Set in the twenty-second century after the repeal of the Nineteenth Amendment, the novel reveals a world where women are once again property, denied civil rights, and banned from public life. In this world, Earth's wealth relies on interplanetary commerce, for which the population depends on linguists, a small, clannish group of families whose women breed and become perfect translators of all the galaxies' languages. The linguists wield power, but live in isolated compounds, hated by the population, and in fear of class ...
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Set in the twenty-second century after the repeal of the Nineteenth Amendment, the novel reveals a world where women are once again property, denied civil rights, and banned from public life. In this world, Earth's wealth relies on interplanetary commerce, for which the population depends on linguists, a small, clannish group of families whose women breed and become perfect translators of all the galaxies' languages. The linguists wield power, but live in isolated compounds, hated by the population, and in fear of class warfare. But a group of women is destined to challenge the power of men and linguists. Nazareth, the most talented linguist of her family, is exhausted by her constant work translating for the government, supervising the children's language education in the Alien-in-Residence interface chambers, running the compound, and caring for the elderly men. She longs to retire to the Barren House, where women past childbearing age knit, chat, and wait to die. What Nazareth does not yet know is that a clandestine revolution is going on in the Barren Houses: there, word by word, women are creating a language of their own to free them of men's domination. Their secret must, above all, be kept until the language is ready for use. The women's language, L???adan, is only one of the brilliant creations found in this stunningly original novel, which combines a page-turning plot with challenging meditations on the tensions between freedom and control, individuals and communities, thought and action.
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Add this copy of Native Tongue to cart. $8.67, good condition, Sold by ThriftBooks-Dallas rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Dallas, TX, UNITED STATES, published 1984 by Daw Books.
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Add this copy of Native Tongue (the Native Tongue Trilogy) to cart. $8.99, very good condition, Sold by HPB-Emerald rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Dallas, TX, UNITED STATES, published 2019 by The Feminist Press at CUNY.
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Add this copy of Native Tongue (the Native Tongue Trilogy) to cart. $8.99, very good condition, Sold by HPB-Diamond rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Dallas, TX, UNITED STATES, published 2019 by The Feminist Press at CUNY.
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New. Trade paperback (US). Glued binding. 400 p. In Stock. 100% Money Back Guarantee. Brand New, Perfect Condition, allow 4-14 business days for standard shipping. To Alaska, Hawaii, U.S. protectorate, P.O. box, and APO/FPO addresses allow 4-28 business days for Standard shipping. No expedited shipping. All orders placed with expedited shipping will be cancelled. Over 3, 000, 000 happy customers.
Add this copy of Native Tongue to cart. $12.66, like new condition, Sold by GreatBookPrices rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Columbia, MD, UNITED STATES, published 2019 by Feminist Press.
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Fine. Trade paperback (US). Glued binding. 400 p. In Stock. 100% Money Back Guarantee. Brand New, Perfect Condition, allow 4-14 business days for standard shipping. To Alaska, Hawaii, U.S. protectorate, P.O. box, and APO/FPO addresses allow 4-28 business days for Standard shipping. No expedited shipping. All orders placed with expedited shipping will be cancelled. Over 3, 000, 000 happy customers.
This is the first book in a feminist sci-fi trilogy, written by a linguistics professor. For me, it was a bit heavy going at times, perhaps because I'm a male. However, I'm glad I persevered; it is a very good book and one can see why it is regarded as a classic. It's compared to Margaret Atwood's books on the same general subject, and while Atwood is unquestionably the better wordsmith, in my opinion Elgin's plot and her ability to express her views on issues, are superior to those of Atwood.
A bit of a struggle, at least for a male, but worth it, and I will look for more of her books.
scifilinguist
Nov 16, 2008
Native Tongue: A feminist sci fi classic
Native Tongue is the product of Suzette Haden Elgin, a linguist who is also a science fiction writer. It tells the story of how Earth in the year 2205 (now dominated by the Linguist Lines) reverts to a patriarchal society in which women are again subjugated to masculine control. However, among the needleworking, post-menopausal women in the Barren House, a revolution is simmering, fueled by the creation of a new female-based language (Laadan) that permits women to express the unique aspects of their experiences that are not transmitted by the existing sexist language and to plot the eventual overthrow of the patriarchy. The book is accompanied by a glossary of this unique language. To make things even more interesting, the male Linguists are allowed to become aware of the development of an unworkable decoy female language called Langlish, which confirms the male Linguists' view that the women Linguists are inferior. This gives the women the freedom to work on Laadan, which is the true revolutionary language.
The premise of the book is that language is a powerful tool for bringing about social change (within the tradition of the Whorf hypothesis that language serves to structure or constrain thought). This notion underlies much of the feminist literature of the 1970s and 1980s. The basic idea is that if we change the language, we can change the way people think and ultimately change society. Elgin uses the scifi format as a "thought experiment" to show how men and women perceive the world in very distinct manners which in an extreme form could result in the development of separate languages to encode those differences. Laadan provides ways to talk about feminine concerns like pregnancy, mothering, menopause, sisterhood, emotional states, and female oppression that are not currently present in the English language. In secondary narrative strands, the distinction between human and non-human forms of communication and their accompanying worldviews is also explored.
In addition to its importance for examining gender relations, the book serves to bolster the status of scifi / fantasy as a valuable form of literature that allows us to imagine the possibilities of human (and extra-terrestrial) life. Elgin hoped to attract more women to the male-dominated genre with her story.
When the book was published, there were those who condemned it as preachy and didactic and criticized it for certain structural flaws, but others praised it for its strong characters and its unflinching exploration of male/female relations. The book went out of print in 1996 but was kept alive by an almost cult following. It is now regarded as a classic in feminist literature, along with Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, and the works of Ursula Leguin, Naomi Mitchison, and Joanna Russ.
If you want to read a scifi book that's a cut above the rest, try this one.
Knitter
Nov 2, 2007
A disappointment
This book was recommended as a science fiction book which used knitting to stage a revolution. Instead, knitting was never mentioned--they did mention crochet and needlework, but no knitting!!
It was also formulaic--obviously written in the early 80s using the catastrophic scenarios of what will happen without the passage of the ERA. This doesn't seem like the work of a serious science fiction writer.
