Native Tongue (novel)

infobox Book |
name = Native Tongue
title_orig =
translator =


image_caption =
author = Suzette Haden Elgin
illustrator =
cover_artist =
country = United States
language = English
series = Native Tongue
genre = Science fiction novel
publisher = Feminist Press (reprint)
release_date = 1984
english_release_date =
media_type = Print (Hardback & Paperback)
pages = 320 pp
isbn = ISBN 1558612467
preceded_by =
followed_by = The Judas Rose

"Native Tongue" is the first novel in Suzette Haden Elgin's feminist science fiction series of the same name. The trilogy is centered in a future dystopian American society where the 19th Amendment has been repealed and women have been stripped of civil rights. A group of women, part of a world-wide group of linguists who facilitate human communication with alien races, create a new language for women as an act of resistance. Elgin created the language, Láadan, and instructional materials are available.

Contents

Elgin has said about the book: :Native Tongue was a thought experiment, with a time limit of :ten years. My hypothesis was that if I constructed a :language designed specifically to provide a more adequate :mechanism for expressing women's perceptions, women would (a) :embrace it and begin using it, or (b) embrace the idea but not :the language, say "Elgin, you've got it all wrong!" and :construct some other "women's language" to replace it. The ten :years went by, and neither of those things happened; Láadan got :very little attention, even though SF3 actually published its :grammar and dictionary and I published a cassette tape to go with :it. Not once did any feminist magazine (or women's magazine) ask :me about the language or write a story about it.

:The Klingon language, which is as "masculine" as you could :possibly get, has had a tremendous impact on popular :culture -- there's an institute, there's a journal, there :were bestselling grammars and cassettes, et cetera, et :cetera; nothing like that happened with Láadan. My :hypothesis therefore was proved invalid, and the conclusion I :draw from that is that in fact women (by which I mean women who :are literate in English, French, German, and Spanish, the :languages in which Native Tongue appeared) do not find :human languages inadequate for communication." [cite web | title=Interview With Suzette Haden Elgin | last=Glatzer | first=Jenna | work= | url=http://www.absolutewrite.com/novels/suzette_haden_elgin.htm | date=2007 | accessdate=2007-03-20 ]

ee also

* Nü Shu, the Chinese system of women's writing

Footnotes

External links

* [http://www.sfwa.org/members/elgin/NativeTongue/Index.html "Native Tongue" trilogy homepage]
* [http://www.sfwa.org/members/elgin/NativeTongue/laadansampler.html Láadan sampler]