LL-L "Sociolinguistics" 2008.02.12 (04) [E]

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L O W L A N D S - L  - 12 February 2008 - Volume 04
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From: Howard Scott <listes at alterego.montreal.qc.ca>
Subject: LL-L "Sociolinguistics" 2008.02.07 (06) [E]

>From: Jacqueline Bungenberg de Jong
><<mailto:Dutchmatters at comcast.net>Dutchmatters at comcast.net>
>Subject: LL-L "History" 2008.02.07 (01) [E]
>
>It seemed to me that that would have been more
>prevalent when the tasks of men and women in
>their society were far more different than they
>are today. It could also be a subject for a Science Fiction novel.

"Native Tongue is the first novel in
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suzette_Haden_Elgin>Suzette
Haden Elgin's
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feminist_science_fiction>feminist
science fiction series of the same name. The
trilogy is centered in a future
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dystopian>dystopian
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States>American
society where the
<
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nineteenth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution
>19th
Amendment has been repealed and
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women>women have
been stripped of
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_rights>civil
rights. A group of women, part of a world-wide
group of
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistics>linguists
who facilitate human communication with alien
races, create a new language for women as an act
of resistance. The language,
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laadan>Làadan, was
actually created by Elgin and instructional materials are available."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Native_Tongue_%28novel%29

parts available in Google Books:
http://books.google.ca/books?id=T3XOjNnLBEsC&pg=PP1&dq=Native+Tongue&ei=YLmsR_nxKIyyiQHU98WnBg&sig=5N_ZMdBRoSeD2a8abXNsemJrkHI

In the real world, there is supposed to be a
secret women's language in a region of Chinese
called Nushu. (Plenty of hits on the Web if you search for "nushu.")

More on topic, in situations of diglossia, one
language can "belong" more to one sex than the
other. Yiddish is, in fact, called the "mama
loshen" since it is seen as belonging more to the
women's sphere of the home, whereas as in
conservative Jewish communities, Hebrew is
definitely much more the province of the men. I'm
sure there are similar divisions of linguistic
labour for many of the other languages discussed on this list.

Howard Scott
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