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> Native Tongue [published 1984] is a feminist science fiction novel by American writer Suzette Haden Elgin, the first book in her series of the same name. The
by jrochkind1 5y ago
> Native Tongue [published 1984] is a feminist science fiction novel by American writer Suzette Haden Elgin, the first book in her series of the same name. The trilogy is centered in a future dystopian American society where the 19th Amendment was repealed in 1991[1] and women have been stripped of civil rights. A group of women, part of a worldwide group of linguists who facilitate human communication with alien races, create a new language for women as an act of resistance. Elgin created that language, Láadan, and instructional materials are available.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Native_Tongue_(Elgin_novel) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Native_Tongue_(Elgin_novel)
- kortex 5y agoMy favorite feature of Láadan is grammatical evidentiality, which I believe is based on real features of certain Native American languages. This is where you state how you know something, did you see it with your own eyes, hear it from a close friend, or just through the grapevine. There's even a particle for having dreamed it. How is this different than English? For one, English relies heavily on the copula (is/to be) for statements of fact ("it is raining" vs "I see rain"), and secondly it's baked into the grammar. Stating something without evidence would sound just as wrong as "Me fail English? That's unpossible!" The one exception might be the "uncertainty suffix" -ish. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evidentiality https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evidentiality