Re: Láadan and woman's speak

[WOMAN'S LANGUAGE]
At 10:34 am +0400 20/5/00, Peter Clark wrote:
 <snip>
>        At this point, I started to do some thinking. Since, in just about
>every language group, women compose 50% of the speakers, one would think
>that over time, new words would be invented to fill this need.
Indeed, in past times, when infant mortality tended to take off more male
children than female and those males that survived then set about killing
off other males in war when they were older (whole communities in Europe
lost almost complete generations of males in WWI), woman must often have
composed far, far more than 50% of speakers.  And when one remembers also
that most people would've learnt their first language largely from their
mother (or maybe aunts), then the hypothesis that existing human languages
are inadequate to express the perceptions of women seems untenable to me.

Indeed, it seems to me an insult on the countless generations of women who
have passed their mother-tongue (1) on to the next generation.  And in
those cultures where women have their own dialect or even, I believe in
some case, separate language, such words & expressions must surely exist?
To hypothesize otherwise seems to me to imply that all generations of women
over the millennia during which language has been passed on have been
linguistically indequate until people like Kramarae & Elgin woke up to this
in the 20th cent AD - and I don't believe it.

(1) while in English we can speak about one's native country as
"fatherland" _or_ "mother-land", we _always_ use the term "mother-tongue"
for one's native language - I've never heard or seem the expression
*father-tongue (nor does my dictionary list it).

 <snip>
>this lackage. What Kramarae seems to be suggesting (I can't say for sure,
>having never read the book) is that women are _severly_ crippled,
>handicapped even, by the fact that they cannot express themselves
>>adequately.
To which at 1:17 pm -0500 20/5/00, Herman Miller replied:
>Handicapped is more severe than crippled? It used to be the other way
>around.
Still is so in this neck of the woods [UK].
---------------------------------------------------------------

[LH]
Of this Peter Clark wrote:
>        By the way: is anyone who has read the description of Láadan
>slightly miffed at how she describes "lh" (which, from the description,
>sounds like an exagerated lateral fricative, like Welsh "ll") as "not
>especially pleasant to hear"? Well, I suppose if I followed the
>description exactly (with the "exaggerated smile" as well), it does sound
>harsh, but I prefer to pronounce /L/ (I _think_ that's the correct
>SAMPA) with a minimal of lip movement.
Actually, for some reason. it's /K/.  SAMPA uses /L/ for the palatal
lateral approximant, the Castillian "ll", IPA "turned y" or lambda.

Herman Miller replied:
>I've always liked the sound of lateral fricatives. I used a voiceless
>*palatal* lateral fricative in one of my Elvish languages.
To which at 2:01 pm -0500 20/5/00, Matt Pearson replied:
>Tokana also has this sound.  Actually, it's more of a postalveolar
>lateral fricative (same point of articulation as English /S/).
That's the Welsh "ll" which I've also heard in Zulu & Xhosa (two of the
Nguni languages).  But I think that Herman is saying he also used a palatal
variety, not that the Welsh one is palatal (which it most certainly isn't).

In a conlang I started working on a year or so back I had both the
postalveolar and the palatal varieties of voiceless lateral fricatives
(with voiced versions as allophones :)

There seems to be an assumption - reasonable IMHO from the spelling - that
Láadan {lh} is meant to be a voiceless lateral fricative of some sort.  But
SHE does not appear to mean the Welsh "ll" or Nguni "hl", even tho her "try
to say English 'sh'" fits the description of this sound well enough.

But "put tip of your tongue firmly against the roof of your mouth at the
point where it begins to arch upwards" seems to me to imply a retroflex
lateral; and "draw the corners of your lips back as you would for an
exaggerated smile" certainly produces a *very different* sound.

One is, however, left wondering what the sound is IMO.  Does she really
mean something like Welsh "ll" and merely described it badly (or worse,
exaggerate it in a carictural way)?  Or is it something quite different?
In which case {lh} is, maybe, not the happiest spelling.

But, like Peter, I am a wee bit miffed at her description "it is not
especially pleasant to hear" etc.  It seems odd to me to deliberately
build-in a personal prejudice to a language designed to overcome another
prejudice supposedly built into existing languages!
--------------------------------------------------------------------

[OTHER SOUNDS]
In the same mail Peter Clark also wrote:
>        Hmm. Láadan has an interesting vowel system:
>                I       u
>                 E      o
>                     a
>(Examples given: bIt, bEll, cAlm, hOme, dUne.) Front vowels lax, back
>tense.
Yes, and in most of the anglophone world: front vowels are pure vowels,
back vowels are diphthongs.
But does SHE really mean that?  Is "o in 'home'" meant to be [o:]?

I guess "u in 'dune'" is meant to be [u:]; but this IMHO is a gross example
of 'Amerocentrism'.  Is SHE really not aware that to most of the
non-American anglophone world the 'u' in 'dune' is [ju] or [ju:]?  (The
only other area which has [du:n] AFAIK is East Anglia in Britain.)

>Consonants are also interesting:
 <snip>
>/r/ (American, it seems, as the example given is "furry"
Surprised?

>--how would are
>British counterparts pronounce this?
Most of us, the same way (or similar) way as most Americans.

> This also happens to be one of my least favorite sounds;
I agree.

>instead of worrying about triffles like English
>spelling, why don't we all work together and work to change this sound to
>something more aestetically pleasing, like a trilled /r/? :)
Much pleasanter IMO also.  The trilled apical /r/ is still preserved in
some parts of Britain, notably in Wales & Scotland and, I believe, in some
parts of north England.
-------------------------------------------------------------------

[AND FINALLY...]
...
>        Ok, enough out of me. Back into the hole from whence I
>crawled. :) (That's another thing about living in Russia: I have started
>to feel the need to start saying "whence" and "whither" and "hence" and
>"thence" again. Mmmm...motion... :)
>        :Peter
Like I've felt the need to hold onto my native Sussexisms "somewhen" and
"anywhen"   :)

After all, my mother always used those words; they are part of my inherited
mother-tongue.

Ray.


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A mind which thinks at its own expense
will always interfere with language.
                   [J.G. Hamann 1760]
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