Opinions on learning Tutelo

[spilleddi]

I know a bunch a people have expressed interest in learning whats left of Tutelo and some are learning a related language like Lakota. What I’m wondering is what is everyone specifically interested in, and how many are out there studying Tutelo and related languages.

How much do folks want to learn? Yall want to know enough of Tutelo and related languages to just get a taste of it? Is memorizing the list of 300 Tutelo words good enough? Or do you want to learn Lakota since that’s the closest language that people can get lessons on. Do you want to be fluent in Lakota, and throw in the known Tutelo words when you can? Linda has mentioned a few times, grafting the Tutelo words onto Lakota, since there isn’t enough Tutelo left to be a working language.

What do folks plan on using the language for? You want to use it for naming, making prayers or songs, chatting on the phone, writing letters, or translating a treaty into Indian?

What do folks want to see on this site? Word lists, grammer, lessons? From looking at the older links it looks like folks are still working on pronounciation. That’s were I am now. Has anyone learned and been using the Tutelo-Saponi words and phrases from the Occaneechi tribe’s links? Are the Lakota learners using Lakota amongst one another? What level of langugae use are people at?

I’m still pondering these thoughts, and was curious about other’s opinions. I speak a native language well enough to hold a conversation with a friend of mine. We practice by calling one another a few times a month, and writing letters and emails. We sing songs, go over traditional stories, and enjoy speaking it as much as possible, especially when we are out in public. People have asked us what foreign language we are speaking!

Heres a link that helps with Lakota pronounciation.
http://www.alliance2k.org/daklang1/daklang1.html

[daniel_bingamon]

I know some Lakota, not enough to hold conversations. There's a group on Yahoogroups that covers Lakota and they use the yahoo conferencing with headset and microphone and hold classes each weekday.

Do you think that tutelo is more similar to the Lakota, Nakota or Dakota dialect?

[Red Metis]

For myself, I would like to learn enough to be fluent in a conversation--a tall order! I'd love to pass it on to my children--very much so.

About a month or so ago, I looked into learning Ho-Chunk because it is also very closely related to Tutelo. I think the language is a closer match to Tutelo but it wouldn't be as easy to pick up because it's endangered as well. I left a few links about it around somewhere....

[Linda]

How did I miss your post, Spilleddi? Sorry about that. Great questions.

What I'd love to see are some conversational lessons, simple stuff like you get in high school Spanish or French, so we could learn to say, 'hello, how are you?"

But, in order to get to that point, somebody would have had to go through that herculean effort of ascertaining which of the recorded languages is the closest to Tutelo, and then assemble a grafting. Whew. And given the reality that most folks will be doing really well to just be able to grapple what a semester of High School Spanish affords, it may not be justified in an immediate context. Of course, a beautiful effort to make the most of what exists would be priceless in itself, and who knows what future generations may be able to do with it.

[daniel_bingamon]

Here is some Lakota:

1 - Wanji
2 -Numpa
3 - Yamni
4 - Topa
5 - Zapan (nasal n)
6 - Sakpe (pronounced Shock-pay)
7 - Sakowin (pronounced Shock-o-ween -- the n is nasal)
8 - Saglogan (pronounced Shog-lo-gan)
9 - Napciyunka (pronounced Nap-chi-yun-ka)
10 - Wikcemna (pronounced Wik-chem-n-a)


Native-Languages shows number in Tutelo as:
1 - Noons
2 - Nump
3 - Lani
4 - Topa
5 - Kise

As you can see, there are similarities and differences.

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[spilleddi]

Thanks guys for the comments. I'm just trying to get a feel for were folks are now with language. Looks like we are in the process of learning the basics of a variety of Siouan languages. I myself am still working on pronunciation and gathering sources. I don't know which Lakota/Dakota/Nakota dialect would be closest to Tutelo.

Here is a website that has recordings in thousands of languages, including Lakota, Dakota, several other Siouan languages. If you search for United States in the "find country" link, it will bring up a lot of the native languages. Its a Christian site, so these recordings are biblical in nature. You get a good feel for the rhythm of the language.

http://globalrecordings.net/

[Linda]

I've heard it said Ofo was the closest that's been fully recorded. It's also extinct now I believe.

I read a novel someone wrote about the last Ofo speaker. It was pretty good till the end, when the author made the mistake of placing the main character in a scene (set in about the 50's) at an Indian school on the Pamunkey reservation, where the kids were being chastised not to speak Pamunkey. Big gaffe. The Pamunkey language has been dead for centuries.

Of the Lakota/Dakota/Nakota I don't know which is closest. Should we just try to get material on the Ofo?

