Some friends of mine and myself have been studying Láadan, a conlang by the linguist and author Suzette Haden Elgin.

I've set up a website/blog about it, and it is available in English & Esperanto:
Lolehoth.Moosader.com

There are links to resources, social groups, and handy Láadan tools.

I also created a video introduction to Láadan, which is in Esperanto: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qjV5rLevnCI

Thanks for cheecking it out!

--Rachel

It is an interesting language but the pronunciation sounds difficult.

I realized that I can't study two languages at the same time because I mix them up. Especially when a word sounds like it belongs in the other language.

Alkanadi:It is an interesting language but the pronunciation sounds difficult.

I realized that I can't study two languages at the same time because I mix them up. Especially when a word sounds like it belongs in the other language.

I have this with words like 'en' between Dutch/Esperanto/Norwegian. When I'm not paying attention to the switch-over, I sometimes make a mistake.

Ha! Swedish "ni" and "vi" are, I hear, the opposite of their Esperanto meanings. Must be real frustrating.

I like the concept of this Láadan, from reading the wikipedia article. Might need to take a closer look ...

/θ/
Is that a particularly feminine sound? mmmmm

robbkvasnak:/θ/
Is that a particularly feminine sound? mmmmm

What's wrong with /θ/?

robbkvasnak:/θ/
Is that a particularly feminine sound? mmmmm

Are any of them?

The language seems to be fairly interesting in terms of it's construction

But I have to wonder if by trying to fight sexism, this person created something sexist.

Personally I've always felt deeply skeptical of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. This is a theory which is rooted in the 18th and 19th centuries. The prevailing ideology of the time was that certain languages were inherently inferior to European languages.

Strong versions of the hypothesis (think 1984) are easily and immediately understandable as racist.

Just ask, "What thoughts can an English speaker have, which the latin@ undocumented worker cannot due to his or her language?" to see the true colonial nature of the hypothesis. And yes, this exact line of thought was used to impose English again and again, on colonized peoples. You see, the near complete destruction of Irish, Native American, and Aboriginal Australian languages were for the "betterment" of the speakers of those languages.

And of course, the implications of the theory are never imposed on English (because if it is it becomes plainly obvious that the theory simply can't be true).

From Chomsky:

But there is, after all, a much more fundamental defect in Whorf's argument, namely, that his description of SAE (Standard American English) is incorrect. In English, for example, there is no structural basis for the past-present-future world view that Whorf attributes, quite correctly, to SAE speakers...

...Approaching English from a Whorfian point of view we would conclude that an English speaker has no concept of time as a doubly infinite line, he himself occupying the position of a point moving constantly from past to future, but rather he conceives of time in terms of a basic dichotomy between what is past and what is not yet past.

Weak formulations of the hypothesis are not so clearly incorrect when applied to English, (nor so clearly colonial when applied to other languages by English speakers). But I cannot help but notice that apples usually don't fall far from trees, and that this theory in any form only started to regain traction 80's--in other words these philosophies only found places to flourish again after the conservative resurgence/white backlash against civil rights of the late 1970's. And so I remain skeptical of the entire idea.

Further as a woman, I find the entire premise behind this language to be somewhat condescending. I apparently have unique perceptions which cannot be explored in natural languages due to the patriarchy, but where do these perceptions come from? Given the vast differences between women, even those who share a native language, it seems clear even if not stated outright that these perceptions must have some kind of biological basis. I personally have to reject this as a form of well meaning biological determinism.

Tempodivalse:Ha! Swedish "ni" and "vi" are, I hear, the opposite of their Esperanto meanings. Must be real frustrating

OMG. I think that would drive me crazy.

devilyoudont:The prevailing ideology of the time was that certain languages were inherently inferior to European languages.

In university, I studied about how the French used to say that English nations will never succeed because English is inferior and doesn't have the ability to explain important aspects of life.

That theory is out the window now that English countries are the most powerful/advanced in the world.