Native Tongue

by Suzette Haden Elgin, Susan Squier

  * * *

  Later, lying restless in her bed and listening with half an ear in case one of the invalid women might want her, Caroline wished they could have dared tell her just a little more. That they could have given her some simple gift of knowledge. Told her that there was a language called Láadan; that women had chosen its eighteen sounds with tender care—they hadn’t wanted other women to have to struggle to pronounce it just because those whose lot it was to construct it happened to have English as their first Terran language. It would have pleased Nazareth to know that. It would have pleased her even more to know that Langlish, with its endlessly growing list of phonemes and the constant changes in its syntax, all the nonsensical phenomena, was only a charade. A decoy to keep the men from discovering the real language. It might have comforted her a little to know that the lengthy and solemn yearly meeting of the Encoding Project Central Caucus, at which all that had been done on Langlish in the preceding year was either undone or vastly complicated—by unanimous resolution—was the elaborate folly the men considered it to be, and just as hilarious as they considered it to be, and that it was so deliberately. Because the one thing the women could not risk was that some man should take the Project seriously. It would have been something to give Nazareth, to tell her any one of those things.

  But they hadn’t dared do it. Who could know how much resistance Nazareth, not even fifteen yet, would have under stress? All of them feared the day when some woman, driven beyond her endurance, would fling in the face of a detested man, “You think you know so much! You don’t even know that the women have a real language of their own, one you men have never even suspected existed! You stupid fool, to believe that we women of the Lines would put together a deformity like Langlish and call it a language!”

  Oh, yes. It would be so easy to do, and it was so tempting. Such a glory to see the man’s astonished face. Not one woman in Barren House who couldn’t tell a tale of the time she’d come within an inch of doing something like that. And not one who didn’t bless the wisdom that had kept her from learning anything dangerous to the Native Tongue until she had reached an age, and a serenity, when words no longer leaped from her mouth in spite of her best intentions—and when she was not obliged to live all day and all night among males.

  It crossed Caroline’s mind, then that they might well have to tell Nazareth some complicated lies as it was, after today. If, for example, she asked to see her Encodings in the Langlish computer programs.

  Caroline’s eyes opened wide in the darkness. Oh, Lord, yes! First thing tomorrow, women must be set to the task of entering Nazareth’s Encodings, with the Langlish word-shapes she had given them—corrected for the current grotesque status of the language, of course, as they would certainly have done—into the computers. They had to be there for Nazareth to see, and they had to be there fast.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Oh, I never had a mommy

  and I never had a dad,

  but I’ve been the sweetest baby

  that they ever could have had!

  And it’s not MY fault my mother

  was a tube of plexiglass,

  and my father was a needle

  instead of a lusty ass!

  I’m a tubie! (YAH!)

  Little tubie! (RAY!)

  I’m a tubie till I die—

  do it again! (HEY, HEY!)

  (popular drinking song of the 80’s, anonymous)

  WINTER 2185. . . .

  Arnold Dolbe felt absurd, and he looked absurd. You did not see a government man, dressed in the obligatory antique business suit that was the uniform of the government man, sitting in another government man’s office surrounded by eleven tiny children ranging in age from one to three years. But you did see Dolbe, who was your paradigm government man, in just such a situation. He was extremely uncomfortable, and the official he had descended upon was furious . . . what would the staff think? Dolbe had been told in no uncertain terms that he was to be discreet about this; and instead he had come marching in with a . . . a platoon . . . of flunkies, each carrying a load of brats. It had created a sensation in the outer offices.

  “Damn you, Dolbe,” sputtered the official, one Taylor B. Dorcas the 3rd, “are you going out of your way to be a damn fool or does it just come naturally to you? I told you to be careful, goddam it! You call this careful?” Dorcas had gone to Homeroom with Arnold Dolbe.

