American Indian Langauges & Linguistics

The field of linguistics is wide-reaching, with many sub-fields and expands across varied academic disciplines. I am currntly working on my Ph.D in linguistics. My main focus is Language Preservation, Documentaiton & Reviatlaization especially in native communities in the United States. My main research interest also focus on the inter-generaltional transmition of Dine Bizaad (Navajo), and adult acqusition/learning of polysynthetic langauges. If you have an interest in learning a Native American langauge or a general interest in linguistics, this blog is for you :D Main Blog: @armyofmeanwhiles-and-neverweres

[mamapluto]

ATTENTION

The US government just killed Lezmond Mitchell, a Native American man.

It is against the law for the US Government to order the death of a tribal citizen without the approval of the corresponding sovereign Nation's approval. The Navajo Nation (to whom Mitchell belongs) actively campaigned against his execution. This is the first execution of a Native American by the occupying US government in modern times.

This is a Big Fucking Deal.

[pronouncingitwang]

article with more on the topic: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/us-government-executes-only-native-american-on-death-row-despite-calls-from-tribal-leaders-to-the-president-for-clemency/ar-BB18o19g?OCID=ansmsnnews11

[blacklinguist]

@ langblr:

y’all need to get it through your heads that there is nothing acultural and/or apolitical about languages themselves, nor about language learning. surprise, you do not live within the confines of your own mind and notebook. a process so inherently multi-faceted as linguistic communication is bound to have complex ties in regard to the speakers and the learners. do not divorce people from their words. 

[mupemba-deactivated20250126]

And yet they continue to use flags to represent languages, and promote politically/socially dominate languages and ethnocentrism when it comes to languages spoken in the African contient 🤧

[injerinya-deactivated20200819]

So I’m just going to give a small reading list with links for languages in Africa, because apparently it’s “hard” to find introductory resources even if they’re niche. So:

• “The Languages and Linguistics of Africa” (2018); Güldemann ed.

• “Beyond ‘Khoisan’: Historical Relations in the Kalahari Basin” (2014); Güldemann & Fehn ed.

• “ The Bantu Languages (Second Edition)” (2019); Van de Velde, Bostoen, Nurse, & Philippson ed.

• “Egyptian-Coptic Linguistics in Typological Perspective” (2015); Grossman, Haspelmath, & Richter

• “Dotawo: Journal of Nubian Studies (vol. 1)” (2014); Jakobi, Ruffini, & van Gerven Oei ed.

• “Negotiating and Contesting Identities in Linguistic Landscapes” (2016); Blackwood, Lanza, & Woldemariam ed.

• “Historical Linguistics and the Comparative Study of African Languages” (2011); Dimmendaal

• “Nilo-Saharan: Models and Descriptions” (2015); Mietzner & Storch ed.

Of course, this doesn’t cover the entire breadth (minus Güldemann 2018) and there does need to be a degree of critical reading that’ll surely lead you to a plethora of other paths and so forth—but I chose these mainly because of either their broad reach, or their familiarity. Like I said, they’re good starting points and just always remember Nilo-Saharan is not a valid phylum. Also, yes these are all works from the 2010’s but all of them do require again, critical reading! I cannot say that enough.

I could list for days the grammars I myself would recommend and am in possession of but if those are what you’re looking for, message me an ask or something and I’ll see what I got.

[tariqah]

Ma-ia hi

Ma-ia ho

Ma-ia ha

Ma-ia ha ha

[tariqah]

alo

Salut

[yuuri-akatsuki]

sunt eu

un… haiduc???

[wolfsteax]

dont you sick fucks make me relive this

[zanimez]

SI TE ROG…. IUBIREA MEA PRIMESTE  FERICIEEEEEAAAA  

[saipng]

ALO?

