First edition
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Author | Suzette Haden Elgin |
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Cover artist | Jill Bauman |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Series | Native Tongue |
Genre | Science fiction novel |
Publisher | DAW Books |
Publication date
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1984 |
Media type | Print (hardback & paperback) |
Pages | 320 pp |
ISBN | |
OCLC | 44270270 |
813/.54 21 | |
LC Class | PS3555.L42 N38 2000 |
Followed by | The Judas Rose |
Native Tongue is the first novel in Suzette Haden Elgin's feminist science fiction series of the same name. The trilogy is centered in a future dystopian American society where the 19th Amendment was repealed in 1996 and women have been stripped of civil rights. A group of women, part of a worldwide group of linguists who facilitate human communication with alien races, create a new language for women as an act of resistance. Elgin created that language, Láadan, and instructional materials are available.
"Native Tongue" follows Nazareth, a talented female linguist in the 22nd century — after the repeal of the 19th Amendment. Nazareth is part of a small group of linguists "bred" to become perfect interstellar translators.
Nazareth looks forward to retiring to the Barren House - where women past childbearing age go as they wait to die - but learns that the women of the Barren Houses are creating a language to help them break free of male dominance.
Elgin has said about the book:
Interview With Suzette Haden Elgin @ Womenwriters.net. 1999. http://www.womenwriters.net/editorials/hadenelgin.htm