Láadan (Láadan pronunciation: [ˈlɑ˦ɑˈdɑn] ) is a gynocentric 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-centered language's limitations on women, who are forced to respond "I know I said that, but I meant this".
Motivation, development and publication history Elgin was a writer of both fiction and nonfiction book series. Láadan and the ideas underpinning its creation were described in several series: It was included as a language portrayed diegetically within the speculative fiction novel trilogy Native Tongue (1984), The Judas Rose (1987), and Earthsong (1993). The role of the language in the plot of the overall story is as a transformative project, whose development changes the social roles of an extended family of linguist characters. After the publication of the second novel, A First Dictionary & Grammar of Láadan (1988) was published in the hopes that a community of speakers could form, and the validity of the project from the novels might be tested in real life. The grammar book was advertised in literary and feminist magazines, and feedback led to a second edition and posthumously a third edition. Before conceiving of Láadan, Elgin had published a self-help book The Gentle Art of Verbal Self Defense (1980) which was developed into a series of books focusing on the workplace, romantic relationships, and so on. It postulated that at least in English, phrasing often allowed for an ambiguous hostility which could be used as a sort of verbal abuse especially in competitive environments, and discussed which defenses might be effective and which not; see verbal self-defense § Influential contributors. To allow for the means to express nuanced emotion and other distinctions, features combine to create and modify meanings.
Phonology
Tones 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 does not 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
Vowels Láadan has five vowels:
a – /ɑ/, an open back unrounded vowel (as English calm), e – /ɛ/, an open-mid front unrounded vowel (as English bell), i – /ɪ/, a near-close near-front unrounded vowel (as English bit), o – /o/, a close-mid back rounded vowel (as English home), u – /u/, a close back rounded vowel (as English boon).
Consonants
Láadan lacks the consonants /p, t, k, ɡ, s, z, f, v/. It uses b, d, sh (/ʃ/), m, n, l, r, w, y (/j/), h with the same phonetic value as English. Three digraphs require further explanation:
th – /θ/, a voiceless dental fricative (always as in English think, never as then), zh – /ʒ/, a voiced postalveolar fricative (as English pleasure), lh – /ɬ/, a voiceless alveolar lateral fricative (as Welsh llan).
Grammar
Mandatory parts of speech Most Láadan sentences, and all formal sentences in the language, 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 sentence conveying declarative knowledge or in the indicative mood (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
Word order Láadan has two syntactic orderings. In active voice, it is a verb–subject–object (VSO) language; the English example sentence in the following table would read in Láadan: Bíi eril yod Sham doyuth wa. In passive voice, it is an object–verb–subject (OVS) language; the sentence would read in Láadan: Bíi eril doyuth yod Shameshub wa. In either case, it uses a minority word order type among languages of the world.
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. The particle ra following a verb makes it negative. Separate clauses are joined by the particle hé.
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.
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