Láadan

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Constructed language

title: "Láadan" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public description: "Constructed language" topic_path: "uncategorized" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Láadan" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary Constructed language ::

::data[format=table title="infobox language"]

Field	Value
created	1982
creator	Suzette Haden Elgin and collaborators
fam2	artistic and philosophical language
fam3	fictional language
glotto	laad1235
iso3	ldn
linglist	ldn
name	Láadan
notice	IPA
posteriori	a priori language, with influences from Navajo and English
setting	experiment in feminist linguistics, and featured in Elgin's novel series beginning with Native Tongue
::

Láadan () is a gynocentric constructed language created by Suzette Haden Elgin in 1982 to test the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis,{{cite book | date = 20 September 2016 | first1 = Joshua | first2 = Dylan | first3 = Ella | isbn = 9780761169086 | last1 = Foer | last2 = Thuras | last3 = Morton | page = 23 | publisher = Workman | title = Atlas Obscura | title-link = Atlas Obscura#Publications

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.{{cite journal | access-date = 2023-02-15 | date = 2015 | first = M. А. | issn = 2312-2919 | issue = 2 | journal = Bulletin of Dnipropetrovsk University. Series 'Linguistics' | language = uk | last = Strazheva | location = Dnipro | publisher = Alfred Nobel University | title = ИСКУССТВЕННЫЙ ЯЗЫК ЛААДАН КАК ЯЗЫКОВОЙ ЭКСПЕРИМЕНТ В ХУДОЖЕСТВЕННОМ ТЕКСТЕ | trans-title = Сonstructed Language Láadan as a Linguistic Experiment in the Literary Text | url = http://www.irbis-nbuv.gov.ua/cgi-bin/irbis_nbuv/cgiirbis_64.exe?C21COM=2&I21DBN=UJRN&P21DBN=UJRN&IMAGE_FILE_DOWNLOAD=1&Image_file_name=PDF/vdumo_2015_23_21(2)__22.pdf | volume = 21

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 . 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{{efn| Some people analyze these tone sequences as tonemic as well, for a total of four tones. By this analysis, the word "Láadan" would thus be considered to have two syllables, and /dan/.

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

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 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, 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 (as English calm),
e, an open-mid front unrounded vowel (as English bell),
i, a near-close near-front unrounded vowel (as English bit),
o, a close-mid back rounded vowel (as English home),
u, a close back rounded vowel (as English boon).

Consonants

::data[format=table] | Labial | Dental / Alveolar | Postalveolar / Palatal | Glottal | median | lateral | Nasal | Plosive | Fricative | voiceless | voiced | Approximant | |---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---| | m | n | | | | | | | | | | | | b | d | | | | | | | | | | | | | th | lh | sh | h | | | | | | | | | | | | zh | | | | | | | | | | w | r | l | y | | | | | | | | | ::

Láadan lacks the consonants . It uses b, d, sh (), m, n, l, r, w, y (), h with the same phonetic value as English. Three digraphs require further explanation:

th, a voiceless dental fricative (always as in English think, never as then),
zh, a voiced postalveolar fricative (as English pleasure),
lh, 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 particlethis 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 particlethis 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 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

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 . In passive voice, it is an object–verb–subject (OVS) language; the sentence would read in . 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.

OBJ:object REQ:request ST

::data[format=table title="Some basic sentences in Láadan"]

{{interlinear	lang=ldn	bíi ril an le hé eril bethudeha ne wa	statement PRS know I embedded-clause-marker PAST cave-at you 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.

::data[format=table] | Affix||meaning||example | |---| | (-)lh(-) | | du- | | dúu- | | ná- | | -(e)tha | | -(e)tho | | -(e)thi | | -(e)the | | -(h)id | ::

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.

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. 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".

Reception

Anthony Burgess mentioned Láadan in a 1985 review of A Feminist Dictionary in The Observer, calling it "ingenious" and stating he was "highly sympathetic" of its aims, but asserting that "it's not going to work" because "[n]ot enough women care sufficiently".

Notes

References

"Oooh! Arrgh! Ugh! Yecch! Attitudinal and Emotional Indicators - The Lojban Reference Grammar".
"Penile Servitude". [[The Observer]].

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