Entry for September 22, 2007 Take Me To Your Leader !!

This hackneyed command has been the source of manys a chuckle over the years when referring to alien encounters ...... or in its more rustic version in old cowboy and Indian movies... " Take me to your chief !".I have always been highly impressed by the " foreigners " quick understanding of the English language...... and equally by our automatic presupposition that they do ...... even in real - life situations !!!! In some movies a scruffy - looking individual who has dealt with "Injuns" in the past is called upon to make his boss's will known to the native emissaries. After uttering a few barely audible grunts on his part the Indians nod their heads in understanding and often commend the interpreter , " You speakum good Kiowa " . This -um suffix would seem to be a universal ending which one may add to any English verb root .... and for all persons , both singular and plural , i.e. I speakum , thou speakum , he speakum , she speakum , we speakum , etc. Even Seinfeld got in on the act with his " We smokum peacepipe" episode ! One recent .... so to speak.... movie in which a native language was ín the spotlight is Dances With Wolves where Lakota ( a Siouan tongue ) was used rather extensively throughout with dignity and exactitude. Our own Canadian Oneida ( Iroquoian ) Graham Greene.... Kicking Bird ... , coached by Lakota elders , did an excellent job...... as did the white captive woman , Mary McDonnell.... and , of course , my hero , Floyd " Red Crow " Westerman .... himself a native Lakota in the role of " Ten Bears" !!

P.S. Should you ever find yourself in Northeastern Québec near any one of the nine Innu ( formerly Montagnais ) villages and wish to speak to the headman or ´headwoman here's what to say : Ishitâtshimîh nte tshûtshimâmîht ! Take me to your chief ! Or if addressing two or more natives at the portal please make the following grammatical adjustments. Ishitâtshimîkw nte tshûtshimâmwâwîht ! If accompanied by a friend and addressing only one Innu then you must ask , " Ishitâtshiminân nte tshûtshimâmîht " ! If accompanied by your wife , your mother-in-law and her sister then you might want to say , " Ishitâtshimîkut nte tshûtshimâmîht "........" Take them to your chief !......... all these expressions highly grammatical and legal !!..........no wonder the code talkers gave nightmares to both German and Japanese intelligence during World War II.!!!

P.S.2 If you leave this post with only the Seinfeld caper in mind , which is always fair game , then I have missed the boat here. What I wished to stress in an informal manner is the fact that the native tongues of the three Americas rate structurally among the most highly complicated and grammatically sophisticated languages found anywhere in the world. Their demise on the North American continent alone has been .....and still is ......an ongoing tragedy of epic proportions. They shrink , wither and die while we expand !