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Quote by Suzette Haden Elgin

Work

Native Tongue

This book is a speculative fiction narrative that delves into the impact of language on individual and collective identity, set in a world where language shapes not only communication but also the very essence of a person's being. more

Author

Suzette Haden Elgin
Suzette Haden Elgin

Suzette Haden Elgin (November 18, 1936 – January 27, 2015) was an American linguist, science fiction author, and feminist activist. She is best known for creating the constructed language Láadan, designed to express women's perspectives and experiences. Her works include the Native Tongue trilogy and numerous linguistic studies. She explored themes of gender, power, and social structures through language and literature, leaving a lasting impact on feminist science fiction and linguistics. more

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“A large part of their motive for attacking me was to release their sexual curiosity in a manner consistent with their heavily guarded idea of manliness. They were only slightly concerned with forcing me to accept their superiority. If this latter was their whole aim, then all those street brawls were a waste of time. I regarded all heterosexuals, however low, as superior to any homosexual, however noble.”

“...If you are alone in this land, on foot, in miles of coming snow, wind, and branches and don't even know in which direction you'd run If from birth you've seen what men with guns, knives, and bombs are capable of doing for reasons you never wanted to understand If in this very same county's court of all-white witnesses, counsel, judge, and jurors it will forever be your word against theirs because there was no forensic testimony over who shot first If, yes, sometimes you can hear voices, not because you're insane, but in your culture you are a shaman, a spiritual healer, though in this very different land of goods and fears, your only true worth seems to be as a delivery man and soldier If, upon that first fateful exchange in these woods, your instinct, pushing pin to balloon, were to tell you it's now either you and your fatherless family of fourteen, or all of them Would you set your rifle down; hope the right, the decent, the fair thing on this buried American soil will happen? Or would you stay low, one knee cold, and do precisely as your whole life and history have trained? And if you did, would anyone even care what really happened that afternoon eight bodies plummeted to earth like deer?”