A great book for looking into the origins of language and how it reflects our relationship with the animate world is “The Spell of the Sensuous” by David Abrahms. Check it out.
Wears-the-helmet-of-the-gods (AKA Willem),
Can you think of an exercise(s) that one could do to help learn E-primitive?
I just keep thinking how crazy it seems to attempt to re-verbize english. I mean, the more words we change, the longer and crazier sentences become…
I really want to grasp this… but I feel troubled by it. This may sound stupid, but whatever…
Say I wanted to say, “I traveled to the store today,” in E-primitive.
If the word “traveled” changed to “leg-lifted”
“Store” changed to “lot’s-food”
and “today” changed to “sun-in-sky.”
I could say, “Scout leg-lifted lot’s-food sun-in-sky.”
But we take it further. What if
“Food” changed to “goes-in-mouth”
What if “sun” changed to “fire-ball”
“Sky” to “blue-above”
Then it may sound like this, “Scout leg-lifted lots-goes-in-mouth fire-ball-in-blue-above.”
What if “mouth” turned into “hole-in-face”
“Scout leg-lifted lots-goes-in-hole-in-face fire-ball-in-blue-above.”
And on and on. Although I don’t see anything I wrote above as E-primitive, or even remotely close, it does make me realize why they had layered words and metaphors. Things could get pretty complex when you try to spell everything out in one run-on sentence.
Hotspring,
I just got Spell of the Sensuous in the mail, per Willems recommendation.
Ha ha. Fun stuff, Scout and Penny. And I agree, animalhands, that it looks very similar to the whole buddhist nonduality paradigm. Don’t get me started on my anti-buddhist rant though! Just kidding. Sorta.
To tell you the truth Scout, I think you deconstructed English too much. You run into a problem here, that conventional English has a rhythm and sound that pleases the native (non-indigenously - I mean someone born into it) speaker’s ear, and if you change it, it “clangs”. For example, no one has to teach you grammar, you know it instinctively. Ebonics has a very consistent grammatical system, even though we consider it “dumbed-down english”.
Just look at “nouns” as “verbs”; re-verbify them. I should have said in my last post (for example), not that ‘talêpês’ means to “act like coyote”, but rather it means “to coyote”. As in, I coyote, you coyote, he coyotes, we coyote, they coyote, ‘they coyoted across the field’.
We do this all the time in English. He ‘fishtailed’ all over the road. I ‘cupped’ the water in my hand. Let’s ‘table’ that vote. We can just do it more and more, staying aware that the nouns speak more accurately when used to describe a pattern of appearance or movement.
So, “I traveled to the store today”, could work just fine, if you think of “store” as a verb (to “store” boxes). Think about it - those U-Store rental places actually have quite the e-primitive ring to it…they’ve named themselves after the pattern of activity that best describes their business.
Actually, that demonstrates some unconscious brilliance on their part. Never thought of that before.
To change “traveled” to “leg lifted” doesn’t make it more accurate, in my mind. One lift’s one leg to pee (dog), to do excercises (leg lifts), to put one’s pants on, to step over things. I would imagine that if you wanted to make “traveled” more descriptive you could either use more involving verbs like “ambled” “strolled” “jetted” “trotted”. Think about it in terms of tracking…how exactly did you travel to the store? In what “gait”? That might rewild it a little bit.
Changing “sun” to “fire-ball” just changes it from one noun to another. To verbify it you could say “it shines”, but really, you could also just use sun as a verb. We already do it. “The cat sunned himself on the porch”. I wouldn’t change today anyway…it acts more as a time marker than a usable noun.
Not to criticize what you wrote, of course. The play of it makes it worth while. The most important game I play:
Whenever I track, or observe, I look at the world in terms of its activity. Like David Abram says in Spell of the Sensuous, colors beckon and grab my senses, inspire feelings. Dirt doesn’t just sit inertly on the ground, it consists of living tissue, quite literally. Concrete doesn’t just lay there, it holds-me-up, it sweats moisture.
I’ve got an idea: every time you notice yourself looking at something as if it just “exists”, as an object, I want you to come up with all the ways that it actively interacts with the world. For example, a glass cup not only contains liquid, or air, but the glass that forms the cup oozes downward at an imperceptible rate (those who’ve studied chemistry will know that glass behaves as a liquid). Also, the glass may have fingerprints on it, or scratches, that slowly age. Also, it refracts light in diverse ways. Old glasses will have more character than young, freshly crafted ones. Etc. Remember, if you hold the glass, it pushes back with an equal and opposite reaction. The glass literally vibrates at an atomic level. Everything enacts patterns of movement.
Just play with looking at the world in this way. It’ll totally screw with you, but it’ll shoot your tracking through the roof.
And funny how quickly this way of observing/interacting takes you right into the heart of animism.
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Thank you for sharing with us, Willem!
