types.  Once a hěmààrí, íěpçů, and/or wéchym type have obtained genetic material from at least one kííkwyn and tělydh type, then the wéchym type can receive the genetic material from the hěmààrí and íěpçů types.  The wéchym type will then give birth in 2-3 years.

From this we can surmise that there is really no such thing as monogamy in Eridanian society, at least not to the same degree as with humans.  Two Eridanians can spend a lifetime together in love, but for them to have children (and even in their society, children are seen as desirable and precious) would require the inclusion of others sexually.  While they certainly do have the technology for artificial genetic transference, the concept is irrational because polygamy is simply a biological necessity and thus a social normality.  The act of reproduction (sex) can be a very pleasurable thing for Eridanians, similar to humans.  As well, there can be some interesting combinations had with the requirement of 5 different types of genetic material.  For example:

A wéchym type can have sex with a to-hěmààrí, to-kííkwyn, to-tělydh, and to-íěpçů.
A wéchym type can have sex with a to-hěmààrí and to-íěpçů, who in turn each had sex with a to-kííkwyn and to-tělydh respectively.
A wéchym type can have sex with a to-hěmààrí and to-íěpçů; only the to-íěpçů had sex with a to-kííkwyn and a to-tělydh.

and so on and so forth….you get the idea.  An Eridanian can also choose to not have sex; in this instance, as they would retain their three original sexual organs, none would ever reach sexual maturity.  However, this would obviously not mean that they would remain a child all their life - they are just seen as non-sexual individuals in Eridanian society, like eunuchs or asexuals but there is no prejudice felt towards them.  Often, after 50,000 years or so, these individuals will be called to-gváíy as opposed to to-boowůn (this is what children and virgins are known as).  Many Hodhráçtú xíě Déwů’xéor are to-gváíyt.  Humans* are almost universally seen as boowůn; they may occasionally be graced the title of gváíy for showing great kinship with the Chádhtú’wě.

*Never are they addressed with the formal person marker, to-.

From all of these titles, we obtain many sex markers in Ěrídàn.  Here they are! =D

to-boowůn - no marker
to-gváíy - G
to-kííkwyn - CH
to-hěmààrí - P
to-tělydh - D
to-íěpçů - Ç
to-wéchym - Í

Here they are in some sentences!

Dxoryn boxíěl’í’r?
“When were you born?” (lit: When did to-wéchym birth you?)

Hodhráçtú xíě Déwů’xéor rědxít kíhom to-gváíyt.
“A lot of The Servitors of the Cosmos are non-sexual.”

Xíárú’ch çímoçě.
“We [exclusively to-kííkwyn] went to the store.”

Íěto’p?
“Do you know [that] to-hěmààrí?”

invinciblend:

If you have worked on reciprocal constructions in any of your conlangs, could you please send something my way? I’ve become quite interested in them after reading an article this sem and I’m curious to see how conlangs handle them (CONLANG TYPOLOGY). They can be quite a complex construction so I can imagine lots of people won’t have gotten to them (yet) though.

I would recommend the article to anyone interested. It has a lot of examples of reciprocals in different languages, so it might give you some ideas for conlanging too, haha. It’s just an interesting topic though.

Evans, N., Gaby, A., & Nordlinger, R. (2007). Valency mismatches and the coding of reciprocity in Australian languages. Linguistic Typology, 11, 541-597.

Eridanian expresses reciprocity via the verbal suffix “á”; a gender marker can be added if desired, but it’s not compulsory. For example:

Ñárwá.

“We love each other.”

Here we see three elements. The first is the verb “ámñě”; to love. The second is the 1st person plural present suffix “árú”, and the last is the reciprocal marker “á” which mutates with the “ú” to become the diphthong [u̯a] - written as “wá”. If you wanted to stress that the two individuals involved in loving were both, say, “masculine”*, you could say:

Ñárwá’d.

And that is it…pretty basic really, lol.

*Eridanians don’t use gender or sexuality in the same context as humans, so “masculine” is a very poor translation. More on this later. Basically it just means “the penetrative partner during sexual intercourse.”

aswiftsunset:

Creating conlangs is like adopting stray cats. 

You cannot stop at one.

gpoy

(via evanescentroses-deactivated2013)