Alo?

sunt eu

PICASSO

[acidwaste]

ti-am dat beep

si sunt voinic

[iuuubire-deactivated20210607]

Dar sa stii nu-ti cer nimic😂😂😂

VREI SA PLECI DAR

[velvetrotangel]

Nu mă, nu mă ieei

[rrosetum]

NU MĂ, NU MĂ IEI

[contrainous]

nu mă, nu mă, nu mă iei

[acid-wash-and-lemonade]

I have no idea what happened here

[dangerbooze]

Lucky bastard. It’s stuck in my head now

[spelviin]

CHIPUL TAU SI DRAGOSTEA DIN TEI 

[fifty-shades-of-umbridge]

Mya mintesc day oki tay-yay

[apartment-witch]

am i having a stroke

[walks-the-ages]

What is this? What is this from? Why do thousands of people know what this is. Apparently it’s Romanian. What is it??

[accessibleposts]

They’re the lyrics to the song Dragostea Din Tei by Moldovan pop group O-zone. It was a very popular song in the early 2000s

[cannabisexual]

We’ve finally reached the point where the old memes are too old for today’s generation… Fs in the chat.

[rescue-ram]

For any wretched zoomers…one of the original viral videos aka the finest of vintage memes

[tygermama]

We must not despair as long as we are here, we can teach the children about the ancient texts

[whitepeopletwitter]

[pseudodesigner]

[sameboot]

This is such an important and genuinely terrifying post. I could completely go off on the rise of anti-science, but for now I’ll just add: it isn’t just boomers that get deceived. This is a warning to all of us.

Pay ATTENTION to what you are being told. If you think you cannot be deceived, you leave yourself open to deception. Question, doubt, research research research. Learn about your personal biases, dig up any subconscious cognitive dissonance. Keep an eye on your mind.

[blackwoolncrown]

IT’S NOT JUST BOOMERS THOUGH

THERE IS NO WAY TO MAKE GOOD USE OF POINTLESS GENERATIONAL DIVISIONS WHICH BTW DO NOT *ACTUALLY* EXIST IN MEAT-VERSE. THERE IS NO AGE LIMIT TO BEING RADICALIZED BY SHITTY PRAXIS. YOU ARE NOT IMMUNE TO PROPAGANDA.

[injerinya-deactivated20200819]

Anyone else ever read a grammar and just kinda thought “why is this an example?”. Like the grammar for Xamt’anga has the example:

• [ajɨβɨɲɲə mɨd͡ʒi ŋɨrlɨwərtis ɡizurit͡ʃ] ‘A girl as timid as a rabbit will be impregnated by her brother-in-law’

And while I understand from a cultural perspective what this is trying to say, because my own culture and Xamir culture are related, but this is just... look this is jarring if you don’t get what it’s actually trying to say. There is other examples of ablative case (which is marked by the suffix /-is/) that aren’t as you know, wow.

[injerinya-deactivated20200819]

Oh and the grammar of Jiddu, which is in German, uses ‘schwanz’ for penis and just.... okay then. Your wordlist is already short but I guess including the word for penis was a matter of urgency.

[fusdoq]

now I am curious to know the cultural context of such a sentence!

[injerinya-deactivated20200819]

Shy women aren’t noticed by men and hence don’t find a husband as easily.

[therussianmajor]

*is trained in Chomskian/generative linguistics but works with indigenous languages so is very aware how shit his theories are*

[therussianmajor]

Sure! So Chomskian/generative linguistics, especially his theories of syntax (both Minimalism and P&P), are verrrrrry English-centric, at best Euro-centric. Chomsky is not multilingual and frankly he doesn’t care about languages outside of his purview. He’s moved on from linguistic theory to neurolinguistics, so the theories will never be revised by him/it’s up to modern linguists to fix our theories. The syntactic phenomena of many, many languages, especially non-Indo-European languages, do not easily fit in to generative theories. What might explain English or French in a few steps would take pages upon pages upon pages of mental gymnastics to explain some (*cough* the majority *cough*) of the world’s languages. Why stick with this when we can modify/specify/develop new theories that are not decades old?

@joghurtbrot @pardon-my-venting

[therussianmajor]

*is trained in Chomskian/generative linguistics but works with indigenous languages so is very aware how shit his theories are*

[official-portugal]

twitter

[belldomar]

A quick translation:

Dude: OK, guys, let’s assign the disasters. Hum, tsunami. Who wants the tsunami?

2004: Yeah, I’ll have the tsunami.

Dude: OK, 2004 has the tsunami. 2012, do you still want the asteroid?

2012: Nah, no need.

