Concept

Láadan

Résumé

Láadan (/ˈlɑ˦ɑˈdɑn/) is a gynocentric constructed language created by Suzette Haden Elgin in 1982 to test the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis, specifically to determine if development of a language aimed at expressing the views of women would shape a culture; a subsidiary hypothesis was that Western natural languages may be better suited for expressing the views of men than women. The language was included in her science fiction Native Tongue series. Láadan contains a number of words that are used to make unambiguous statements that include how one feels about what one is saying. According to Elgin, this is designed to counter male-centered language's limitations on women, who are forced to respond "I know I said that, but I meant this". Láadan is a tonal language. It utilises two distinct tones: lo /lō/ or /lò/, a short, medium or low tone, represented by a single unmarked vowel ló /ló/, a short, high tone, represented by a single marked vowel The word "Láadan" has three syllables: "lá-" with the short vowel /a/ plus high tone; "-a" with the short vowel /a/ and no tone; and "-dan". Láadan doesn't allow any double [i.e. long] phonemes. Whenever two identical short vowels would occur side by side in a single morpheme, one of them has to be marked for high tone. When adding an affix would result in two identical vowels side by side, an epenthetic /h/ is inserted to prevent the forbidden sequence. The language will allow either "máa" or "maá," but not "maa". These combinations can be described as: loó /lǒː/, a long, low-rising tone, represented by a double vowel, the second of which is marked lóo /lôː/, a long, high-falling tone, represented by a double vowel, the first of which is marked (Some people analyze these tone sequences as tonemic as well, for a total of four tones.) Elgin preferred an analysis of the language as having no long vowels and a single tone, the high tone (distinguished from "neutral, baseline pitch"), but she acknowledged that linguists using other formalisms would be justified in saying that there are two tones, high and low (or unmarked or mid).

Source officielle

https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Láadan

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