Rate this book

Clear rating

1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

Native Tongue (Native Tongue #1)

4.1 of 5 stars 4.10 · rating details · 787 ratings · 89 reviews

Called "fascinating" by the New York Times upon its first publication in 1984, Native Tongue won wide critical praise and cult status, and has often been compared to the futurist fiction of Margaret Atwood. Set in the twenty-second century, the novel tells of a world where women are once again property, denied civil rights and banned from public life. Earth's wealth depend...more

Paperback, 327 pages

Published 2000 by Feminist Press at the City University of New York (first published 1984)

more details... edit details

Get a copy:

Friend Reviews

To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up.

Lists with This Book

Best Feminist Books

80th out of 575 books — 742 voters

Best Science Fiction & Fantasy Books

472nd out of 2,944 books — 12,410 voters

More lists with this book...

Community Reviews

(showing 1-30 of 3,000)

filter | sort: default (?) | rating details

Aug 02, 2011 Kaion rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: people who read language blogs, the multi-lingual, feminists

Recommended to Kaion by: (Feminist Reader's Network Aug '11 Group Read)

Shelves: sci-fi, feminism, series

To make something “appear is called magic, is it not? Well…. when you look at another person, what do you see? … Now there is a continuous surface of the body, a space that begins with the inside flesh of the fingers and continues over the palm of the hand and up the inner side of the arm to the bend of the elbow. Everyone has that surface; in fact, everyone has two of them … I will name the “athad” of the person. Imagine the athad, please. See it clearly in your mind—perceive, here are my own t

...more

8 likes · like · see review

Apr 13, 2013 Kaila rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2013, dystopia, science-fiction

Upon buying:

Just look at how amazing that cover is. HOW COULD I SAY NO.

Upon finishing:

The cover had disappointingly little to do with the book. I wanted babies in giant test tubes presided over by gigantic happy aliens, ok?

I am torn as to what I should rate this book. I think it's a 3.5 but I'll round up. Parts of the feminism were so ridiculous that after a while I was like God I get it, women's lives suck in your future! Women are considered minors in this crappy future, and can't hold jobs or...more

3 likes · like · see review

Jul 02, 2009 Wealhtheow rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: sci-fi, sociology

Absolutely excellent. I know The Handmaid's Tale gets more press and praise, but this is a far more realistic and chilling misogynist future. There's really so much meaty stuff, and I'm so far from eloquent, that I'll just say read it and leave it at that.

4 likes · like · see review

Nov 22, 2008 Jenni rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Recommended to Jenni by: Penny Heal

Shelves: feminism, sf, other-borrowed

Loved this - very happy to learn (after years of seeing this in bookshops and not getting round to picking it up) that it is in fact the first of a trilogy of feminist sf. And classic feminist sf it is too - classic sf, for that matter, with a very different society from ours clearly and intriguingly delineated in convincing detail.

I say very different society, but in fact it's a dystopia clearly originating from twentieth-century feminist concerns - like The Handmaid's Tale, the cold war betwe...more

1 like · like · see review

Mar 10, 2013 Kate Croft rated it 4 of 5 stars

A stimulating futuristic foray for feminist linguists, "Native Tongue" is conceptually and linguistically abundant, if a bit wobbly where the plot is concerned. Elgin's sci-fi premise - that a couple hundred years in the future, women are back to being chattel and linguists are the highest social echelon because they wield the ability to translate across interplanetary humanoid species - brings the power of language to the narrative forefront.

Many language historians propose that today's langua...more

like · see review

Nov 17, 2012 Jenny rated it 3 of 5 stars

I enjoyed it the first time I read it (I've studied Linguistics myself, which made it interesting) and I occasionally enjoy re-reading. But the re-reads expose more and more holes in the plot that get more and more irritating.

How on earth did the US constitution get amended at a time when women still had the vote? And why does a change to the US constitution apparently affect the whole world?

Why do Linguists live so austerely as a public relations measure when they can see for themselves that it...more

1 like · like · see review

Oct 29, 2012 Aviv rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I loved this book. Incredibly detailed and yet down-to-earth rendition of a fully realized misogynistic future in which women are treated like children - the best men try to be gentle with them and indulgent of their weakness, the worst men are flat out cruel. There is no escape from this kind of relentless social belief. The intriguing storyline of alien trade and linguistics unfolds elegantly. Elgin never tries too hard to force the world as it is down our throats - instead, as a truly skilled...more

like · see review

Jul 20, 2012 Mary Holland rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: permanent-collection

Women have no rights and are the property of men. Aliens communicate with humans through the families of the linguist 'Lines', who have a monopoly on learning Alien languages. The women of the Lines, as restricted and patronized as any other women, have developed a secret language for women only. If the men find out, they're doomed. But the Aliens are watching ...