  He waved his arms, indicating the rows of children lined up on the chairs around his office, and demanded that Dolbe justify his disgraceful behavior. But Dolbe was accustomed to bureaucratic bellowers like this one, and they bothered him not at all; here he was on equal ground, and he knew the rules by which all the games were played. He watched the other man stolidly until he ran down, and then he spoke. With elaborate unconcern.

  “There’s nothing in any way immoral about appearing in public with eleven young children, Taylor,” he remarked. “Spare me, please.”

  “I didn’t say it was immoral! I said it was—making a spectacle of yourself. And of me!”

  “Taylor, I’m not sure I follow you . . . but if what concerns you is the opinion of your subordinates, and their comments, you’ve made a grave mistake. If you’ve let them get out of hand to such a degree that they will even mention this meeting. Even to one another. Even over a beer. They should be blind, deaf, and numb to all such incidents, unless otherwise instructed by you. Tsk.”

  Taylor Dorcas blew air through his lips, loudly, and sat back down in total exasperation. Dolbe was right, of course; and he was a point up now because he’d been given the opportunity to deliver the little homily on management. Damn the man! Dorcas briefly considered punching his comset studs and issuing some rapid-fire orders, just to reestablish the principle that this was his turf and he was running things here . . . but Dolbe moved right in while he was still thinking it over.

  “Now,” he said, “these are the eleven children that we are turning over to the Department. I have their records with me on microfiche, and naturally they’ve been entered in your computers directly from my own office You won’t need to be bothered about that.”

  “What, exactly—”

  “Their ‘birth’ dates. Their various immunizations. Their medications administered, and their responses. Allergies, if any. Results of the standard battery of tests. Clothing sizes. All that sort of data.”

  “And their names, of course.”

  Dolbe’s eyebrows went up precipitously.

  “Their names? Their names, Taylor?”

  “Well, don’t they have names?”

  “Why would they?”

  “Well . . .”

  “Look here, Taylor,” said Dolbe, “every last one of these kids started life as the sum of an anonymous sperm and an anonymous egg. They have no parents; why would they have names?”

  Taylor Dorcas snickered, and jabbed one finger at Dolbe. “You could have them all named after you, Arnold. You’re as much their daddy as anybody.”

  Dolbe snorted, but he did not dignify his colleague’s silliness with a reply.

  “Well, hellfire and Congress, man, how do you keep track of them then?”

  “They’re numbered,” said Dolbe primly. “I would have assumed that that would be obvious. Even to you.”

  “One through eleven?”

  “No. These are not the first eleven test-tube babies we’ve worked with. They are eleven consecutive numbers, however. From left to right, Dorcas, please meet #20 through #30. Standard government issue infants, all in good health and now entirely yours.”

  “Mine?”

  “Figuratively speaking, of course. I should say, to be precise, all entirely the wards of the Department of Health, Division of Children, Toddler Section, your subsection. I hope you’ve made the necessary arrangements.”

  “Yes. I have. If you’ll have your . . . procession . . . take them all up to the roof, there’s a large flyer waiting to deliver them to the federal orphanage. With nurses aboard to see to them during
the flight, naturally. They’ll be properly cared for.”

  “Very good,” said Dolbe. “In that case, I’ll get started.”

  “Now WAIT a minute, Dolbe!”

  Dolbe had started to rise from his chair; he stopped, shrugged, and sat down again, suggesting that Taylor Dorcas try to express himself with greater clarity so that they could both get on to more pressing business.

  “I need a few more details,” protested Dorcas.

  “All in that file, Taylor,” said Dolbe, pointing to the folder he’d slapped onto the man’s desk when he came into this room. It was marked TOP SECRET in letters four inches high, in three different colors and an assortment of different languages. Including PanSig symbols.

  “I’ll read the file,” said Dorcas. “But right now I want a quick briefing from you.”

  “I’m under no obligation to provide you with anything of the kind.”

  “I’m aware of that. And you may refuse, of course. In which case, I will send for Brooks Showard and ask him to oblige me.”

