Suzette Haden Elgin (1936–2015)
Author of Native Tongue
About the Author
Suzette Haden Elgin was born Patricia Anne Wilkins on November 18, 1936 in Missouri. She received a PhD in linguistics from the University of California at San Diego in 1973. She taught there from 1972 to 1980, when she retired to focus on her writing full time. Her books include The Communipaths, show more Furthest, At the Seventh Level, Yonder Comes the Other End of Time, Twelve Fair Kingdoms, The Grand Jubilee, A First Dictionary and Grammar of Láadan, Peacetalk 101, and Native Tongue Trilogy. She founded the Science Fiction Poetry Association in 1978. The organization's Elgin Award, for best poetry book and chapbook of the year, is named in her honor. She wrote The Science Fiction Poetry Handbook. She was also widely published as a linguist. Her works include the Gentle Art of Verbal Self-Defense series. She died on January 27, 2015 at the age of 78. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
Disambiguation Notice:
Other sites show birthplace as Jefferson City, Missouri, USA.
Image credit: George Elgin
Series
Works by Suzette Haden Elgin
How to Disagree Without Being Disagreeable: Getting Your Point Across with the Gentle Art of Verbal Self-Defense (1997) 139 copies, 4 reviews
The Communipaths / The Noblest Experiment in the Galaxy (Ace Double, 11560) (1970) — Author — 66 copies, 1 review
You Can't Say That to Me: Stopping the Pain of Verbal Abuse -- An 8-Step Program (1995) 53 copies, 1 review
The Language Imperative: The Power of Language to Enrich Your Life and Expand Your Mind (2000) 49 copies
The Gentle Art of Verbal Written Self-Defense : Letters in Response to Triple-F Situations (1993) 48 copies, 1 review
Businessspeak: Using the Gentle Art of Verbal Persuasion to Get What You Want at Work (1977) 15 copies, 1 review
Try to Feel It My Way: New Help for Touch Dominant People and Those Who Care About Them (1996) 12 copies
For the Sake of Grace 5 copies
Twenty-One Novel Poems 2 copies
We Have Always Spoken Panglish 2 copies
Weather Bulletin 2 copies
Only a Housewife 1 copy
Honor Is Golden 1 copy
Dragons, Cows, & Kudzu 1 copy
A Quorum of Grandmothers 1 copy
Native Tongue 1 1 copy
Native Tongue 3: Earthsong 1 copy
Associated Works
The Norton Book of Science Fiction: North American Science Fiction, 1960-1990 (1993) — Contributor — 346 copies, 6 reviews
Isaac Asimov's Wonderful Worlds of Science Fiction, Volume 2: The Science Fictional Olympics (1984) — Contributor, some editions — 97 copies, 1 review
Glorifying Terrorism, Manufacturing Contempt: An Anthology (2006) — Contributor — 69 copies, 3 reviews
Nebula Awards 24: SFWA's Choices for the Best Science Fiction and Fantasy 1988 (1990) — Contributor — 61 copies
Great Science Fiction Stories By the World's Greatest Scientists (1985) — Author — 56 copies, 2 reviews
Women of Other Worlds: Excursions Through Science Fiction and Feminism (1999) — Contributor — 42 copies
Light Years and Dark: Science Fiction and Fantasy of and for Our Time (1984) — Contributor — 37 copies
Women of Vision : Essays by Women Writing Science Fiction (1988) — Contributor, some editions — 34 copies, 1 review
Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine: Vol. 9, No. 10 [October 1985] (1985) — Contributor — 15 copies
Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine: Vol. 9, No. 12 [December 1985] (1985) — Contributor — 13 copies
The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction March 1990, Vol. 78, No. 3 (1990) — Author — 12 copies, 1 review
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Legal name
- Wilkins, Patricia Anne Suzette
- Other names
- Elgin, Patricia Anne Suzette Wilkins
- Birthdate
- 1936-11-18
- Date of death
- 2015-01-27
- Gender
- female
- Education
- University of California, San Diego (PhD, Linguistics)
- Occupations
- linguist
writer
poet - Organizations
- Science Fiction Poetry Association (founder)
Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America
Ozark Center for Language Studies (founder)
San Diego State University - Awards and honors
- Cordwainer Smith Rediscovery Award (2026)
- Nationality
- USA
- Birthplace
- Louisiana, Missouri, USA
- Places of residence
- Arkansas, USA
- Place of death
- Arkansas, USA
- Disambiguation notice
- Other sites show birthplace as Jefferson City, Missouri, USA.
