I thought I'd tell you a little about Láadan, the constructed language I'm learning that is more expressive of my own world-view than others I have studied.
Láadan is a language created by Suzette Haden Elgin: "by women, for women, for the specific purpose of expressing the perceptions of women." You know how women and men have different cultures? Well, if women's culture had a language, it would probably look something like Láadan.
Láadan made its first apparance in the Native Tongue trilogy written by Dr. Elgin in the 1980s. She has written many books on the disadvantages that she believes women have speaking English and its relatives.
As many speakers have to point out to others, this does not mean that she has ever intended the language to be restricted to women (as if I would ever let such a thing stop me). According to Dr. Elgin:
There is so much misunderstanding about this point; I keep reading that the Láadan language is only for women -- which is false. I'd like to make it clear that the intention, from the very beginning, was that Láadan would be available to any and all genders. It says so explicitly in the second Native Tongue book, The Judas Rose, but a lot of people haven't read that far in the trilogy.
I like that she says "any and all genders" instead of "both genders."
But why, you might ask, do women need a separate language? After all, aren't women half the speakers of any given language?
I can go on to tell you that I saw two major problems -- for women -- with English and its close linguistic relatives. (1) Those languages lacked vocabulary for many things that are extremely important to women, making it cumbersome and inconvenient to talk about them. (2) They lacked ways to express emotional information conveniently, so that -- especially in English -- much of that information had to be carried by body language and was almost entirely missing from written language. This characteristic (which makes English so well suited for business) left women vulnerable to hostile language followed by the ancient "But all I said was...." excuse; and it restricted women to the largely useless "It wasn't what you said, it was the way you said it!" defense against such hostility. In constructing Láadan, I focused on giving it features intended to repair those two deficiencies.
Also:
Many features of Láadan that are only coincidentally linked to vocabulary were included specifically to make the expression of women's perceptions less difficult and time-consuming. Because the accusation that women "go on and on and never get to the point" is one of the major barriers to such expression, that was important to me. Those features include, among other things: (a) the use of obligatory evidence markers on sentences, making the "Oh, you ARE not!" and "Oh, you DID not!" response patterns gramatically irrational as well as incorrect; (b) mechanisms for expressing in words a great deal of what must in English be expressed in body language, especially intonation and tone of voice; (c) sets of affixes specifically designed to reduce many common "going on and on and never getting to the point" sequences to a syllable or two; (d) grammatical devices specifically designed to make it difficult to control conversation with such patterns as "But all I SAID was..." and "Hey, I was ONly kidding AROUND!" and the like.
She constructed the language to test a set of hypotheses:
I wrote the novel as a thought experiment with the express goal of testing four interrelated hypotheses: (1) that the weak form of the linguistic relativity hypothesis is true [that is, that human languages structure human perceptions in significant ways]; (2) that Goedel's Theorem applies to language, so that there are changes you could not introduce into a language without destroying it and languages you could not introduce into a culture without destroying it; (3) that change in language brings about social change, rather than the contrary; and (4) that if women were offered a women's language one of two things would happen -- they would welcome and nurture it, or it would at minimum motivate them to replace it with a better women's language of their own construction.
Personally, I disagree with the idea that language can actually change thought; some languages have the same word for all colors other than black and white, but experiments have proven that their speakers think of red, yellow, blue, and green as different colors just like we do. Have you ever had a thought that you couldn't find the words to express? One thing I like about Láadan is that it has quite a few words that are perfect for such thoughts I've had. In a lot of ways, it's the opposite of Toki Pona.
Dr. Elgin has this to say about the results:
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.
Or maybe it's just that not enough women have read the Native Tongue trilogy. And those who may be disappointed at the thought that Láadan has been insignificant as a constructed language will be happy to know that Lojban, the logical constructed language based on Loglan (which was mentioned briefly by name in the novel "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" by Robert A. Heinlein), has copied its system of evidentials and emotion particles (more on those later) from Láadan. Lojban is quite popular in the world of constructed languages. Interestingly, there are some women in the Logical Language Group; perhaps Láadan has motivated them to replace it with something better of their own construction? After all, Lojban is designed to be culturally neutral...
Also, from what I have seen in online language-related communities, it seems that the overwhelming majority of language nerds are male, and as is usually the case, they dismiss Láadan because of its feminine philosophy. They pick apart its grammar, sarcastically say, "Gee, how feminine!" about each grammatical feature, and complain that it violates some linguistic universals and that a linguist should know better. Yet if it were a natural language, they would accept it as it is, no matter how unusual it might seem to them. And so what if it isn't 100% naturalistic? It's art! And as Picasso said, "We know that art is not truth. Art is a lie that makes us realize truth."
And that truth is that the female experience is largely ignored in our culture.
This says, "Work against the death of languages. Create a language!" The original text I translated from was, "Fight linguistic extinction. Invent a language!" But in Láadan, there is no word for "fight;" there is "rashon" ("quarrel, argue") and the word's pejorative version "rashonelh" ("war"). Fighting is never spoken about in a positive sense. Let me put it this way: you're more likely to see a calculus textbook in Toki Pona than you are to see a war movie translated into Láadan.
