Re: Láadan

----- Original Message -----
From: "Andreas Johansson" <and_yo@...>

> Sally Caves wrote:
> > > rahom to non-teach; to deliberately fill students' minds with empty
data
> >or
> > > false information
> >         Why would anybody do that?  I can see how it can be done, but
why
> >         deliberately?
>
> To prevent those minds from getting filled with meaningful data that
> represents a threat to those with the power to decide was is to be taught.
A
> potential tool no rational authoritarian ruler would leave unconsidered.
Okay, in other words, "Nwspeak"in Orwell's famous novel.  And the entire
rationale behind its tyranny that works to reduce information and language
in order to weaken the minds of its subjects.  I could also see rahom as a
kind of deliberate "dumbing down."

> As
> for the desinformation bit, I'd think the uses are obvious; rewrite
history
> an a way more flattering to the powers that be, impress your subjects with
> your invincibility and induce hatred of enemis internal or external.
>
>                                                              Andreas
Yes, and this has been done since time immemorial.  Okay.

I've been reading through this popular thread piecemeal (pardon me for
coming to it so late), and what strikes me most is the warmed up argument
over the meanings or validities of some of these terms, the need for them in
a language that is lacking some emotionally nuanced vocabulary, and the fact
that most of the defense and argument for Elgin's terms are coming from MEN,
despite the question that was posed by Peter to WOMEN.  (We have some women
on this list; have they responded?)  I also find that I am not alone in
wondering why this language necessarily has to be one for women; I posed
that question at the end of my response to the glossary.  As I think Nik or
someone else said, aside from those referring to menopause or menstruation,
these words don't seem particularly gender specific.  And yet SHE (an
acronym that has the comic effect of turning Elgin into a kind of "goddess":
as in SHE WHO MUST BE OBEYED) has set out to create LAadan for women's
hypothetical use.  I understand that it is an exercise, and meant to serve
as the basis for her novels, but I repeat my suggestion:  why can't
something like this, a language laden with words that express nuances of
emotion, deprivation, and social interactions, be useful for both men and
women?  It seems to me that quite a number of you men identify with the
paucity of such words in everyday language, and argue for them and their
meanings strenuously.  What I initially disliked about LAadan, before I
heard the intellectual arguments surrounding SHE's invention, was that it
seemed to suggest that women still belonged to a private sphere in which
there could be no feminine language for public use.  I'm very aware of this
discrepancy in world politics and gender (I'm teaching Mary Wollstonecraft
on Tuesday where we'll discuss the relegation of women to the house and to
silence in a long tradition going back to classical times), and I understand
the gripe expressed in her novels (which I found hard to read and annoyingly
exaggerated and misoandryist--she's a better linguist than she is a
fiction-writer); and so I felt that her novels and her language did nothing
to help bring women INTO language.  It just described them as even more
special, more hidden, more secret, more OTHER than male speakers in the
public sphere.

Couldn't LAadan describe a linguistic utopia for both men and women?   A
language that serves to provide social and emotional nuances for men as well
as women?

And the other question, that gets frequently circulated on CONLANG, is the
usual: why are there at least four times more men on CONLANG than women?  I
see Amanda, I see Heather (a new name for me--great!), Irina is writing her
novel, I think;  but popping my head in after a year I see a great number of
new names of male conlangers.  Welcome!  But where are the gals?  (Some of
these names, granted, are foreign to me, and I'm unsure of gender.  Mau, for
instance).

Yry firrimby, yry toviel,  "grateful, happy" (to be back).

Sally Caves
scaves@frontiernet.net
Eskkoat ol ai sendran, rohsan nuehra celyil takrem bomai nakuo.
"My shadow follows me, putting strange, new roses into the world."
http://www.frontiernet.net/~scaves/whatsteo.html

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