Dude: Cool, let’s schedule that for 2030. OK, 2020, I have-

2020: FIRES.

Dude: OK, we can do fires, no problem-

2020: NUCLEAR TENSION.

Dude: Fires and… nuclear tension?

2020: PANDEMIC.

Dude: 2020, you can’t just- just have EVERYTHING-

2020: KOBE BRYANT DIES IN A HELICOPTER ACCIDENT.

1986: Wh-who’s Kobe Bryant?

1347: Heli-what?

Dude: So, you’re asking for fires, nuclear tension, a pandemic AND the death of basketball legend in your year!?

2020: TILL MARCH.

Dude: C’mon. Guys, help me with this.

1986: I would say something, but… CHERNOBYL! Oops, am I right?

2014: At least you still have the twin towers.

2000: Wait, what do you mean?

1347: I agree that 2020 is pushing it-

1945: YOU’RE LITERALLY- You’re the high point of the Bubonic plague!

1347: Oh, much apologies, Sir TWO ATONIC BOMBS!

1945: It’s ATOMIC, you f*ing medieval-

1347: Who are you calling medieval, G.I. Joe. Go play with your-

1945: Here we go again-

2000: Now, seriously, what-

1: Y’all want BREAD?!

1347, with a funny accent: Look at me! I have ME.DI.CI.NE.

[weaselle]

the comedic timing really carries even when you don’t speak the language

[provst-deactivated20190401]

“Bilingualism strikes me as a kind of synesthesia. Instead of seeing colors associated with letters and words, instead of hearing melodies, what I hear with language is the play and echo of the other language. The option to say it differently, and thus to live it differently. Language is not only a means of communication or description. It’s a framework in which we process existence. Yi writes: “It is hard to feel in an adopted language, yet it is impossible in my native language.” As every bilingual person and translator knows, there are certain words—a feeling, a way of being—that is absent in one language but perfectly brought to life in another. A word that, by existing, gives permission to be. What if you need that which does not exist in your language?”

— Yoojin Grace Wuertz, “Mother Tongue”

[jackalopiel]

I love people with obscure knowledge or useless academic insights. I want to hear your analysis of lighting in Ratatouille. Tell me about the history of soda pop or the references to classical mythology in Macbeth. I want to know about the underlying homoerotic context of that 1930s sci-fi paperback. I think all knowledge is worthwhile knowledge. Explain to me the ecosystems that komodo dragons inhabit. Don't be afraid to learn for the sake of learning.

[thoodleoo]

a list of very good greek mice names from the battle of the frogs and the mice

Ψιχάρπαξ- crumbsnatcher

Τρωξάρτης- breadnibbler

Πτερνοτρώκτος- hamnibbler

Λειχοπίναξ- platelicker

᾿Εμβασίχυτρος- bowl-visitor

Τυρογλύφος- cheesecarver

Τρωγλοδύτης- hider-in-the-hole

Τυροφάγος- cheese-eater

Μεριδάρπαξ- sliversnatch

[thoodleoo]

the battle of the frogs and the mice! it’s an ancient greek parody of the iliad (some ancient sources even claim that homer himself wrote it, which is impossible but also incredibly charming to imagine)

the plot is that crumbsnatcher, the prince of the mice, stops for a drink of water and meets the king of the frogs, who offers him a tour of his kingdom. but when crumbsnatcher is riding the king’s back through the pond, a snake appears! the frog king goes under the water to avoid it, drowning crumbsnatcher in the process, so the mice declare war on the frogs

it features all the things you’d expect in an epic (epic language, scenes of putting on armor, and even an aristeia for the mice), and it has the most delightful conclusion when zeus prevents the mice from killing all the frogs by throwing a thunderbolt at them and, when that doesn’t work, sending crabs to scare them

sententia antiquae has a delightful translation of it here!

[dankmemeuniversity]

[charlesoberonn]

"Your brain increases its wisdom, but your heart increases its stupidity" is a beautiful line.

[marsupials-of-mars]

I'm partial to "you are entirely a star child!"

