Re: I was on the line to John

Evan Kirshenbaum wrote:

Purl Gurl wrote:
Evan Kirshenbaum wrote:
Purl Gurl wrote:

(snipped)

Here is my original context for readers,

Choctaw, like all American Indian tongues, and like many other
languages, save for English, makes use of good common sense and
highly descriptive single words.

This is true, always. However, rather obvious I am not an expert on
all Indian languages, so my "always" can be challenged.

Okay, then perhaps you can say what you mean by "good common sense and
highly descriptive single words". Or the contrary.

Evan, I want to be sure you understand I am not writing you are
wrong about these topics. I am not in disagreement with you.
I support your thoughts but these are very complex issues. I am
not sure we can arrive on the same page without both of us first
reading the entire book.

Here is a classic Choctaw word, which means "car" today.

chanaha - car (we say "iti chanaha" - the car)

However, true interpretation is "rolling wood wheel" - iti chanaha

As you, Evan, can easily surmise, this Choctaw word can be applied
to many "things" which are wheeled, wagon, coach, chariot, barrow,
car, truck, and others such as the two wheeled buggy, I cannot think
of the proper name, these are raced at horse race tracks; only two
wheels and a horse harness.

This is good common sense because we do not need all those words
I have listed just prior. Chanaha covers all those variations
and more. Our chanaha is a highly descriptive word; one word fits
dozens of case examples.

I would expect you to ask, "How do you distinguish between things?"
This is when understanding Choctaw and American Indians becomes very
complex; alien to Anglo-Saxon cultures.

We deal with "right now" and those things immediately in our presence.
You and I are standing next to a car, I say, "iti chanana achukma," which
is in English, "the pretty car." However, in Choctaw, I have said to you,
"rolling wood wheel pretty." You know I am referring to this car because
this car is right there, right now, in front of us.

This car has a pretty trailer attached. How is this handled? Very easy,
I look at the trailer, or gesture to the trailer, "iti chanana achukma."
You know I am referring to the trailer through a personal physical act.
Same "rolling wood wheel" but a different object.

So the trailer has a pretty 1957 Chevy loaded on top. I look at it or
hand gesture to it, but you are not sure if I am gesturing to the
trailer or the '57 Chevy, "iti chanana achukma paknaka." Now I have
said "rolling wood wheel pretty above." This interprets in English,
"The car on the trailer is pretty."

There is much more to this, but should I keep writing, readers will
become frustrated. Point is one word, chanaha, serves for virtually
any device which is wheeled and land bound. We do not worry about
"what type" of device because we only need to look; this device is
right there, right now, cannot miss seeing this thing.

I write "land bound" because our expression for airplane is,
"flying metal thing" and our metal is not Anglo-Saxon typical.

I am certain you now understand my meaning about common sense
and highly descriptive single words; chananta - things with wheels.
Common sense is we do not add a multitude of words to sort out things
with wheels, no, we simply look at this thing; common sense.


Evan, English is almost the most complex language we know.

Can't be. My son learned it pretty well before he was five. I, on
the other hand, spent several weeks banging my head against Navajo one
summer when I was 19 or 20 and didn't get very far.

If English is not complex, we would have no topics to discuss.
There would be no basis for this newsgroup.

Anyone who wants to see how "simple" Indian languages can be should
check out the "grammar" section of

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Navajo_language

There are seven verb "modes" (marked with five suffixes):
imperfective, perfective, progressive, future, usitative, iterative,
and optative. There are twelve primary aspects, also marked:
momentaneous, continuative, durative, repetitive, conclusive,
semelfactive, distributive, diversative, reversative, conative,
transitional, and cursive. There are eleven classifiers (solid
roundish object, load/pack/burden, non-compact matter, slender
flexible object, slender stiff object, flat flexible object, mushy
matter, plural objects 1, plural objects 2, open container, animate
object). Etc.

Reads easy to me! Notice how few major categories? seven modes, twelve
aspects and eleven classifiers. This is easy compared to English!

Navajo also has an "animacy hierarchy", which affects the word order.
According to

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_Athabascan_grammar

the word order is either subject-object-verb or object-subject-verb,
with a verb prefix indicating which is the case. But the more
animate noun has to come before the less animate noun, so it's

A mirror of Choctaw; thing, modifier, action.

A topic is also first for the same reason we pass around a peace pipe.
We do not smoke a peace pipe, we share a peace pipe. You would not want
to inhale, anyhow. Most often a peace pipe is loaded with dry buffalo chips.

A peace pipe is an agreement. Each who holds the peace pipe agrees to talk
only about a specific topic; all are of one mind. We begin a sentence, always,
with a topic. All know this topic, all are of one mind.

horse young fast female - Indian way.

young fast female horse - Anglo way.

Our Indian way, all know instantly topic is a horse.
Your English way, none know the topic until the last word.

Indians are of one mind. Anglos are scatter brained.

We also prioritize our modifiers by importance. What is most
important about a horse? Age. What is next important? Speed.
Next, gender. We want a young horse to last many years. We
want a fast horse to raid white eyes' camps. We want a female
horse to breed more horses. Common sense!


The animacy levels are "humans/lightning", "infants/big animals",
"medium-sized animals", "small animal", "insects", "natural forces",
"inanimate objects/plants, "abstractions". (Yes, lightning is in the
same classifactory level as humans.)

Perfect logic! Note sorting is by alive or not alive, then by size.
Within our world, there two types of things, living and inanimate.
Within those two things, small to large. Common sense!

Lightning is alive. This is extremely important and is a cultural
aspect. Lightning in the American southwest is frequent and mystical;
very much alive, just as the four points of the wind are alive, for
all North American Indians. These natural things have a mind and spirit.

One of the most contentious theories in linguistics today is Joseph
Greenberg's assertion that there are as few as *three* American
language families: Amerind, Na Dené, and Eskimo-Aleut. Pretty much
everybody accepts the last two, but there's somewhat violent
opposition to the notion that you can meaningfully group Moskogean
languages like Choctaw with, say, Siouan languages like Lakota or
Uto-Aztecan languages like Hopi into a single superfamily. Nobody
thinks there's any relationship to Na Dené languages like Navajo,
Apache, or other Athabaskan languages. These are as unrelated as,
say, English and Korean.

Yes, this is a very difficult issue. The most major boundary between
languages is geography. High mountains, wide rivers, deep canyons,
food stuffs and most important, distance.

During one of my Cultural Anthropology classes, I learned of two tribes
down in South America, which I will never forget. Each tribe is unique
and each tribe enjoys a unique language. These are two distinct cultures.
What sorts them is a huge river which once did not exist.

You can guess. Genetic testing proves both tribes are directly related
and not all that distant in time. Those two cultures are of the same
genetic tribes; mirror images of each other. Over time, Mother Nature
divided a single tribe, into two, by bringing in a huge river, hard
to navigate, hard to pass. With this split, language divided and
mutated into two distinct languages, not shared by both, nor are
both languages understood by both; distinct unique cultures but
directly blood related in recent time.

Yes, many American Indian tongues are as related as English and Korean;
not related at all. Nonetheless, tossed into super categories which is
a reflection of how little ethnologists understand about Indians.

This returns me to my comment, a comment which was corrected, "You
must immerse yourself within a culture to learn the language."

Language is not just words. Language is all aspects of a given culture.

Rather sad, though, you Anglos are so ass backward scatter brained.

Purl Gurl
.

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