Láadan

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Láadan
Created by: Suzette Haden Elgin  1982 
Setting and usage: experiment in feminist linguistics, and featured in Elgin's novel Native Tongue
Total speakers: —
Category (purpose): constructed language
 artistic and philosophical language
  fictional language
   Láadan 
Category (sources): a priori language, with influences from Navajo and English
Language codes
ISO 639-1: none
ISO 639-2: art
ISO 639-3: ldn
Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode.

Láadan is a constructed language created by Suzette Haden Elgin in 1982 to test the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis, specifically to determine if development of a language aimed at expressing the views of women would shape a culture; a subsidiary hypothesis was that Western natural languages may be better suited for expressing the views of men than women. The language was included in her science fiction Native Tongue series. Láadan contains a number of words that are used to make unambiguous statements that include how one feels about what one is saying. According to Elgin, this is designed to counter male-centred language's limitations on women, who are forced to respond "I know I said that, but I meant this".

Contents

[edit] Phonology

[edit] Tones

Unusually for constructed languages, Láadan is a tonal language. It utilises two distinct tones:

  • lo — /lō/ or /lò/, a short, medium or low tone, represented by a single unmarked vowel
  • ló — /ló/, a short, high tone, represented by a single marked vowel

The word "Láadan" has three syllables: "lá-" with the short vowel /a/ plus high tone; "-a" with the short vowel /a/ and no tone; and "-dan."

Láadan doesn't allow any double [i.e., long] phonemes. Whenever two identical short vowels would occur side by side in a single morpheme, one of them has to be marked for high tone. When adding an affix would result in two identical vowels side by side, an epenthetic /h/ is inserted to prevent the forbidden sequence. The language will allow either "máa" or "maá," but not "maa". These combinations can be described as:

  • loó — /lǒː/, a long, low-rising tone, represented by a double vowel, the second of which is marked
  • lóo — /lôː/, a long, high-falling tone, represented by a double vowel, the first of which is marked

(Some people analyze these tone sequences as tonemic as well, for a total of four tones.)

Elgin prefers an analysis of the language as having no long vowels and a single tone, the high tone (distinguished from "neutral, baseline pitch"), but she acknowledges that linguists using other formalisms would be justified in saying that there are two tones, high and low (or unmarked or mid).[1]

[edit] Vowels

Láadan has five vowels:

[edit] Consonants

  Labial Dental /
Alveolar		 Postalveolar
/ Palatal		 Glottal
Central Lateral
Plosive b /b/ d /d/
Nasal m /m/ n /n/
Fricative voiceless th /θ/ lh /ɬ/ sh /ʃ/ h /h/
voiced zh /ʒ/
Rhotic r /r/
Approximant w /w/ l /l/ y /j/

Láadan lacks the consonants /p, t, k, g/, which naturally occur in most of the world's languages. However, it uses b, d, sh (/ʃ/), m, n, l, r, w, y (/j/), h with the same phonetic value as English. In addition to these, three digraphs require further explanation:

[edit] Grammar

Most Láadan sentences contain three particles:

  • The speech-act particle — this occurs at the beginning of the sentence and marks it as either a statement (bíi), a question (báa), et cetera; in connected speech or writing, this particle is often omitted. They are:
    Bíi 
    Indicates a declarative sentence (usually optional)
    Báa 
    Indicates a question
    Bó 
    Indicates a command; very rare, except to small children
    Bóo 
    Indicates a request; this is the usual imperative/"command" form
    Bé 
    Indicates a promise
    Bée 
    Indicates a warning
  • The grammatical tense particle — this occurs second in the sentence and marks it as either present tense (ril), past tense (eril), future tense (aril) or hypothetical (wil); without the tense particle, the sentence is assumed to have the same tense as the previous sentence.
  • The evidence particle — this occurs at the end of statements and indicates the trustworthiness of the statement. They are:
    wa 
    Known to speaker because perceived by speaker, externally or internally
    wi 
    Known to speaker because self-evident
    we 
    Perceived by speaker in a dream
    wáa 
    Assumed true by speaker because speaker trusts source
    waá 
    Assumed false by speaker because speaker distrusts source; if evil intent by the source is also assumed, the form is "waálh"
    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

Láadan is a verb-subject-object (VSO) language. Verbs and adjectives are interchangeable. There are no articles, and the object is marked by the -th or -eth suffix. The plural number is shown only by the me- prefix to the verb (wo- is used in some versions of the language). The particle ra following a verb makes it negative.

Some basic sentences in Láadan
Láadan literal translation idiomatic translation
bíi ril áya mahina wa statement present-tense beautiful/beautify flower observed-truth The flower is beautiful
báa eril mesháad with question past-tense plural-go/come woman Did the women go/come?
bíi ril lámála with ruleth wa statement present-tense stroke/caress woman cat-object observed-truth The woman strokes the cat
bóo wil di le neth request hypothetical speak/say I you-object I would like to speak with you, please.
bíi aril meleyan ra lanemid wáa statement future-tense plural-be-brown negative dog received-truth I hear the dogs will not be brown

[edit] Morphology

Láadan has an agglutinative morphology, and uses a number of affixes to indicate various feelings and moods that many natural languages can only indicate by tone of voice, body language or circumlocution.

Affix meaning example
(-)lh(-) disgust or dislike hahodimi: "pleasantly bewildered"; hahodimilh: "unpleasantly bewildered"
du- to try to bíi eril dusháad le wa: "I tried to come"
dúu- to try in vain to bíi eril dúusháad le wa: "I tried in vain to come"
ná- progressive aspect bíi eril dúunásháad le wa: "I was trying in vain to come"
-(e)tha natural possessor lalal betha: "her mother's milk"
-(e)tho customary or legal possessor ebahid letho: "my husband"
-(e)thi possessor by chance losh nethi: "your money (gambling winnings)"
-(e)the possessor by unknown provenance ana worulethe: "the cats' food"
-id denotes male (otherwise female or gender neutral) thul: "mother/parent"; thulid: "father"

The speech act particle, at the beginning of a sentence, can also carry several suffixes, which expand on the overall state of the sentence. For example, bíi begins a statement, but bíide begins a statement that is part of a narrative; bóoth begins a request made in pain; báada begins a question that is meant in jest.

[edit] Pronouns

Pronouns in Láadan are built up from a number of constituent parts. The consonant l marks the first person, n the second person and b the third person. Usually, these are followed by the vowel e. However, the vowel a is used to designate someone who is loved (lhe- is prefixed to describe someone who is despised). The suffix -zh is used to mark a plural pronoun for numbers up to four, and -n for numbers beyond that. Therefore, lazh means "we, several beloved", and lheben means "they, many despised".

[edit] External links

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