I read this book years ago (it was published in 1984) and I had an immediate visceral reaction: yes, she's right. The male characters...more

like · see review

Feb 26, 2011 Jasmyn9 rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, science-fiction, series, native-tongue, dystopia, feminism

The majority (and important part) of this book takes place about 200 years from now. The world has changed dramatically. Aliens are our trading partners and women have been relegated to the role of perpetual child. All their rights have been removed and they are allowed to do nothing without permission from their male relatives. The Linguists, a group of families that devote their time to the aquisition of new alien languages, are the prime focus of the book, and we learn many fascinating things...more

1 like · like · see review

Jun 10, 2010 Marita rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This book was all about languages, and their ability to create whole mind - sets which is a very fascinating point of interest for me. This book was written in 1984, from a feminists perspective, so it was a surreal experience to time warp back to that time. It's a science fiction book where the Earth was in contact with many alien worlds, and seeking to expand trade and colonies, which required the ability to communicate with many different cultures. There were 13 families on Earth who used the...more

1 like · like · see review

May 21, 2010 Michèle rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: science-fiction

At first it was the cover. I couldn't resist the cuuute little baby facing the smiling alien!

Then, I plunged head first in the linguist families who facilitate human communication with alien races (that's the SF part). I met the struggling women of the Lines, poor Nazareth Chorniak being bred like cattle and ill-treated... in a future dystopian American society where the 19th Amendment was repealed in 1996 and women have been stripped of civil rights.(That's the social part. By the way, in that...more At first it was the cover. I couldn't resist the cuuute little baby facing the smiling alien!

Then, I plunged head first in the linguist families who facilitate human communication with alien races (that's the SF part). I met the struggling women of the Lines, poor Nazareth Chorniak being bred like cattle and ill-treated... in a future dystopian American society where the 19th Amendment was repealed in 1996 and women have been stripped of civil rights.(That's the social part. By the way, in that society, the guys live in constant moral misery, having to compete, always bickering, and seeing other men as rivals).

A group of women, led by Nazareth, create a new language as an act of resistance. So they revolt, not with violence, but with words, inventing the Laadan. At first Laadan helps woman getting a sense of community, then, as they grow more confident and serene (in the second book), there is an effect on the men in the Linguist families, not a disneyan "over the board" reversal of attitude, but they find themselves more at ease in their relations with their womenfolk.

This is one of the first SF novels I read that spoke to me.

Years later, I proposed a panel on "Klingon vs Laadan" at the 30th Wiscon. I assisted to this conference where Mrs Elgin, inventor of the Laadan, and John Ford, inventor (at least, one of the inventors) of the Klingon discussed the very different destinies of the invented languages. Klingon, rather overtly masculine, had a whopping sale. Laadan, like the vine, crept slowly, mostly discreet.

But the idea of the use of the language to express feminine, and other new ideas and concept. In fact, the native tongue trilogy is the contrary of the Novlang of 1984. Where the Novlang diminished the number and variety of words to express concepts, Laadan make them bloom and multiply.

I do not speak fluent Laadan, but I did look at the self-tutorial. For starters, the first sound of a sentence indicates its nature : request, information verified-witnessed by the interlocutor, information from a trusted source, information by hearsay... Only for that, Laadan is a breakthrough.

To this day I strongly believe, and live by, that the words we use secretly shape our minds. Whatever language we live in, we have to make an effort and find ways to keep in touch with the complex and subtler feelings that English - or French - have no words for.