I have a question for you: what does e-primitive language mean for possessive terms such as my, your, our, his, hers, Willem’s, Dandelion’s, etc.?
Also, as Hotspring has helped remind me in another posting, we can learn a lot about our beliefs by our language and what we spontaneously say/write. By examining our language, we grow as people.
Another interesting phenomenon: today’s people seem to forget (or conveniently alter) at an accelerating rate what words originally stood for and/or do not understand the origins of words. Our words don’t ground us in place, they are transportable over time and space, meaning new things to new people, as it serves them, further alienating us from our real experiences.
We throw words around and down (on paper/screen) freely without really taking the time to craft them. I know I do that. Did/do native peoples speak differently? Less quantity more quality, if you know what I mean?
This discussion fascinates me.
Willem, you have great genius.
Thanks for your deconstruction and answers; just what I sought.
I began to think in terms of gaits. I didn’t “gallop” to the store. Or “diagonal walk.” Then I began to think about how animals move, and which animal I could say I moved like. Then I remembered that I rode my bike, and that’s when I used a noun-verb to make this sentence e-primitive:
I pedaled to the store today.
See! I can do it!
Yay! I like it. Have you tried the experiment of seeing “objects” as active subjects yet?
Wow. Willem, thanks so much for sharing your thoughts here. Beautiful!
[quote=“dandelion, post:10, topic:91”]Thank you for sharing with us, Willem!
I have a question for you: what does e-primitive language mean for possessive terms such as my, your, our, his, hers, Willem’s, Dandelion’s, etc.?[/quote]
Excellent, excellent question, one I think about a lot.
I bet you can guess my personal first instinct…Rewild the noun! In Mohawk, familial relations work as verbs…he-fathers-me…I-grandchild-her. If you’ve ever had someone ask “Who’s this?” in reference to your mother and tried to answer in e-prime, you can see the pickle it puts you in. “Uh…she gave birth to me?” "She raised me? Really, what she does you can best describe as “mothering” you. How easily e-primitive solves the stupid (a little emotion here, heh) question, “who are my real parents?” or “You’re not my Mother!!”. Does she mother you or not? A word which we already use that way in English from time to time. Others… A pet “isn’t a pet”, they keep you company (companion). In Chinuk wawa, you say “mitlayt kupa naika” or “such-and-such living being/‘object’ sits with me”.
I’ve played with our local trade jargon and speak it with all nouns as reflexive verbs as much as I can. Example: “We-family-ourselves”, “Nêsmêstilikêm” – “Our family”.
Also, as Hotspring has helped remind me in another posting, we can learn a lot about our beliefs by our language and what we spontaneously say/write. By examining our language, we grow as people.
I believe this very firmly.
I can’t recommend enough the following books if animist languaging fascinates you:
Spell of the Sensuous, David Abram
Wisdom Sits in Places, Keith Basso
Any book by Martin Prechel
Animism, Graham Harvey
the Hobbit Companion, David Day
And of course, dip into any traditional (not neo-evangelical, a common problem with indigenous grammars) indigenous language teaching guide for loads of fascinating tidbits.
It really excites me that this interests so many folks here. Thanks for expressing it. If you don’t know already, I write about this all the time at the website listed in the sig below.
I bet you can guess my personal first instinct...Rewild the noun!
Thank you for answering my question. Funny that you chose “mothering” as one example. I just love that word…
Just thinking how much nicer “he/she-loves-me” sounds than MY lover… leave the possesion out of it.
It really excites me that this interests so many folks here. Thanks for expressing it. If you don't know already, I write about this all the time at the website listed in the sig below.
Oh, great… more books to add to my list… 
I’ll have to check out your website, too.
Here are some examples of native language I ran across today describing an Onieda business in Wisconsin for selling their corn products:
-The traditional Oneida farm is called Tsyunhehkwa (“Life Sustenance,” or more literally “It provides life for us”).
-The Production Division is termed Agricultural and Community Services, or Shakoh^ta?slu.nÃÂhe? (“He prepares the fields for them”).
-The Processing Division is based in the Community Cannery, or Tsi?tkutekhwa.y^hé (“Where they put the food away”).
-The Distribution Division is termed Retail and Community Services, or Lutunhetsla?nikulale? (“They look after all living things”).
from http://academic.evergreen.edu/g/grossmaz/nativeag.html
Notice how much friendlier and life giving the native translations sound as compared to the white business language. Imagine if instead of having a customer service representative you had something like “she loves to help you”.
And something else: “In England, the word “bramble” is used as a verb; the expression ‘going brambling’ means going Blackbery picking.”
-A City Herbal, Maida Silverman
Dandelion:
Ha ha. Yeah, I like mothering a lot. Funny how “fathering” connotes just insemination, but “mothering” connotes ongoing nurturing, rather than just giving birth or carrying to term.
