"Native Tongue" by Suzette Haden Elgin (BR)

[SFFBC, Ancillary Mod]

Buddy read for the Dozen Roses Game.

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[DivaDiane]

This was my pick. I read it a million years ago and really enjoyed it. I’m hoping I have time to reread it before too much time.

[Anna]

I read this about a hundred years ago, in early 2020, and also really enjoyed the whole series.

[DivaDiane]

Yes, if my million years ago (in actual fact about 25 years ago) your hundred years equalling about 2 years ago tracks perfectly!

[Anna]

:D

[Meredith]

I finally started reading this and I'm at 20% (through Chapter 4). I found the first chapter a bit rough to read, with the women being treated as poorly as I was expecting. But, now I'm feeling more drawn into the world that Elgin is presenting and its different elements.

My ebook edition is a recent one (2019) with a forward that gives some context of the time it was written as well as notes how it remains relevant in light of more recent social and political events.

[Meredith]

Now I'm at 59%, through Chapter 16. Still liking it for the most part, but have some thoughts on a couple things.

(view spoiler)[ I felt like the author kind of teased us with the women's language aspect in the first chapter or two and then it didn't really surface again until around the midpoint. And we still have learned very little about it.

I find the non-linguist men as a group basically caricatures. The chapters read almost like satire of a future society (and the men specifically) and have a different feel to the other chapters with the Linguists.
(hide spoiler)]

[Meredith]

Alright, I finished. I liked it overall and found the world-building interesting.

(view spoiler)[ I liked the ending aspect where Nazareth understood that the change that was coming couldn't be predicted from the pre-change state. But, at the end the Linguist men prove to be as foolish and short-sighted as the non-linguist men, without the leadership of Thomas Chornyak. (hide spoiler)]

I've thought a bit about why this book isn't as widely known as Atwood's The Handmaid’s Tale. Especially in the beginning, there were a lot of similarities in the setting and premise. I think it boils down to this book being science fiction, explicitly, while Atwood always rejected that 'label' for her book, and it was marketed as just 'fiction.'