The page on Laadan (less)

1 like · like · see review

Jan 04, 2010 Rebekah rated it 4 of 5 stars

Native Language by Suzette Haden Elgin offers us an alternate present where men have taken back all the rights of women. In this new reality not only are women property again there are Aliens and a certain few family lines have learned to train their young to speak those languages. In general they have trapped themselves. The general population hates them for their absolute dependancy and the government encourages a media that lies about their excess just to feed that hatred.
I don’t know how mu...more Native Language by Suzette Haden Elgin offers us an alternate present where men have taken back all the rights of women. In this new reality not only are women property again there are Aliens and a certain few family lines have learned to train their young to speak those languages. In general they have trapped themselves. The general population hates them for their absolute dependancy and the government encourages a media that lies about their excess just to feed that hatred.
I don’t know how much I can suspend the disbelief that women would allow themselves to loose all rights. This bit of socio-political fiction seems totally far fetched. That someone could publish one article and have it be believed. In the next few years biology backwashes as well while male chauvinist laws take over the governments world wide. I would think women would have to be as backwards as they think they are, but that makes this not really our reality. I suppose you could relate this to the loss of rights of any minority, but it is still very hard to believe.
I think I almost like the idea of language gathering at infancy, though the result of this is that children are forced into work at very young ages because the knowledge they acquire is so valuable an asset. When the government man argues about how cruel and unfeeling the linguists are to their children, the leader fires back quite quickly with the well then why doesn’t the government step in and take our children from us and place them in nice loving “normal” families. And the simple truth is that they don’t because they want those children working hard. They want those babies born faster and parents taking drugs to encourage multiple births if possible. It is a sad world that the linguistic families have created for themselves by controlling supply and refusing to let the knowledge out of their hands. They made more money than they could use, but at a great cost.
Then there was the government’s attempts to take back the monopoly. They didn’t believe that the linguist couldn’t learn non-humanoid languages, i suppose they thought it was some big myth to control the demand or simply uncomfortable. So the government continues to destroy human children while they attempt to prove the linguists wrong. I can’t say I believe that humans could self-destruct from simply being forced to try and perceive something non-humanoid, but it does provide a stark view of “government work” and tolerances for cruelty when someone says do it and we don’t care how.
It raises the question of would reality actually change with a new language to describe it. I can’t say it would change as drastically as they imply. Women actually change their existence through a new language. They stop nagging and be come over attentive because they have some sort of mental release from their subjugation. The fact that the men got frustrated when they got their “Eden”. Women were obedient and attentive and suddenly they didn’t have someone to fight against and they hit an emotional wall. Too much of a good thing won’t do.
There are more parts to this story, which was written as a trilogy, though I have read that the other books are not as good. Perhaps the suspensions of disbelief simply stretch too thin. I had to search for this book, so perhaps if the others turn up I will read them, but not dig for them.
I will point out the version I checked out from the library had many typo’s. Sometimes to the detriment of comprehension as I wondered if a he was supposed to be a she. Most of them could be read through, but I find it a tad unacceptable in a major published work.(less)

1 like · like · see review

Jun 08, 2008 Nathan added it

I'll never forgive the university professors who made me read this novel. Some of the sci-fi elements in it were interesting and it posed some compelling linguistic questions but mostly it was just tiresome. The majority of the narrative is the kind heavy-handed man-hating that has done more to hurt the cause of feminism than further it. Every man in the novel is a cowardly, misogynistic tyrant while every woman is a long-suffering, angelic saint. I found the whole thing simply tedious.

4 likes · like · see review

Feb 07, 2012 Sarah rated it 1 of 5 stars

Recommended to Sarah by: Goodreads

Shelves: read-in-2012

When your novel starts with a board meeting, you know you're in for a real thrill ride. I feel like this was written by an author with good ideas and solid linguistic knowledge, but no real feel for writing fiction. The multiple plots meshed together awkwardly. The characters were mostly one-dimensional, particularly the male linguists. Almost everything was told, not shown.

Does this have value, as the essay in my edition* claims, as a feminist document? I don't know. In 1984 when this was publ...more

3 likes · like · see review

Oct 06, 2009 Kimberly rated it 5 of 5 stars

I originally read this back in 11th grade when it served to inflame my already heated discussions and beliefs about gender equality and feminism. Re-reading it after studying literary theory and learning something about linguistics/cognitive science has changed this novel to something much deeper and more inquisitive than a simple distopia.

In a science fiction setting, Elgin tackles the very profound subject of language creation. As the women in her novel create a language between themselves to...more

like · see review

Dec 06, 2011 AMessyRenaissance rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: reviewed

If you take this book at face value, there is a lot of character development, an interesting exposition device and not a lot of action. If you read the author’s academic background (given in an interesting afterward note), this book is an application of her feminist theories. I’m not sure that I think the book is successful at either the story or the academic exercise.

