![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
trocheeYears ago, I first read Native Tongue by Suzette Haden Elgin (I have the crappy trade paperback version with the goofy-looking lizardy alien on the cover). If you haven't read them, it's enough to know that one key point in the novels is an attempt by women linguists to create a deliberately subversive language called Láadan. (My "Dirty Lingoe" appellation here was taken from those books, so they clearly left a mark.)
In the process of playing with KDict on my new laptop, I discovered that the Easton Bible Dictionary has some interesting notes, which I excerpt here (emphasis mine):
Turns out Láadan has a lot on the web. It's in Hitchcock's Bible Names Dictionary as meaning "for pleasure; devouring; judgment" (KDict lists it there too). I have to wonder whether Elgin intended this nice resonance. Of course, her books themselves have encouraged an online following: Láadan is listed as a constructed language on Lojban's constructed language page, for example.
In the process of snooping around further, I discovered that Elgin has all sorts of interesting linguistic writing on the web. Most fun (for language geeks like me) is a newsletter called Linguistics & Science Fiction. I'm strongly tempted to subscribe -- she's got a sort of anti-pretentious practical approach to linguistics that's very refreshing, even if her linguistic suggestions are occasionally dubious (this is from a review of an Eleanor Arnason linguistics fairytale):
One last note: there's a whole set of interesting discussion questions about the Native Tongue novels. I wonder if there's anybody reading this who would be interested in an online discussion.
In the process of playing with KDict on my new laptop, I discovered that the Easton Bible Dictionary has some interesting notes, which I excerpt here (emphasis mine):
[A] very small number of topic references [...] were unable to be resolved. These topics are:"Hello," I thought. "How interesting that Laadan should show up in this 1897 Bible dictionary -- without reference. Let me Google on this."
Laadan, Land Laws, Vashni.
These topics are not listed in the printed edition and it is not apparent what [Mr. Easton] intended.
Turns out Láadan has a lot on the web. It's in Hitchcock's Bible Names Dictionary as meaning "for pleasure; devouring; judgment" (KDict lists it there too). I have to wonder whether Elgin intended this nice resonance. Of course, her books themselves have encouraged an online following: Láadan is listed as a constructed language on Lojban's constructed language page, for example.
In the process of snooping around further, I discovered that Elgin has all sorts of interesting linguistic writing on the web. Most fun (for language geeks like me) is a newsletter called Linguistics & Science Fiction. I'm strongly tempted to subscribe -- she's got a sort of anti-pretentious practical approach to linguistics that's very refreshing, even if her linguistic suggestions are occasionally dubious (this is from a review of an Eleanor Arnason linguistics fairytale):
[it] would also serve to start a riot at linguistics conferences, if you had somebody there charismatic enough to convince Their Linguistnesses to play. There'd be the linguists who say all adjectives are verbs, and the linguists who consider verbs superior to nouns, and the linguists saying Arnason left out the conjunctions, and there'd be me (My Linguistness, yes) saying that all adverbs are either nominals or verbs...She also includes gems like this one:
The King James, which no parent will demand be removed from a library shelf, contains the most astonishing things. For example, did you know that in the King James Bible a common way of expressing the meaning "male human being" is with the sequence, "one who pisseth against a wall"? Pisseth, yes. Over and over again, Gentle Reader.She's evidently something of a cut-up.
One last note: there's a whole set of interesting discussion questions about the Native Tongue novels. I wonder if there's anybody reading this who would be interested in an online discussion.