  Dorcas had gained back the point and evened the score, and he smiled at Dolbe. Who smiled back. They hated each other, in an impersonal way. And Dolbe knew things. For instance, he knew that Taylor Dorcas’ nickname in Homeroom had been “Dorky.” But Dorcas knew some things, too. It was roughly a standoff.

  “Very well. How much detail do you want?” asked Dolbe.

  “As little as possible, please. I’m a very busy man.”

  “You have here,” Dolbe said in the requisite monotone, “numbers 20 through 30 of the test-tube babies, popularly referred to as ‘tubies,’ temporarily in the custody of my unit. They were brought to normal term, decanted, provided standard health and social care, and are all in satisfactory physical condition. Two modifications were made in their environment, under my direction. First: from their initial day of life they were given small amounts of various hallucinogenic drugs, in gradually increasing doses. You’ll find precise listings in their files. Second: at some point prior to the age of three months, each one was put into the G.W. Interface with a specimen of the Alien creature known as Beta-2, in the hope that this would lead to our cracking the language of the aforementioned Alien, which language is also known as Beta-2. The experiment was carried out eleven times, with appropriate modifications in the relevant variable—that is, in the combinations, doses, and scheduling of the hallucinogens. Results proved unsatisfactory, and the experiment has been terminated. The children are now being transferred, per regulations, to your custody, pursuant to their taking up residence at the federal orphanage in Arlington, Virginia. Any other information you may require is available in the files or on a need-to-know basis.”

  He did not say “END OF BRIEFING” or click his heels, but the nuance was there in the way he snapped his teeth shut at the period.

  “I see,” said Taylor Dorcas. “I see.”

  “Glad to hear it.”

  “You say the experiment didn’t turn out to be satisfactory. I take it that means these children didn’t learn any Beta-2.”

  “You take it correctly.”

  “The memorandum you sent over by pouch said something about ‘abnormal language development.’ What does that mean, precisely?”

  “We have no idea what it means—precisely.”

  “Oh, come on, Arnold.”

  “We do know what it means imprecisely.”

  “I’ll settle for that.”

  “Look at them,” Dolbe advised. “Do you notice anything unusual about them?”

  Dorcas considered it, looking at each child in turn. They seemed quite ordinary. A bit oddly colored, perhaps, from too much sunlamp and not enough natural sunlight, but otherwise perfectly ordinary.

  “They seem normal to me,” he hazarded, “except that they’re awfully quiet. I suppose they’re intimidated by all the hauling about, and the strangers.”

  “No. They’re always like this.”

  “Always?”

  “Always. They never make a sound. Not in any language.”

  “But—”

  “These children,” Dolbe stated, “have never made a sound since they were Interfaced. Never cried. Never babbled. You will notice that they appear to be almost expressionless, and that they change their position very little—that is, there appears to be no development of body-parl to speak of, either.”

  “Good lord! What’s the matter with them?”

  Dolbe sighed.

  “Nothing. Not so far as anyone can tell. Their vocal tracts are normal. Brain scans, in various modes, show no abnormality. Hearing is entirely normal, perhaps a bit better than normal. They should be able to talk, but they don’t—and I might just add here that we have tried exposing them to native speakers of American Sign Language. No response whatsoever.”

  “Jesus. How long will they be like this?”

  “If I knew that, Taylor, I wouldn’t be turning them over to you . . . that is, if I had any reason to believe that the condition was temporary. And you’ll find specific instructions, straight from the top, to notify me if any one of them shows even the most rudimentary sign of attempting to communicate. In any way. It could be of the most extraordinary importance, if that happens.”

  Taylor Dorcas whistled an idle tune between his teeth, and looked at the children again. They could have been dolls, he realized. And their eyes . . . he wouldn’t have cared to spend much time looking into those eyes.

  “They’re not retarded?” he asked abruptly.

