Láadan
Láadan is a feminist 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".
Phonology
Tones
Láadan is a tonal language. It utilises two distinct tones:- lo or, a short, medium or low tone, represented by a single unmarked vowel
- ló, a short, high tone, represented by a single marked vowel
Láadan does not allow any double 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, a long, low-rising tone, represented by a double vowel, the second of which is marked
- lóo, a long, high-falling tone, represented by a double vowel, the first of which is marked
Vowels
Láadan has five vowels:- a, an open back unrounded vowel,
- e, an open-mid front unrounded vowel,
- i, a near-close near-front unrounded vowel,
- o, a close-mid back rounded vowel,
- u, a close back rounded vowel.
Consonants
- th, a voiceless dental fricative,
- zh, a voiced postalveolar fricative,
- lh, a voiceless alveolar lateral fricative.
Grammar
- The speech-act particlethis occurs at the beginning of the sentence and marks it as either a statement, a question, et cetera; in connected speech or writing, this particle is often omitted. They are:
- ; Bíi : Indicates a declarative sentence
- ; 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 particlethis occurs second in the sentence and marks it as either present tense, past tense, future tense or hypothetical ; without the tense particle, the sentence is assumed to have the same tense as the previous sentence.
- The evidence particlethis 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 | 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 |
| bíi ril le an hé eril ne bethudeha wa | statement present-tense I know embedded-clause-marker past-tense you cave-at observed-truth | I know that you were at the cave |
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" |
| -tha | natural possessor | lalal betha: "her mother's milk" |
| -tho | customary or legal possessor | ebahid letho: "my husband" |
| -thi | possessor by chance | losh nethi: "your money " |
| -the | possessor by unknown provenance | ana worulethe: "the cats' food" |
| -id | denotes male | 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.