Re: Láadan

Doug Dee wrote:
> *
> Which features of Laadan gave you the impression of mean-spiritedness?
>
> Dou
I think one thing that gave me that idea was the evidential marker for
"assumed to be false because speaker distrusts source". There was also
the use of the sound /K/, described as follows: "t is a sound with a
hissing quality, and is not especially pleasant to hear. In Láadan it
occurs only in words that are themselves references to something
unpleasant, and can be added to words to give them a negative meaning."
(That general idea aside, I happen to *like* lateral fricatives, and
don't really like someone telling me as a matter of fact that they are
unpleasant.) There was also, in the list of honorifics, a "dishonorific"
meaning that the referent is despised.

Aside from that tone, there was also the lovely evidential meaning
"Perceived by speaker in a dream". Personally, I don't think women are
any more prone to superstition regarding dreams than men, but apparently
Elgin disagrees with me.

It seems the overall effect of Láadan in use is to include a lot more of
the speaker's personal opinions and attitudes in a given utterance or
writing than do most (though probably not all) natural languages. The
upshoot of this is that the only way to be civil to someone you dislike
is to lie outright. "Hello, Mike-the-despised" just doesn't work.

- Ian Maxwell
--
C'est la vie, c'est la guerre, c'est la pomme de terre.

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