| Native Tongue | |
| Author: | Suzette Haden Elgin |
| Cover Artist: | Jill Bauman |
| Country: | United States |
| Language: | English |
| Series: | Native Tongue |
| Publisher: | DAW Books |
| Release Date: | 1984 |
| Media Type: | Print (hardback & paperback) |
| Pages: | 320 |
| Isbn: | 0-87997-945-3 |
| Dewey: | 813/.54 21 |
| Congress: | PS3555.L42 N38 2000 |
| Oclc: | 44270270 |
| Followed By: | The Judas Rose |
Native Tongue is a feminist science fiction novel by American writer Suzette Haden Elgin, the first book in her series of the same name. The trilogy is centered in a future dystopian American society where the 19th Amendment was repealed in 1991[1] and women have been stripped of civil rights. A group of women, part of a worldwide group of linguists who facilitate human communication with alien races, create a new language for women as an act of resistance. Elgin created that language, Láadan, and instructional materials are available.
Native Tongue follows Nazareth, a talented female linguist in the 22nd century – generations after the repeal of the 19th Amendment. Nazareth is part of a small group of linguists "bred" to become perfect interstellar translators.[2]
Nazareth looks forward to retiring to the Barren House – where women past childbearing age go as they wait to die – but learns that the women of the Barren Houses are creating a language to help them break free of male dominance.
The book was nominated for the 1985 Locus Award for Best Science Fiction Novel[3] and the 1985 Ditmar Award for International Fiction.[4]
Elgin has said about the book:
Until Media has acquired the rights to the trilogy and was, as of 2019, planning a screen adaptation.[5]
Interview With Suzette Haden Elgin @ Womenwriters.net. 1999. https://web.archive.org/web/20120205054437/http://www.womenwriters.net/editorials/hadenelgin.htm