by Suzette Haden Elgin (Author), Jeanne Gomoll (Editor), Diane Martin (Editor)
This book includes material from 1st Dictionary and Grammar (1988) and merges it with new vocabulary created for the L adan website. Elgin died in 2015, but interest persists in the language she created in 1982, embodied in her SF "Native Tongue" series. L adan is a feminist constructed language created by Elgin to test the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis that the language one speaks influences the way one thinks, i.e., can a language expressing the views of women shape a culture? L adan includes morphemes that require speakers to own their own perceptions-words that indicate, for instance, whether a statement comes from personal observation, a trusted source, or an unreliable third party. Nowadays Elgin might argue that accusations of "fake news" would be impossible in L adan. This language also encodes speakers' intentions into their sentences, eliminating another form of micro-aggression, the rude comment that is passed off as "just a joke." All proceeds will go to the Science Fiction Poetry Association.