Láadan (/ˈlɑ˦ɑˈdɑn/) is a gynocentric constructed language created by Suzette Haden Elgin in 1982 to test the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis, specifically to determine if development of a language aimed at expressing the views of women would shape a culture; a subsidiary hypothesis was that Western natural languages may be better suited for expressing the views of men than women. The language was included in her science fiction Native Tongue series. Láadan contains a number of words that are used to make unambiguous statements that include how one feels about what one is saying. According to Elgin, this is designed to counter male-centered language's limitations on women, who are forced to respond "I know I said that, but I meant this".
 Láadan is a tonal language. It utilises two distinct tones:
 The word "Láadan" has three syllables: "lá-" with the short vowel /a/ plus high tone; "-a" with the short vowel /a/ and no tone; and "-dan".
 Láadan doesn't allow any double [i.e. long] phonemes. Whenever two identical short vowels would occur side by side in a single morpheme, one of them has to be marked for high tone. When adding an affix would result in two identical vowels side by side, an epenthetic /h/ is inserted to prevent the forbidden sequence. The language will allow either "máa" or "maá," but not "maa". These combinations can be described as:
 (Some people analyze these tone sequences as tonemic as well, for a total of four tones.)
 Elgin preferred an analysis of the language as having no long vowels and a single tone, the high tone (distinguished from "neutral, baseline pitch"), but she acknowledged that linguists using other formalisms would be justified in saying that there are two tones, high and low (or unmarked or mid).
 Láadan has five vowels:
 Láadan lacks the consonants /p, t, k, ɡ, s, z, f, v/. It uses b, d, sh (/ʃ/), m, n, l, r, w, y (/j/), h with the same phonetic value as English. Three digraphs require further explanation:
 Most Láadan sentences contain three particles:
 Láadan is a verb–subject–object (VSO) language. Verbs and adjectives are interchangeable. There are no articles, and the object is marked by the -th or -eth suffix. The plural number is shown only by the me- prefix to the verb. The particle ra following a verb makes it negative. Separate clauses are joined by the particle hé.
 OBJ:object
REQ:request
ST
 bíi statement ril PRS áya beautiful/beautify mahina flower wa observed-truth bíi ril áya mahina wa statement PRS beautiful/beautify flower observed-truth The flower is beautiful báa Q eril PAST mesháad PL-go/come with woman báa eril mesháad with Q PAST PL-go/come woman Did the women go/come? bíi statement ril PRS lámála stroke/caress with woman ruleth cat-OBJ wa observed-truth bíi ril lámála with ruleth wa statement PRS stroke/caress woman cat-OBJ observed-truth The woman strokes the cat bóo REQ wil HYP di speak/say le I neth you-OBJ bóo wil di le neth REQ HYP speak/say I you-OBJ I would like to speak with you, please. bíi statement aril FUT meleyan PL-be-brown ra NEG lanemid dog wáa received-truth bíi aril meleyan ra lanemid wáa statement FUT PL-be-brown NEG dog received-truth I hear the dogs will not be brown bíi statement ril PRS le I an know hé embedded-clause-marker eril PAST ne you bethudeha cave-at wa observed-truth bíi ril le an hé eril ne bethudeha wa statement PRS I know embedded-clause-marker PAST you cave-at observed-truth I know that you were at the cave Láadan has an agglutinative morphology, and uses a number of affixes to indicate various feelings and moods that many natural languages can only indicate by tone of voice, body language or circumlocution.
 The speech-act particle, at the beginning of a sentence, can also carry several suffixes, which expand on the overall state of the sentence. For example, bíi begins a statement, but bíide begins a statement that is part of a narrative; bóoth begins a request made in pain; báada begins a question that is meant in jest.
 Pronouns in Láadan are built up from a number of constituent parts. The consonant l marks the first person, n the second person and b the third person. Usually, these are followed by the vowel e. The vowel a is used to designate someone who is loved (lhe- is prefixed to describe someone who is despised). The suffix -zh is used to mark a plural pronoun for numbers up to four, and -n for numbers beyond that. Therefore, lazh means "we, several beloved", and lheben means "they, many despised".