The story itself is presented as a historic journal of events in the past. Ficticious essays are used to give you the informatio...more If you take this book at face value, there is a lot of character development, an interesting exposition device and not a lot of action. If you read the author’s academic background (given in an interesting afterward note), this book is an application of her feminist theories. I’m not sure that I think the book is successful at either the story or the academic exercise.

The story itself is presented as a historic journal of events in the past. Ficticious essays are used to give you the information you need to follow and understand the characters in this journal: The Nineteenth Amendment has been revoked by the Twenty Fourth and Twenty Fifth Amendments, stripping women of their individual rights and freedoms for their own protection. Additionally, society has made contact with alien species. Facilitation of communication between human and aliens has become the purview of a guild-like construct of families, the Linguists.

The two main characters the book follows are Michaela and Nazereth. Michaela is a nurse and a wife and Nazereth is a Linguist and a wife; both are being personally crushed by the rules and obligations of being female in some way. Michaela starts her personal rebellion by becoming a murderess. Nazereth starts hers by pushing her female Linguists into using the unique language they’ve created for women.

Somewhere in the irritated feminist miasma of this book is a subplot of an alien threat, and the military’s attempts to deal with it. I’m not quite sure how it fits into anything at this point beyond serving as motive for Michaela’s murders. I can only guess it will become more important later.

There’s a lot in this book that can be analyzed from an academic standpoint as to what Michaela and Nazereth represent; the individual events of their lives representing patriarchal opression; how language can arguably foster a rebellion or not. But as a whole, the characters and their stories, I’m not entirely invested in yet. However, the novel is the first in a trilogy. There’s a lot of construction, both in the world and in the personal lives of the characters, to place to make the story believable. I’m interested enough to order the second book and see where the author intends to take the stories and see if she can make a believable case for her academic theories.
(less)

like · see review

Mar 02, 2012 Saskia rated it 4 of 5 stars

Set in the twenty-second century, the book explores the importance of language in creating and perceiving reality. In this future, women's civil rights have been lost and they are treated as men's possession - their role is to breed and work as translaters with alien species, with whom Earth is in trade.

The book is dated in its concepts (1984), written against the backdrop of Reagan's conservative push, and more of an "idea" book than science fiction. Yet, it explores a fascinating question: Th...more

like · see review

Apr 01, 2013 Lisa Schmeiser rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: fantasy-sci-fi

One of three books in Lisa's Feminist Sci-Fi Canon.

The synopsis: Thanks to a carefully orchestrated political campaign by cultural conservatives, women in the U.S. have their civil rights stripped and they're officially made property of male citizens. Against THIS dynamic, intelligent extraterrestrials make contact with Earth, and all of a sudden, linguists are in incredible demands. The women in one linguist house hatch an idea: What if there was a women-only language, something women could use...more

like · see review

Jul 28, 2011 Bondama rated it 4 of 5 stars

I can't review this book until my friends in the Feminist group have finished it!!

1 like · like · see review

Nov 08, 2010 Joe Schmutz rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: female-authors-read

This fiction is one of the more masterful pieces of literature of the 20th century. It should be considered for inclusion in reading lists for English majors. Don't let that terrorize you. The book is engrossing; the plot is multilayered; the concept is unique; and the characters are easy to understand.

On the surface it's about learning to communicate with life forms so alien, it requires human children to interact with aliens during the child's language forming years. A secondary plot line deal...more

2 likes · like · see review

May 09, 2009 Eri-chan rated it 4 of 5 stars

I found this book surprisingly enjoyable. The plot and characters are excellent, and it is very well written. The feminist angle is laid on pretty thick, and as such there are parts which angered me quite a bit, but once I got past the first few chapters that started to fade away as the plot gained momentum. Elgin has created a society and a future that is both fascinating and infuriating, an appropriate backdrop for the machinations of these heroic women whose intelligence is so inconceivable t...more

1 like · like · see review

Sep 03, 2012 Harpmary rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: science-fiction

First let me say that the "concept" of this book is definitely 5 stars. The idea that a language can influence culture and behavior, and ultimately the outcome of history is really brilliant. However, the author fails to take this brilliant idea beyond the concept. The plot drags, the storytelling is boring, the characterizations are flat, and the flow is cumbersome.