- Associated Place (for map)
- Arkansas, USA
Members
Discussions
Found: Sci-fi book about translators in Name that Book (September 2021)
***Group Read: Native Tongue by Suzette Hadel Elgin (spoiler thread) in 75 Books Challenge for 2011 (March 2011)
Reviews
A favorite read of the year, and a new addition to my favorite books of all time list!
This book was published in 1984, right around the same time as The Handmaid’s Tale. Historically, it reckons with the Equal Rights Amendment (a constitutional amendment intended to guarantee women equal rights) that had recently been defeated in 1982. Native Tongue explores the fears of what might follow the defeat of that amendment, and grapples with the rise of the religious right in American politics.
I show more ended up loving Native Tongue. It was so unique! I read it slowly and spent a lot of time thinking about what I had read before picking it up again to read more.
The worldbuilding is excellent and surprisingly realistic. I’ve heard plenty of the dialogue in Native Tongue come out of men’s mouths in the real world, almost verbatim. I’m impressed that Suzette Haden Elgin was able to capture their misogyny so accurately!
Native Tongue is split up into sections that skip around in time, which I didn’t expect going in. It’s also written in a removed, straightforward way, with less emotion than I would’ve preferred. But I could still sense the deep undercurrent of meaning and emotion running through the story, and I found that to be very moving every time I would pause to reflect.
Highly recommend for fans of The Handmaid’s Tale, feminist books, and thought-provoking scifi! show less
This book was published in 1984, right around the same time as The Handmaid’s Tale. Historically, it reckons with the Equal Rights Amendment (a constitutional amendment intended to guarantee women equal rights) that had recently been defeated in 1982. Native Tongue explores the fears of what might follow the defeat of that amendment, and grapples with the rise of the religious right in American politics.
I show more ended up loving Native Tongue. It was so unique! I read it slowly and spent a lot of time thinking about what I had read before picking it up again to read more.
The worldbuilding is excellent and surprisingly realistic. I’ve heard plenty of the dialogue in Native Tongue come out of men’s mouths in the real world, almost verbatim. I’m impressed that Suzette Haden Elgin was able to capture their misogyny so accurately!
Native Tongue is split up into sections that skip around in time, which I didn’t expect going in. It’s also written in a removed, straightforward way, with less emotion than I would’ve preferred. But I could still sense the deep undercurrent of meaning and emotion running through the story, and I found that to be very moving every time I would pause to reflect.
Highly recommend for fans of The Handmaid’s Tale, feminist books, and thought-provoking scifi! show less
I was pleased to discover that [b:The Judas Rose|285565|The Judas Rose (Native Tongue #2)|Suzette Haden Elgin|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1354209473l/285565._SY75_.jpg|1462706] is less depressing than [b:Native Tongue|285563|Native Tongue (Native Tongue, #1)|Suzette Haden Elgin|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1348446358l/285563._SY75_.jpg|2866090], the first in the trilogy. Like [b:Native Tongue|285563|Native show more Tongue (Native Tongue, #1)|Suzette Haden Elgin|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1348446358l/285563._SY75_.jpg|2866090], it makes excellent use of multiple points of view on a future world in which US women have the same legal status as children and a cartel of linguist families translate negotiations with aliens. Nazareth, now elderly, remains a narrator but takes on less of the protagonist duties. She and her companions plan the spread of the women's language invented in [b:Native Tongue|285563|Native Tongue (Native Tongue, #1)|Suzette Haden Elgin|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1348446358l/285563._SY75_.jpg|2866090] beyond the linguist families and into wider society. This process, which involves delightfully duplicitous nuns, drives the plot. Meanwhile linguist families start to become integrated into wider society and the US government wastes masses of resources on ill-thought out research. There are several excellent, wickedly funny scenes in which arrogant men realise they've been absolute idiots. During one such, Haden Elgin comes up with the marvellous phrase, 'as useless as a chocolate computer chip'.