[spilleddi]

Yep, I plan on looking for material on Ofo and Biloxi, as well as some other Siouan stuff. I posted this link a while back with a list of Siouan language sources

http://puffin.creighton.edu/lakota/siouan_language.html

I just have to get to the college library, which is hard to get to before it closes after work.

[Wachinika]

Hi all,
What I believe is the main body of work done on Biloxi and Ofo is availabe full-text, downloadable here. These other Dorsey books will get you recogonizing siouan language patterns. I am aware it's been said Ofo is most like Tutelo but when I look through this, I'm sort of thinking Biloxi seems more like Tutelo. What do you think? I suppose we'd need to listen to the sound recordings. I'm thinking there are some if I remember right. I'll be away for several weeks now:

http://books.google.com/books?as_q=&num=100&btnG=Google+Search&as_epq=&as_oq=&as_eq=&as_libcat=0&as_brr=1&as_vt=&as_auth=James+Owen+Dorsey&as_pub=&as_sub=&as_drrb=c&as_miny=&as_maxy=&as_isbn=

[daniel_bingamon]

The only book I've seen at this moment is "Tutelo and Saponi" by Sapir and Frachtenburg". But this only contains a dictionary of a few words.
Siouan language are what a linguist once told me is called "Polysynthetic". It's put together my many smaller words.

But for this to work, a person needs to know how to conjugate verbs in various forms. Understanding the thinking in Siouan languages is very different than English, Lakota for example uses Subject Object Verb order.

See this for examples of SOV order: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subject_Object_Verb

Conjugating verbs takes a great commitment, the patterns have to be learned and all of the exceptions. Here is a simple verb conjugation in Lakota.

cin = Want
wacin = I Want
yacin = You Want
cin = He/She Wants
yacinpi = You (all) Want (plural)
uncin = You and I Want
uncinpi = We Want
cinpi = They want

We did a bunch of Lakota Conjugation last year on Lakhota.com: http://www.lakhota.com/bbs/viewtopic.php?t=2019&postdays=0&postorder=asc&highlight=wacin&start=45 but I'm a little rusty at it noiw. You know what they say, use it or loose it.


If you noticed in the previous message, numbers such as "2 - Nump" and
"4 - Topa", four is a sacred number and 2 is also important. You'll see these numbers are closer in many native languages.

[Red Metis]

Hi all,
What I believe is the main body of work done on Biloxi and Ofo is availabe full-text, downloadable here. These other Dorsey books will get you recogonizing siouan language patterns. I am aware it's been said Ofo is most like Tutelo but when I look through this, I'm sort of thinking Biloxi seems more like Tutelo. What do you think? I suppose we'd need to listen to the sound recordings. I'm thinking there are some if I remember right. I'll be away for several weeks now:

http://books.google.com/books?as_q=&num=100&btnG=Google+Search&as_epq=&as_oq=&as_eq=&as_libcat=0&as_brr=1&as_vt=&as_auth=James+Owen+Dorsey&as_pub=&as_sub=&as_drrb=c&as_miny=&as_maxy=&as_isbn=


I'm no expert but from the information I've seen, Biloxi seems more closely related to Tutelo, then Ofo, Ho-Chunk, and Lakota. I contacted the professor that is helping to reconstruct Catawba to ask his opinion but I haven't heard anything yet.

[elkriver]

I'm no expert but from the information I've seen, Biloxi seems more closely related to Tutelo, then Ofo, Ho-Chunk, and Lakota. I contacted the professor that is helping to reconstruct Catawba to ask his opinion but I haven't heard anything yet.

Are you talking about the Tunica-Biloxi Tribe of Marksville, Louisiana? If so I am not sure if it is Tunica or Biloxi that they speak but I was told by a fluent Creek speaker that the language they were speaking at there pow-wow when a speaker who was a Tribal member was giving the invocation was pretty close to the Creek language as he could understand it.

[Linda]

I don't know anything about Tunica, who they were, what language group they'd be a part of or anything. The Biloxi language is part of the Siouan language group, so I wouldn't think it would be intelligible to a Creek speaker. I'm not sure if Biloxi is still spoken, it's been awhile since I was looking into that. Maybe your friend will know more details.

[daniel_bingamon]

I'm no expert but from the information I've seen, Biloxi seems more closely related to Tutelo, then Ofo, Ho-Chunk, and Lakota. I contacted the professor that is helping to reconstruct Catawba to ask his opinion but I haven't heard anything yet.

From what I know about Lakota is that it doesn't appear very similar. It looks about as different as French is to Spanish.