There are so many flaws in this story. The characters are terribly two -dimensional, almost to the point of being inhuman. For exam...more

like · see review

Sep 27, 2011 Teel rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: dystopia

Native Tongue reads as though someone had crafted an interesting and beautiful SciFi novella, but then battered and distorted it with the crude hammer of Feminism, somehow doubling its length in the process. In some places there are distinct paragraphs, pages, or chapters that seem haphazardly inserted into the text, written in a different style and without the nuance of character or theme of the surrounding words, just to drive home some blatant idea about gender relations. The unevenness of th...more Native Tongue reads as though someone had crafted an interesting and beautiful SciFi novella, but then battered and distorted it with the crude hammer of Feminism, somehow doubling its length in the process. In some places there are distinct paragraphs, pages, or chapters that seem haphazardly inserted into the text, written in a different style and without the nuance of character or theme of the surrounding words, just to drive home some blatant idea about gender relations. The unevenness of the quality of writing gets worse as the book goes on, with strange thematic tangents away from gender and onto, say, euthanasia or religion.

The only characters I liked less than the flat, distorted stereotypes of nearly all the men in the book were the scheming, plotting, conniving, conspiring, secretive, lying (and sometimes murdering) women; i.e.: nearly all the women in the book. The only character I had any real measure of sympathy for (and I wouldn't go so far as to say I liked her) was Nazareth, and I'm quite sure most of that was because of the author's manipulative torture of the character, forcing the reader into sympathy through the extremes she is put through again and again. The "evil" patriarchs don't even add up to good villains; they are cardboard cutouts, caricatures of a nightmare a Feminist carries about what men are like inside.

I think the worst thing about the ideas of the book is that every example of things the "women's language" (Láadan) might do better than "men's languages" (as all other human languages are implied to be) are things that I would appreciate having language for, even though I am a man - and which, generally, I believe adding words for the appropriate "Encodings" would be sufficient to accomplish. (i.e.: I do not believe a new language entire is required.) The thoughts and experiences the author attributes to "women" are, I believe, really just "human" - and the terrible behaviors she attributes solely to men I have known women to perpetrate. (Along with men often being just as conniving, scheming, and conspiratorial as her female characters.) Please, give me better ways to express myself, regardless of my gender! (less)

like · see review

Feb 24, 2011 Delaina rated it 2 of 5 stars

I read this while in high school (probably when I was 15), and the stars I gave it are purely an emotional reaction to my memory of that book. I didn't like it because it disturbed and almost frightened me. I could not identify with the angry women in the story and their oppressive male counterparts, except as I'd seen such people depicted in other media. I can't speak to the craft of the novel, since I was too young/uninformed to take that context with me while I read it. That said, it has clea...more

like · see review

Nov 28, 2008 Aik rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: dystopia

A nice concept, badly executed. From reading this I got the image of the author sitting behind a typewriter bashing the keys while screaming 'All men are bastards!' over and over again.

Besides that, the dystopian society is just not very well realised. Why are women second class citizens? *shrug* As far as I remember, it isn't mentioned. I would have to assume it's because all men are bastards.

Having more of the language in the actual book would have been nice.

For a good feminist dystopian stor...more

1 like · like · see review

May 31, 2009 Darla rated it 5 of 5 stars

I loved this one. Still gives me shivers. Women should read this book. It's so much more than Sci Fi. The women are second class citizens, but they are the linguists, in a world where linguists are a necessity for survival. Treated like children, they are separated and coddled and being allowed to create a language of their own. The men see it as frivolous as everything else women do, little do they know... It is powerful and moving and one of my favorites.

Recommended reading from: http://www.f ...more

like · see review

Apr 16, 2013 Irene rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: feminist, science-fiction

This is an interesting story, but from a speculative fiction point of view, I found it too implausible to be good speculation. Not in terms of science or alien encounters, but in human interactions. I also don't think women 'win' by becoming separate from men, and I don't think I would have thought that in the historical context in which the book is written either. Hello-- separate but equal??

The best part, by far, was the idea that a language-- or at the very least altering one's lexicon-- can...more

like · see review

Dec 27, 2012 Stephanie rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: fantastic-women-fantastic-lit

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. Too Many Unanswered Questions.

I read Elgin's Native Tongue because it was touted as on par with Brave New World and The Handmaid's Tale. While it treats similar topics, it is not as good as either of those classics.

A major flaw for me is that the book's main premises are unexplained. First, the novel begins with excerpts from (fictional) constitutional amendments which repeal women's right to vote, and transform them into legal minors. While a similar premise is carefully and plausibly explaine...more Too Many Unanswered Questions.

I read Elgin's Native Tongue because it was touted as on par with Brave New World and The Handmaid's Tale. While it treats similar topics, it is not as good as either of those classics.

