I think I came across this short story as part of an anthology. Would probably have been some time in the 80s, if that helps at all.
The story was told in first person; I believe the person telling it was female and living on a space vessel of some kind, and her job involved studying the language of alien cultures. The particular group of aliens she was studying at the time of the story had five genders (one for egg-producing, two for sperm-producing, one for gestating, and one for transferring sperm and egg to the host). Each gender had a different dialect, which made language very complicated (there was also a separate dialect, or I think more like different inflections, for children, who didn't manifest their gender until fairly late in development).
There was a child involved. I remember her as being called Jo, which I may have got wrong. As I recall, she had been rescued from some kind of trauma and didn't initially talk due to the shock. She starts talking when she hears the linguist trying to say something in this species' language to one of her co-workers, because the linguist has actually made the embarrassing mistake of using the wrong gender dialect and Jo (if that's her name) thinks that's funny and corrects her. The linguist realises that Jo has spent time on this planet.
There was some kind of showdown which I'm very hazy on but which I think involved Jo trying to kill someone who has wronged her and getting killed herself. At the end, the narrator is thinking about a custom in the culture of the species she's studying - the gender who transfer sperm and egg to the host are supposed to have a particularly special and dependable relationship with their children in order to make up for the fact that they don't pass on any genetic information to them. As a result, the language has a particular word - I think it was 'shilel', but googling on that isn't getting me anything helpful - to refer to the act of doing something that betrays that bond. It's one of the worst insults within that culture, because this is considered such a grave thing. I think the last sentence was the narrator thinking 'In a way, I, too, was shilel.'
Sorry to be so vague on details. Any bells rung here?
The story was told in first person; I believe the person telling it was female and living on a space vessel of some kind, and her job involved studying the language of alien cultures. The particular group of aliens she was studying at the time of the story had five genders (one for egg-producing, two for sperm-producing, one for gestating, and one for transferring sperm and egg to the host). Each gender had a different dialect, which made language very complicated (there was also a separate dialect, or I think more like different inflections, for children, who didn't manifest their gender until fairly late in development).
There was a child involved. I remember her as being called Jo, which I may have got wrong. As I recall, she had been rescued from some kind of trauma and didn't initially talk due to the shock. She starts talking when she hears the linguist trying to say something in this species' language to one of her co-workers, because the linguist has actually made the embarrassing mistake of using the wrong gender dialect and Jo (if that's her name) thinks that's funny and corrects her. The linguist realises that Jo has spent time on this planet.
There was some kind of showdown which I'm very hazy on but which I think involved Jo trying to kill someone who has wronged her and getting killed herself. At the end, the narrator is thinking about a custom in the culture of the species she's studying - the gender who transfer sperm and egg to the host are supposed to have a particularly special and dependable relationship with their children in order to make up for the fact that they don't pass on any genetic information to them. As a result, the language has a particular word - I think it was 'shilel', but googling on that isn't getting me anything helpful - to refer to the act of doing something that betrays that bond. It's one of the worst insults within that culture, because this is considered such a grave thing. I think the last sentence was the narrator thinking 'In a way, I, too, was shilel.'
Sorry to be so vague on details. Any bells rung here?