As for "invent," the word hasn't been coined, probably because no one has seen the need for a separate word thus far. Unfortunately, a lot of the vocabulary still hasn't been constructed; there are only about 2,000 words, with huge gaps. Still, having learned Toki Pona and three foreign natural languages (one of them--Japanese--completely unrelated to English) helps with this, because when I need a word that doesn't exist in Láadan, I can replace it with a word that exists and expresses a similar concept. In a natural language, you could do this, but it would be incorrect--which is why learning any natural language requires many long hours of study and buying many books.
Now for a little tour of the language:
First, pronunciation. Consonants are pronounced as in English (except lh, which we'll get to later), and vowels as in Italian, Japanese, or Toki Pona. If there is an accent over the vowel, you must pronounce it with a higher tone; if not, you must pronounce it with a lower tone. Each vowel must be pronounced separately. If you do not follow these rules, you could end up confusing omá (teacher) with oma (hand).
Láadan is a verb-subject-object word order language; that is, without case markers (more on those later), it is assumed that the verb is first, followed by the subject and then the object. Usually, a sentence starts with a Speech Act Morpheme and end with an Evidence Act Morpheme. However, Speech Act Morphemes and Evidence Act Morphemes do not have to be used in every single sentence. For instance, if you are speaking/writing a string of sentences which would all have the same Speech Act Morpheme and Evidence Act Morpheme, you only have to include them in the first sentence and they will be assumed to be present in all subsequent sentences. As well, when the sentence is a question, an Evidence Act Morpheme cannot be used (since you are asking for information, not giving information).
| Speech Act Morphemes | Evidence Act Morphemes | ||
| Bíi | Indicates a declarative sentence (usually optional) | wa | Known to speaker because perceived by speaker, externally or internally |
| Báa | Indicates a question | wi | Known to speaker because self-evident |
| Bó | Indicates a command; very rare, except to small children | we | Perceived by speaker in a dream |
| Bóo | Indicates a request; this is the usual imperative/"command" form | wáa | Assumed true by speaker because speaker trusts source |
| Bé | Indicates a promise | waá | Assumed false by speaker because speaker distrusts source; if evil intent by the source is also assumed, the form is "waálh" |
| Bée | Indicates a warning | wo | Imagined or invented by speaker, hypothetical |
| wóo | Used to indicate that the speaker states a total lack of knowledge as to the validity of the matter | ||
Example:
Bíi áya with wa.
[statement] to-be-beautiful woman [perception]
The woman is beautiful (by my perception).
In Láadan, adjectives are treated as verbs;
áya means "to be beautiful." Verbs do not conjugate, except for number of subject; that is, if you want to say, "The women are beautiful," you don't add anything to the word "with," but you add "me-" to the verb (or "meh-" if the verb starts with a vowel, since consonants and vowels must alternate):
Bíi meháya with wa. The women are beautiful.
Like Latin, German, Russian, and Japanese, Láadan has cases. The unmarked form of a noun is the nominative (unless word order indicates otherwise)--the subject of any verb. The direct object ending is -th (or -eth if the word ends in a consonant; consonants and vowels must alternate).
But if Láadan has verb-subject-object word order, why do we need an accusative marker? Consider the following sentence:
Bíi dashobe lanemid with wa.
[statement] to-bite dog woman [perception]
A dog bites a woman.
So far, so good. If a woman bites a dog, you might be inclined to say:
*Bíi dashobe with lanemid wa.
This is wrong. A Láadan speaker would think you were trying to say, "a dog bites a woman," but mixed up the order. This is because "dog bites woman" is more likely to be true. If you want to say, "A woman bites a dog," you have to add the accusative marker:
Bíi dashobe with lanemideth wa.
By the way, I could have translated that as, "A person bites a dog," because the word with means both "woman" and "person." Every noun describing a person is assumed to describe a woman, unless the context specifies otherwise. If you want to specify a man, add the suffix -id. So hena means "sister" or "sibling," but henahid means "brother." Unlike feminine forms in Romance languages, its use is not required; it's a masculine version of the suffix -ess in English.
Also, the basic vocabulary list started out very small, so many words that are underived in English are compound words in Láadan. For example, dashobe is composed of dash (tooth) and obe (through); and lanemid is composed of lan (friend) and mid (creature, animal).