[elkriver]

I don't know anything about Tunica, who they were, what language group they'd be a part of or anything. The Biloxi language is part of the Siouan language group, so I wouldn't think it would be intelligible to a Creek speaker. I'm not sure if Biloxi is still spoken, it's been awhile since I was looking into that. Maybe your friend will know more details.

Well then it was probably more then likely Tunica and not Biloxi. I remember it being a women and her invocation was more of a old song she had learned. He thought it was quite funny because the actual translation was telling a story of coyote and rabbit, which if your familur with the stories you know that coyote portrays the "trixter" role, and there are many stories. There are also stomp dance songs and such which the lyrics translate to telling some of these stories. The language conection makes sense because of the location they are in. As you said, there probably isn't very many if any at all speakers left of either Tunica or Biloxi, so we took it the lady probably more then likely didn't know the translation to the song she was singing or she would not have used it in a prayer/invocation sense.

[Linda]

That's funny. But at least she was trying. Just like with our fumbling around with Lakota, it's not the best, but it was better than doing nothing with a list of 300 measly words and a lot of unintelligible linguist-eze. Even getting criticized for that keeps the ball rolling. And we've gotten criticized for translating a prayer to a different, but related language, then swapping in the Tutelo words we have, but the amazing thing was, the prayer ended up being 75% Tutelo words, with Tutelo conjugations that were intelligible and proper word order because the translator was familiar with those conjugation patterns from Omaha she knew.

And it does give a real big warm fuzzy buzz to take those words to an old site and say them out loud. Definitely feels appreciated.

[daniel_bingamon]

It would good to rewrite those words using Lakota simplified spelling instead of all those accent marks and other linguist products.

Lakota uses simple letters to express with no special markings, in order to help preserve it..

[daniel_bingamon]

Has anyone seen this article:
http://www.indiancountry.com/content.cfm?id=1096411042

[techteach]

Just a little FYI. I was a French major in college and kept my roommate from failing her Spanish class by helping her translate the Spanish which I never had. The languages are not too different.

Techteach

[daniel_bingamon]

Yes, they're from the same language family.

[Red Metis]

The Biloxi language died out in the early 20th century. The Biloxi got absorped by the Tunica--I believe they spoke different languages but used French as their 'common' language.

I found an interesting page on Siouan languages:

http://spot.colorado.edu/~koontz/faq/language.htm#Siouan

[daniel_bingamon]

I found another site here:
http://ncmuseumofhistory.org/workshops/indian/session4_lesson28.html

This one word, O'ka (Made) is conjugated. The conjugation has some vague similarities to the Ma Verb conjugation rules in Lakota.
I guess that there might be Verb conjugation that works like Wa verbs as well.

[fromOntario]

In regards to Tutelo at 6 Nations...alot is known through Hale's book and the Spirit Adoption Ceremony book. In regards to speakign now...some words etc. are known in different ways (ceremonies etc) but no one goes around speaking it like Mohawk or something.

This is waht I know (with people Iknow from 6 Nations). If I am wrong in any way, please let me know and your source thanks (meaning how youknow differently, I dont need to know specific person, :) )
Deb :)

[beeleaf]

Hey Deb, good to see ya!

In answer to Spilleddi's question, I would like to keep it simple & stick pretty close to the language our Saponi ancestors probably spoke, even if it is incomplete. Learning the same words & phrases together, and practicing them with each other here sounds like a fun way to participate in revitalizing at least some of the language. I don't mind the vocabulary being limited, as long as it is consistent. Songs and prayers frequently have few words, anyway.

The prayer translation was awesome & I appreciate the time and effort it took to do that. But I have no idea how to read it.

Pilahuk,

Bee

[daniel_bingamon]

Linda,
You have a good point. We should look at languages that are still active and share in their vision of keeping it alive.

[Greywolf]

David Little Elk has a Lakota study course that’s reasonably priced. I have seen some of his work and I believe that his knowledge of the language proves that it did come from or is directly related to the Saponi and eastern Siouan languages. (Except maybe Lumbee.) I have seen his use of the single syllable words and they are the same as Saponi. Migration and the evolution of the language is what have made them all seem different. One English word in use today is a good example. “Furmiliar” is becoming used so much on TV that the new generations will actually think that it’s a word! By butchering the pronunciation you loose the base word.
David Little Elk lives in Berlin and teaches Lakota. By learning Lakota, if Germany ever tries to take over the world we will at least know the language. If you learn Lakota you will be able to adapt it to the other Siouan languages.

[Linda]

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