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From: Hoffman.es@XEROX.ARPA
Newsgroups: net.sf-lovers
Subject: NATIVE TONGUE by S. H. Elgin
Message-ID: <13136@sri-arpa.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 4-Sep-84 14:01:16 EDT
Article-I.D.: sri-arpa.13136
Posted: Tue Sep  4 14:01:16 1984
Date-Received: Fri, 14-Sep-84 07:55:54 EDT
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NATIVE TONGUE by S. H. Elgin, DAW paperback, August 1984, $3.50

Mini-precis:  In 1991, the 25th Amendment assured the supremacy of males
in every aspect of life.  In the late 22nd and early 23rd century, the
13 families of Linguists are the sole interpreters of the hundreds of
alien languages, though non-humanoid languages are beyond even their
skills.  The book deals with language learning, language inventing, and
the cold war between the sexes.  Among the topics:  The Linguist women
have been creating a 'women's language' for generations.  The Linguists
are indispensable to society and are highly resented.  The government
has a failing secret crash program to break a non-humanoid language.

Mini-review:  Recommended.  Lots of good ideas in an intriguing
environment (mostly within a Linguist enclave).  Quite a few
well-developed characters and sub-plots.  Well written, but occasional
sloppy copy-editing (typos).  Suzette Haden Elgin is a professor of
linguistics and, it says here, author of nine major science fiction and
fantasy novels since 1969, though I've never heard of her before.  The
ideas in this book reminded me of early Ian Watson and of many feminist
SF writers.

--Rodney Hoffman