More suffixes:
| To indicate: | As in: | The suffix is: | Example |
|---|---|---|---|
| Subject | The dog runs | [no suffix is needed] | lanemid |
| Identifier | The woman is a teacher | [no suffix is needed] | omá |
| Object | I ate the apple | th (eth) | doyuth |
| Source | She came from the house | de (ede) | belidede |
| Goal | They went to the school | di, dim (edi, edim) (use dim if you find distinguishing de and di too difficult) |
ulinedi, ulinedim |
| Beneficiary | I worked for the scientist |
|
eháda ehádáa ehádaá ehádá |
| Associate | The child played with the baby |
|
áwitheden áwithedan |
| Time | I worked on Monday | ya (eya) | Henesháaleya |
| Place | I played in the room | ha (eha) | shodeha |
| Instrument | She wrote with a pencil | nan (enan) | dalethodiwanenan |
| Cause | She cried because of pain |
|
heyiwan heyiwáan |
| Possession | The child's hands were dirty |
|
háawithetha háawithethi háawithethe háawithethu háawithetho |
But the real interesting parts of Láadan are the things that can be expressed much more easily than in English.
First, the "lh" sound. To quote from page 7 of Elgin's dictionary/grammar:
If you put the tip of your tongue firmly against the roof of your mouth at the point where it begins to arch upward, draw the corners of your lips back as you would for an exaggerated smile, and try to say English 'sh', the result should be an adequate 'lh'. It is a sound with a hissing quality, and is not especially pleasant to hear. In Láadan it occurs only in words that are themselves references to something unpleasant, and can be added to words to give them a negative meaning.
In addition, Láadan has more ways of describing each emotion:
Suppose a woman is in love. If all is well, you would use thena to describe the situation. If she really should get out of the relationship, but she thinks everything is going swimmingly, you would use thona. Now suppose she breaks up with him. If she's enjoying breaking his heart, you would use thuna. If she's heartbroken, but finds a moment where she's enjoying herself anyway, you would use thehena. On the other hand, if she's happy and there's nothing going on to make her feel either way, you would use thona.
For the following list: Reason asks the question about the emotion, "Is there a reason that I'm feeling this way?" Blame asks, "Is there someone to blame for the situation that has me feeling this way?" Remedy asks, "Can something be done about the situation?"
Suppose a woman hears a man make an offensive comment about her. If she's angry at the man and is going to call him on it (and she's strong enough emotionally to make him back down), you would use bala to describe how she feels. If she's angry at him but feels powerless to say anything, you would use bara. If she's angry at our patriarchal society for how she is treated, you would use bana if she thinks she can do something about it or bama if she doesn't, because there is no single person she can blame for it. If, on the other hand, she was angry anyway and didn't know why, you would use bina.
Láadan also has many more words for things specific to the lives of women than any language I know of. For example, in every language I know, there is only one word for "pregnant." But in Láadan, there are five:
Similar distinctions exist when describing other female biological functions. There's also a word lila, which means "to have sex as a woman." I imagine many people reading this site would have a use for such a word.
According to one person who wrote in the LiveJournal community:
As a woman (who has been through two pregnancies), I understand these [five words for pregnancy] as 5 related concepts, not one concept with 5 modifiers.
The difference between "pregnant" and "pregnant joyfully" is a deep and important one--many women have wished for a way to express this quickly and simply. ("Hi Dan; have you heard? I'm pregnant." "Err, that's great? Are congratulations or sympathy in order?") Telling someone once, "yes, it's unexpected, but I'm very happy about it" is fine. Telling thirty people the same thing is grating, and by that time, nobody believes she is happy about the pregnancy, because she sounds so annoyed when she talks about it...
I don't think of Láadan as a "women's language." I think of it as one that expresses emotional & spiritual perceptions very well... and those are perceptions that have traditionally been important to women, and small groups of scholars and priests.
All these and more are why I find Láadan far more expressive of my own world-view than other languages I have studied.
It's also much easier to coin words than in English. For example, anyone reading this site would probably like a word for "a woman in a man's body," but the phrase wouldn't exactly translate literally, because the word for "woman" also means "person." So we'd have to try something else. There's a prefix "lo-" meaning "internal:" láad = to perceive, loláad = to perceive internally. There's a word "ludi" which means "to be female," so if we pair the prefix and this word together, we have the word loludi, which would mean "to be internally female." (The dictionary has the word shebaludi (lit. "change-woman") to describe male-to-female transgender people, but that implies that the person has already changed her body.) And, for you men in women's bodies out there, there's the word "idi" (to be male) and thus lohidi for "to be internally male."
So, let's use the word in a few sentences:
Bíi loludi Zhón wa. John is female inside.
Bée rayom loludi withidehé wa. It's dangerous for men to be female inside.
Bíi eril dóshebasheb beye loludihá bróo dam ideshimá be wáa. I heard someone killed an internally female person because she seemed to be a gay man. [Notice the use of the -á suffix to make the verb into a noun.]
Láadan is still in its infancy, even though Native Tongue was published over 20 years ago. Very little literature exists. I hope to change this once I learn it; I'd love to be able to translate books, movies, video games, and more into Láadan, just like jan Pije's Toki Pona page.
I want to learn Láadan!
If you'd like to learn Láadan, here are some links to get you started:
Amberwind's lessons Everything in the grammar is contained in these lessons.
The Láadan LiveJournal Community
Láadan dictionaries These dictionaries contain all the words in the published grammar... and then some.
If you're having trouble typing in Láadan, click here.