[espressotrashcan]

This has STUNNING implications for how formal we perceive biblical language vs how informal it probably was irl

[asustainablefuture]

A Selk’nam couple with their baby, on a ship en route to be exhibited in Europe as “wildmen”. The Selk’nam people are an indigenous tribe in the Patagonian region of Southern Argentina and Chile. Both appear to have slight damage on their ankles from cruel, probably iron, restraints.

The fear and confusion on their face is haunting. For people who had lived a simple hunting and gathering lifestyle, with little European interaction, the rest of their lives must’ve seemed like a surreal nightmare. 

[9secretsigns]

White History

[neoamericana]

Abducted by aliens.

[jcoleknowsbest]

Smh

[euthanizeallwhitepeople-deactiv]

White history

[black-creole-queen-deactivated2]

I really want to know who these people are/what happened to them

[black-creole-queen-deactivated2]

SO I DID A BIT OF DIGGING AND HOLY SHIT. THE SELK’HAM PEOPLE WERE WIPED OUT IN A MASS GENOCIDE.

LIKE… THEY ARE NO MORE. THE DESCENDENTS OF THIS COUPLE DO NOT EXIST.

AN ENTIRE LANGUAGE. AN ENTIRE CUISINE. AN ENTIRE WAY OF LIFE. WIPED AWAY.

YA’LL WANT SOME FUCKING WHITE HISTORY MONTH? HERE IS SOME GOD DAMN WHITE HISTORY FOR YOU TO PUT NEXT TO ALL THOSE SHINNY IMAGES OF THESE WHITE MEN WHO “DISCOVERED THE WORLD”.

HANG THIS IMAGE IN ALL THE DAMN CLASSROOMS. I’M DONE.

[punchholesinthesky]

In tierra del fuego theres a museum, they were alive until the early 20th century when they were hunted down, the landlords? ( terratenientes) Hired US hunters with experience in killing natives

and paid them for like ears and boobs i believe? Some were taken to europe to be civilized or gawked at.

Jose menendez and his wife sara braun are recognised as the authors of the genocide. There’s a lot of statues, houses, streets, they built most of punta arenas so their name remains.

However, in october 2019 the main statue in the town square was beheaded, the head left at the foot of the indio patagon with the legebd “ braun menendez asesinos”

Important to remember, the selk'nam werent the only one. Patagonia was full of small tribes, and they were all exterminated. Their culture, language, history, way of life, all gone.

Because european settlers wanted space to raise sheep and get rich.

[balzabul]

I remember seeing many maaaany years ago like within my first years of Tumblr, a handy post/chart for learning the differences between shared (and unshared) symbols used in Chinese, Korean and Japanese, and so I wanted to throw something together quick to help people learn the differences between languages using the Arabic script– they’re not all Arabic!! These are just some of the more common ones you see online.

Many many languages use a modified Arabic script, and I couldn’t possibly detail each and every one, so here are links to some info about others as well! Including:

Azerbaijani

Sindhi

Balochi

Luri

Mandinka

Arabi Malayalam

Kyrgyz

Pegon script (Javanese, Madurese, Sundanese)

This is also just a basic list of all languages current using a modified Arabic script in one way or another

[wouldvebeenking]

Tag Game

I was tagged by @langblrblunder. Thank you!! I haven’t done one of these :D

Rules: answer 20 questions and then tag 20 bloggers you want to get to know better

Name: Kevan

Nickname: Yoshi/KJ/Kev 

Zodiac Sign: Scorpio / Monkey 

Height: 5′7″

Languages spoken: English (native), Navajo (Intermediate), Korean (Beginner), Swahili (beginner), Spanish (Beginner). 

Nationality: Diné (Navajo | Native American/American Indian)

Favorite Season: Autumn/Fall

Favorite Flower: Roses (specifically ‘Joseph’s Coat’)

Favorite Scent: Lemon / Sandalwood / Cinnamon / Bread baking 

Favorite Color: Purple / Grey / Gold / Copper / Turquoise 

Favorite Animal: Sharks and arthropods (specifically: spiders, centipedes, scorpions) 

Favorite Fictional Character: Greed (Full Metal Alchemist) 

Coffee, Tea or Hot Chocolate? All Three!!! I like Wulong/Oolong/Sheng tea, and coffee with creamer, and hot chocolate :D

Average Sleep Hours: 6-8

Dog or Cat Person? Never had a cat or dog. Wouldn't mind having either. 