A major flaw for me is that the book's main premises are unexplained. First, the novel begins with excerpts from (fictional) constitutional amendments which repeal women's right to vote, and transform them into legal minors. While a similar premise is carefully and plausibly explained in The Handmaid's Tale, here in Native Tongue, the whole legal maneuver rests on one scientific paper which is never explained or even alluded to again. Why did this paper, which claimed to prove that women are the intellectual inferiors of men, carry so much weight? What was the proof? Were there protests? We'll never know.

Secondly, the plot revolves around the linguistic Households, or Lines, thirteen families which have cornered a monopoly on translation, crucial to Earth's rapid exploration and colonization of the galaxy. The Linguists claim to possess a genetic difference that justifies their monopoly; the government suspects that's a fabrication. We never find out if either option is true.

Elgin is also skeptical of "test tube" babies. Hers are not quite human, while we know now that babies conceived in vitro are indistinguishable from the more traditional kind. However, one must keep in mind that her "tubies" are more like Huxley's, spending the entire gestation in vitro and "decanted" instead of born, something we have (fortunately) not yet attempted.

Finally, the book ends with the separation of men and women, physically and linguistically. Is this the solution Elgin advocates? If so, it is an incredibly cynical one. It is true that in a world where men and women play segregated roles, they can't "speak each other's language," but if they are able to interact in a more egalitarian fashion, they should grow in understanding. "Separate but equal" was debunked decades before Elgin penned this tome, and I am surprised and disappointed to see her wind up at that lame conclusion.

(less)

like · see review

Sep 01, 2011 Rhiannon rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Recommended to Rhiannon by: The Feminist Readers Network

Shelves: end-of-the-world, lady-writer, owned, future-times, read-in-2011, spaaaace, clubbies, completed-series, its-a-gender-thing

This book had an amazing concept. It was full of amazing ideas (the creation of a secret language for an oppressed second class - women). But, it lacked several things, in my opinion, that prevented it from living up to the proclamation: "feminist science fiction classic."

One of those things was characterization. The first one hundred or so pages in the book had no distinct character for the reader to engage with. There are several plot points expounded in male points of view that readers are su...more

2 likes · like · see review

Oct 03, 2010 Isk rated it 4 of 5 stars

One-Sentence Summary:
In a future dystopia where the feared and despised linguists rule the world with their ability to communicate with extraterrestrials, a group of women try to overcome their second-class citizen status by creating their own language.

Review:
In the late 22nd and early 23rd centuries, the citizens of Earth are divided into two groups: the linguists, whose duty it is to learn the languages of the aliens that space exploration discovers, and the non-linguists, who are brainwashed...more

like · see review

« previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 … 99 100 next »

new topic
Discuss This Book

topics	posts	views	last activity
SciFi and Fantasy...: What did you think of Native Tongue	1	25	Sep 08, 2012 05:44pm

combine
Other Editions (9)

More editions...

Genres

Science Fiction

89 users

Science Fiction > Dystopia

39 users

Feminism

31 users

Science Fiction Fantasy

12 users

Humanities > Language

10 users

Speculative Fiction

10 users

Fantasy

9 users

Gender

8 users

Womens

8 users

Literary Fiction

3 users

See top shelves...

Readers also enjoyed similar books

About Suzette Haden Elgin

Suzette Haden Elgin is an American science fiction author. She founded the Science Fiction Poetry Association, and is considered an important figure in the field of science fiction constructed languages. Elgin is also a linguist; she publishes non-fiction, of which the best-known is the Gentle Art of Verbal Self-Defense series.

Born in 1936 in Missouri, Elgin attended the University of California,...more

More about Suzette Haden Elgin...

Books by Suzette Haden Elgin

More…

Share This Book

Facebook Twitter Your website

Trivia About Native Tongue

8 trivia questions

More quizzes & trivia...

title link	preview: Native Tongue
avg rating	preview: Native Tongue Goodreads rating: 4.10 (787 ratings)
small image	preview: click here [close]
med image	preview: click here [close]
BBCode	[url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/285563.Native_Tongue?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book][img]http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1348446358l/285563.jpg[/img][/url] [url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/285563.Native_Tongue?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book]Native Tongue by Suzette Haden Elgin[/url]

Native Tongue (Native Tongue #1)

Friend Reviews

Community Reviews

Share This Book

Share This Book on Your Website