As this is the middle book in a trilogy, it develops and widens the plot and worldbuilding of the first book rather than reaching a denouement. It was great to learn more about religion in gender-segregated America, the alien view of humanity (not positive), and how the linguist family monopoly on alien translation perpetuates itself. The details of the world are cleverly thought out; I particularly loved everything concerning the whales. I am eager to read the third book to find out where things go with the aliens, whose presence suddenly become much more significant in the epilogue. However I found the number of scenes with Heykus Clete a little excessive, as he was such a bore. Perhaps he plays a key part in the final volume? Sister Miriam, on the other hand, was a joy and deserves a trilogy all to herself. show less
As this is the middle book in a trilogy, it develops and widens the plot and worldbuilding of the first book rather than reaching a denouement. It was great to learn more about religion in gender-segregated America, the alien view of humanity (not positive), and how the linguist family monopoly on alien translation perpetuates itself. The details of the world are cleverly thought out; I particularly loved everything concerning the whales. I am eager to read the third book to find out where things go with the aliens, whose presence suddenly become much more significant in the epilogue. However I found the number of scenes with Heykus Clete a little excessive, as he was such a bore. Perhaps he plays a key part in the final volume? Sister Miriam, on the other hand, was a joy and deserves a trilogy all to herself. show less
I picked up [b:Native Tongue|285563|Native Tongue (Native Tongue, #1)|Suzette Haden Elgin|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1348446358l/285563._SY75_.jpg|2866090] while browsing the library and am surprised I’d never heard of it before. It’s one of the SF Masterworks series that I’ve read avidly and has a fascinating conceit. The setting is 23rd century America, where women have the same inferior legal status as children. Humanity has made contact show more with many alien species and relies upon a small number of secretive families to act as translators. The linguist families raise their children, male and female, to speak many human and alien languages. The narrative loosely follows Nazareth, a highly gifted linguist, through her gruelling career, terrible marriage, and retirement. Once linguist women can no longer have children they move into ‘Barren Houses’, spaces away from men that allow some independence and even resistance. The narrative doesn’t just focus upon Nazareth, though, but also follows others connected with the linguists in various ways.
The social world-building in [b:Native Tongue|285563|Native Tongue (Native Tongue, #1)|Suzette Haden Elgin|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1348446358l/285563._SY75_.jpg|2866090] is effective but, not to put too fine a point on it, grim as fuck. These are the thoughts of Thomas Blair Chornyak, head of the linguists, about a nurse that he’s having an affair with:
Michaela is a wonderful character. She isn’t a linguist, so acts as an outsider perspective on them when she joins the household to nurse Thomas’ elderly father.She has perfected the skill of lulling men into a false sense of security then murdering them. Her first husband and Thomas certainly do a lot to earn it. I appreciated her guilt when realising not all linguists are evil, though. Her role in the plot is to be an angel of death with a conscience, in contrast to the government scientists who murdered her baby. The denouement in which Thomas realises what the women of the Barren House are plotting and rants to Michaela about it is brilliantly tense. He thinks she is completely harmless, while she immediately grasps the danger the female linguists are in and kills him to save them.