Number of blankets you sleep with? One thick blanket. 

Dream Trip? I’ve always wanted to to to S. Korea. 

Blog Established? I have no idea lol. Tried finding it but couldn’t find anything.

Number of Followers? 196

Random fact: I’ve been playing Minecraft Dungeons for the past couple weeks on PC. Anyone want to play with me???

I tag: @therussianmajor, and @sprachgefuehle(I’m not very good at tagging others, but consider yourself tagged if interested!)

[professorsparklepants]

Tolkien and Lewis are both products of their times & their sexism exerts itself in different ways but my favorite is how every individual Narnia book has the same number of named female characters as the entire LOTR series combined. It’s so fucking funny.

[professorsparklepants]

Second place goes to Lewis being deathly allergic to the concept of girls touching a sword and Tolkien just handing one to Éowyn and telling her to go fuck up the witch king

[july-19th-club]

Tolkien had less girls overall but they were uniformly more liberated bc they were all based on his wife and he drank loving-my-wife juice daily meanwhile Lewis was born again so he was only allowed to legally respect a very specific type of woman

[crockpotcauldron]

@elodieunderglass

[elodieunderglass]

With apologies for the poor image quality and accessibility , here is an extract from a publication called “Books, Theology and Hens: the Correspondence and Friendship between Dorothy Sayers and C.S. Lewis”. (It’s available by direct download only so you’ll have to Google the title and download the pdf if you want to read it.)

A PERSON WITH HIS LIMITATIONS

[mathamaniac]

p.p1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px 'Helvetica Neue'}

Transcript:

First quote:

This last disagreement highlights a fact that to this point we’ve ignored: that Lewis was a man and Sayers was a woman, yet they became friends. This reality seems important to address for two reasons: (1) Lewis brings up the difficulties of male-female friendships in his own writing, and (2) much discussion has occurred in recent Lewis scholarship around his attitudes toward and relationships with women. In The Four Loves, Lewis notes that because friendships arise among companions, in “most societies at most periods Friendship will be between men and men or between women and women” (72); however, he goes on to say that “where men and women work side by side, or in the mission field, or among authors and artists, such Friendship is common” (72). Thus, Lewis would have viewed his friendship with Sayers (along with his friendships with other women like Ruth Pitter and Sister Penelope) as entirely natural. As Alan Jacobs notes, “the tone he uses with female writers such as Dorothy Sayers and female scholars such as Helen Gardner and Joan Bennett is fully as respectful and serious as the tone he uses with their male counterparts, though it is sometimes a bit more courtly” (255). In spite of this, though Sayers maintained friendships with several of the Inklings, she would not have been welcomed in their weekly meetings at the pub or in Lewis’s rooms due to basic social proprieties of the day.

Second quote:

To the second point, Lewis’s attitude toward women, Sayers’s letters shed interesting light on that topic. As we noted earlier, she often recommends Lewis’s books to her friends, but these recommendations come with qualifications. Writing too Mrs. Robert Darby, for example, she states, “I do admit that he is apt to write shocking nonsense about women and marriage. (That, however, is not because he is a bad theologian but because he is a rather frightened bachelor.)” (Letter, May 31, 1948). Similarly, she writes to Barbara Reynolds about Lewis: “One just has to accept the fact that there is a complete blank in his mind where women are concerned. Charles Williams and his other married friends used to sit round him at Oxford and tell him so, but there really isn’t anything to be done about it. He is not hostile, and he does his best, and actually, for a person with his limitations I think he didn’t do too badly with the Lady in Perelandra” (December 21, 1955). Finally, we note that the author of a recent study on Lewis and gender argues that Lewis’s views on gender slowly changed over time and that the change “owed much to the intellectual and Christian ties he forged with Dorothy L. Sayers, a woman of his own class and educational background” (Van Leeuwen, 12).

[elodieunderglass]

Oh well done! I will reblog this accessible version.

[frislander-deactivated20220305]

This is I think why I tend to be somewhat forgiving with these older writers when it comes to gender.

Also Dorothy L. Sayers is a great author in her own right, The Nine Tailors is still a great read even today.