  “No so far as we know. They’re a little difficult to test, as you might imagine. But so far as the experts can determine, they have the ordinary intelligence of any human child. They just make no effort of any kind to communicate—or if they do, we are unable to recognize it as such.”

  “That’s amazing.”

  “Isn’t it.”

  “They’re not catatonic . . .”

  “Oh, no. They move about perfectly appropriately for whatever action frame they’re engaged in. Feeding themselves, for instance. No, it’s not catatonia, or anything like it.”

  “Well, haven’t you got anything at all, any kind of explanation at all, to offer? Hell, man, the women who will care for these kids need some basis for dealing with them!”

  “I’m sorry,” said Dolbe. Meaning it.

  “Nothing at all?”

  “Nothing at all.”

  That wasn’t strictly the truth, of course. Dolbe did have an explanation, straight from the lips of Thomas Blair Chornyak, who had graciously dropped by at Dolbe’s request to see what he could contribute to the effort. According to Chornyak the problem wasn’t that the tubies had no language, since only a condition like deep coma could be said to constitute true absence of language in a human being. The problem was something he called “absence of lexicalization.”

  “I can’t be positive, of course,” he’d told them, obviously fascinated, “because I don’t have enough data to go on and I don’t have time to gather more. But I can make a guess. And my guess is that these children have their heads full of nonverbal experiences and perceptions for which no language offers a surface shape . . . experiences for which no lexicalizations—no words, Dolbe, no signs, no body-parl units—exist. Not in the Earth languages they’ve been exposed to, and not in your Beta-2 language. If there is any such language.”

  When Lanky Pugh complained that he didn’t understand, Chornyak put it into words of one syllable for them. Say a human being sees the sun come up, and wants to express that perception to another human being. The shape he gives that expression, in sound or any other mode, is a lexicalization. Human beings can presumably either find a lexicalization or coin one for any human experience, or any humanoid experience. But whatever these children were perceiving and experiencing, they either had no lexicalizations available to them for those perceptions and experiences, or they were using a mode of lexicalization that was literally impossible for human beings to recognize.

  “Such as?” Dolbe had asked.

  “
Hell, I don’t know. How do you expect me to give you, in words, an example of a perception for which there are no words? I could give you a rather strained analogy.”

  “Please do.”

  “Say they were communicating quite normally in English, but made sounds at frequencies the human ear is incapable of hearing . . . that wouldn’t be precisely English, Dolbe, but let it go at that. Or say that whatever physical means they were employing to produce the words of American Sign Language were carried out at a speed so fast that the human eye was incapable of seeing it happen. That’s not it, Dolbe—it’s quite a different matter, because those would be approximately physiological problems—but perhaps it will serve as an analogy. The effects would presumably be the same.”

  “It’s not a physiological problem, then. Or a technological one. There’s not some gadget we could build?”

  “I don’t think so,” Chornyak had said. “I’m sorry.”

  Dolbe had no intention of trying to explain that to Taylor Dorcas, not now, not ever. He very much doubted there was anything to it, anyway; the damned Lingoe godfather had been putting them on, he thought, or had just been carried away with the novelty of it all and spouting off the top of his head. But even if it was 100 percent correct, he intended to keep it strictly to himself and the three techs. He knew Chornyak wouldn’t be talking about it.

  Showard, sentimental as always, even about tubies, had asked the linguist if there was anything at all they could do to help the kids.

  “I know what I would do,” he’d answered. Without hesitation.

  “What?”

  “I’d just spread those kids around among as many native speakers of as many different Earth and Alien languages as could possibly be arranged.”

  “Why?”

  “Because,” Chornyak had said patiently, “it just might be possible that some language exists that does have lexicalizations these kids could make use of. Maybe not—but it’s conceivable. It’s probably the only thing there is to do.”

  And he’d had the damn gall to offer to take the whole eleven with him, back to the linguist Households, and see what he could do!