It’s the linguistic elements that really stand out, as the antifeminist dystopia isn’t as original. One narrative thread follows a group of morally abhorrent government scientists who murder babies in the process of trying to dislodge the linguist families' oligopoly. They are trying these appalling human experiments because attempts at computer automated translation have so far failed. I found Elgin’s angle on this amazingly prescient, given the novel was published in 1984. The quote below is essentially still applicable 38 years later:
We can now automate translation via machine learning, but the computer certainly doesn’t understand the language. Would machine translation be trustworthy for vital international treaty negotiations? I don’t think so; it’s just replicating patterns ‘learned’ by crunching vast amounts of data created by humans. [b:Native Tongue|285563|Native Tongue (Native Tongue, #1)|Suzette Haden Elgin|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1348446358l/285563._SY75_.jpg|2866090] examines the ways that languages can be oppressive but also liberatory. During their minimal spare time, the linguist women work on an experimental language that would allow them some freedom. Thus a generally depressing plot ends on rather a hopeful note, which made me keen to read the other two books in the trilogy. Although [b:Native Tongue|285563|Native Tongue (Native Tongue, #1)|Suzette Haden Elgin|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1348446358l/285563._SY75_.jpg|2866090] is hard to read in places due to relentless oppression of women and cruelty to babies, it is rewarding and interesting in its treatment of linguistics. show less
The social world-building in [b:Native Tongue|285563|Native Tongue (Native Tongue, #1)|Suzette Haden Elgin|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1348446358l/285563._SY75_.jpg|2866090] is effective but, not to put too fine a point on it, grim as fuck. These are the thoughts of Thomas Blair Chornyak, head of the linguists, about a nurse that he’s having an affair with:
They were frail reeds, women, especially in the hands of an experienced man like himself, and a man who was – as he was – a master of the erotic arts. If he’s had any doubts about that mastery, due to his advancing years and Rachel’s dutiful lukewarm attentions, Michaela’s rapt ecstasy at even his most casual efforts would have swiftly dispelled them. She was never in any way indelicate, never demanding, never lustful – lustfulness was abhorrent in a woman, and had she shown any sign of it he would have instantly dispensed with her. […]
An entirely satisfactory woman, this Michaela Landry. As nearly flawless a woman as he had ever encountered. Under the circumstances, he was willing to forgive her inability to resist his advances and live up to his earlier expectations. It is unjust, he reminded himself, to expect of a female more than her own natural characteristics allow her to accomplish.
Michaela is a wonderful character. She isn’t a linguist, so acts as an outsider perspective on them when she joins the household to nurse Thomas’ elderly father.
It’s the linguistic elements that really stand out, as the antifeminist dystopia isn’t as original. One narrative thread follows a group of morally abhorrent government scientists who murder babies in the process of trying to dislodge the linguist families' oligopoly. They are trying these appalling human experiments because attempts at computer automated translation have so far failed. I found Elgin’s angle on this amazingly prescient, given the novel was published in 1984. The quote below is essentially still applicable 38 years later:
The only way there is to acquire a language, which means that you know it so well you never have to be conscious of the knowledge, is to be exposed to that language while you are still very young – the younger the better. The infant human being has the most perfect language-learning mechanism on Earth, and no-one has ever been able to replicate that mechanism or even to analyse it very well. We know that it involves scanning for patterns and storing those that are found, but that’s something we can build a computer to do. But we’ve never been able to build a computer that can acquire a language. In fact, we’ve never even been able to build a computer that can learn a language in the imperfect way that a human adult can learn one.
We can now automate translation via machine learning, but the computer certainly doesn’t understand the language. Would machine translation be trustworthy for vital international treaty negotiations? I don’t think so; it’s just replicating patterns ‘learned’ by crunching vast amounts of data created by humans. [b:Native Tongue|285563|Native Tongue (Native Tongue, #1)|Suzette Haden Elgin|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1348446358l/285563._SY75_.jpg|2866090] examines the ways that languages can be oppressive but also liberatory. During their minimal spare time, the linguist women work on an experimental language that would allow them some freedom. Thus a generally depressing plot ends on rather a hopeful note, which made me keen to read the other two books in the trilogy. Although [b:Native Tongue|285563|Native Tongue (Native Tongue, #1)|Suzette Haden Elgin|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1348446358l/285563._SY75_.jpg|2866090] is hard to read in places due to relentless oppression of women and cruelty to babies, it is rewarding and interesting in its treatment of linguistics. show less
This is a feminist dystopia written in the 1980s, set in a future in which women's rights have been taken away and they are completely subservient to men. In this future, linguists are very important as they communicate with the many, many alien species that have been encountered to negotiating trading contracts and space colonies. The main events of the story take place 200 years in the future and follow the household of one of the 13 linguist families, whose children are trained from birth show more to acquire alien languages.