Penny Scout:
Beautiful examples! So true, too. They feel so vital, and simple, and alive, and the English translations so jargony, technical, and life-less. Who really wants to belong to an ‘anarcho-syndicalist commune’? But who wouldn’t want to belong to a ‘they-cherish-each-other-together’, or a “they-celebrate-eat-sleep-in-family-together”?
Can anyone think of a “wilder” word for cool, awesome, sweet, etc.? If so I would start using it. I guess in some instances “wild” is synonymous with cool but I was thinking of more like Lord of the Flies where the boys call neat/good/cool things “wizard”. Except not wizard but coyote or something.
I think “coyote” is a good word for clever things and for being tricksy.
“I don’t know how the hell that coyote coyoted his way into our stash. I thought we’d hid it pretty coyotily. Oh well, I guess it’s pretty tough to out-coyote a coyote.”
yeah i don’t know. what animals are cool? judging by the childrens letters to santa the coolest wild animals are coyotes, wolves, eagles and snakes. That’s what they all ask for. I would use eagle to describe something big much like the word horse is used for robust plants, horsemint, horsechestnut. Like, “man that’s a fucking eagle crow, are you sure it’s not a raven?” Wolf is a good word, short like" cool", but badass like “wicked”… but I think the way I pronounce it people would just think I was saying “woof.”
Bow.
Bough.
Bo (like the tree the buddha sat under when he turned special)
I overheard this used once as what seemed like a positive modifier. Her exact words, “That’s so bo.” I don’t know what was so bo, or what she meant by that, & It confused me because I’d been of walking and biking in a different state intoning BOOOOOOOOO for like, months.
Perhaps she meant “bo” as in french for beau-tiful, “beau”.
I’ve linguisted for a while, and have experimented with some friends a bit with language, especially relating to place. I don’t really know much about indigenous language, though; we have been crafting things from scratch and based on what other languages I speak. Do many indigenous languages have the concept of finished and unfinished action, or is it more fluid? When I first started creating words, I went for the simplistic approach, for the convenience and ease of learning: take the basics of communication, and get rid of all superfluous vocab. For example, germanic and romance languages use a distinction between singular and plural nouns, but japanese doesn’t differentiate between them, and the japanese communicate just fine. Therefore we didn’t actually need singular and plural usage to communicate. This distillation created a very utilitarian and easy to learn language, a useful characteristic to a person learning it as a second language. However, working within the limits of civilized languages limited my perception as well, especially with regard to the passage of time. Romance languages use crazy amounts of tenses; english less so; japanese even less. How do indigenous languages express time?
Roxy
Hey Roxy!
Their concept of time seems to differ from language to language…Mohawk has a quite elaborate system of past tenses. One thing I have noticed involves a (near?) universal theme of not defining the future…saying “i will go catch a fish” involves such prophetic arrogrance, apparently, that it seems a rather modern notion. ‘I will go fishing’, however, reflects what one can actually control. In Chinuk jargon you can’t say ‘I want to go fishing’, you can only say ‘I will’, another odd layer. One can’t impotently ‘wish’ for a future activity, one either will do it, or not.
Benjamin Lee Whorf has lots of interesting things to say about Hopi concepts of past/present/future activity, in his book Language, Thought, and Reality. He says they divide the world into ‘manifest’ and ‘unmanifest’. Present and past falls into ‘manifest’, that which we can see manifested around us. The future growth of a tree, or prayers, or a not-yet-arrived season, falls into ‘unmanifested’. He insisted the importance of the distinction here, between a ‘manifestation’ paradigm, and a ‘time-line’ paradigm. One also refers to one’s thoughts and in the ‘unmanifested’ tense. If I understood it better, I’d go on about it more, it sounds so intriguing. Manifest and Unmanifest have no particular ‘order’ (as in one coming first and the other second), they simply denote our relationshiop to experience and observation. I feel like I should go dig the book up and give this a better description…I’ll probably learn more from another crack at it.
I find these semantic (semantic signifying ‘meaning’, not ‘pickyness’, an unfortunate and absurd connotation) differences between indigenous and modern languages fascination. One time, studying a little Lakota, I read in Albert White Hat’s Lakota instruction book an anectdote about some Lakota adults and a couple of teenagers at a community center. Everyone speaking in lakota, the teenager had just finished giving voicing some opinion. One of the elders leaned into another and murmured, “he speaks pretty good english”. Meaning: everything we take for granted in english, the ‘it’ of objectified reality, the preponderance of nouns, even the order in which our language conceives and speaks about reality, marks it as a profoundly different mental activity than the indigenous. Thus people talk about three different Lakota languages: Urban, Evangelical, and Traditional. The urban and evangelical share sounds and some structure, perhaps, with Traditional, but it ends there. Just think what would happen to hopi if urban schooled hopi kids decided that ‘manifested’ just meant ‘past tense’, and changed their languaging accordingly. You’d lose an entire sphere of wisdom and perspective.
Like Buffy!! ;D