I had such mixed feelings about this book. For one thing, it took me so long to get into it, for two reasons. First, I didn't think it was plausible that all of women's rights would be taken away in the 1990s by constitutional amendments just because one paper was published positing that women were biologically not as intelligent as men. As someone who was alive in the 1990s, this just does not seem feasible. I can't imagine that even if 38 states had ratified these amendments, that our country would have remained whole after that.
Second, everyone talks like someone in a parody of a stiff 1950s television show. Sometimes, it was laughable. And the men are so ridiculous. I kept getting angry every time I picked this up to read and had to take breaks. Granted, there certainly are men who think this way about women, but in this book, it's ALL of them. And there is no romantic love, or even lust. Really? I get tired of misogyny too, but this goes against everything I know and have experienced of male-female relationships.
But I started getting more into it as I read. The baby-exploding caught my attention. That was a bit of horror I wasn't expecting. Too bad that plot line wasn't developed much more, but I gather that was probably left for the sequels. Then the character of Michaela, the one woman who's mad as hell and isn't going to take it anymore. I really liked her and all the bits of the book she was in. This story required an outsider character to give it some perspective, and she was it.
Overall, the writing was stiff and awkward and aggressively feminist, of its day. It did remind me a lot of The Female Man, in that sense. But it has interesting ideas to present in the guise of science fiction. Overall, I'm glad I read this, if not for the plot or characterization, but rather for the ideas and for it being a kind of artifact of a very particular time in the feminist movement (again, like The Female Man). show less
I had such mixed feelings about this book. For one thing, it took me so long to get into it, for two reasons. First, I didn't think it was plausible that all of women's rights would be taken away in the 1990s by constitutional amendments just because one paper was published positing that women were biologically not as intelligent as men. As someone who was alive in the 1990s, this just does not seem feasible. I can't imagine that even if 38 states had ratified these amendments, that our country would have remained whole after that.
Second, everyone talks like someone in a parody of a stiff 1950s television show. Sometimes, it was laughable. And the men are so ridiculous. I kept getting angry every time I picked this up to read and had to take breaks. Granted, there certainly are men who think this way about women, but in this book, it's ALL of them. And there is no romantic love, or even lust. Really? I get tired of misogyny too, but this goes against everything I know and have experienced of male-female relationships.
But I started getting more into it as I read. The baby-exploding caught my attention. That was a bit of horror I wasn't expecting. Too bad that plot line wasn't developed much more, but I gather that was probably left for the sequels. Then the character of Michaela, the one woman who's mad as hell and isn't going to take it anymore. I really liked her and all the bits of the book she was in. This story required an outsider character to give it some perspective, and she was it.
Overall, the writing was stiff and awkward and aggressively feminist, of its day. It did remind me a lot of The Female Man, in that sense. But it has interesting ideas to present in the guise of science fiction. Overall, I'm glad I read this, if not for the plot or characterization, but rather for the ideas and for it being a kind of artifact of a very particular time in the feminist movement (again, like The Female Man). show less
Lists
Books Read in 2015 (10)
SF Masterworks (1)
SFFKit 2022 (1)
Female Author (1)
Favourite Books (1)
Best Dystopias (1)
Awards
You May Also Like
Associated Authors
Statistics
- Works
- 66
- Also by
- 23
- Members
- 5,343
- Popularity
- #4,661
- Rating
- 3.6
- Reviews
- 77
- ISBNs
- 136
- Languages
- 5
- Favorited
- 15