The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1895-12-08
ENGLISH OF THE INDIANS.
They, If Nobody Else, Succeed In
Simplifying Our Mother Tongue.
DI,,es oil


Lieutenant Grote Hutchinson, aid-de-camp
to General Coppinger, is in receipt OF a
highly interesting letter from one or his
brother officers now in camp at Fort Hail
agency, In Idaho, the home OF the Indians
who were mixed up in the recent Jackson's
Hole trouble. The letter deals largely with
conditions at Fort Hall from the stand
point of student of ethnology.
81 am taken" says the writer, with the
speech Of the Indians in their communica-
tons NTH Wth me whites haVng dn Iie srt 70 t 0c
origin of the kind of language which hear
used by Indians and traders in their talk
with one another.
ut suggests the slang of the Bowery, be-
ing a purely artificial adjunct to both the
Indian and the English language. 1t sug-
gests, too, the baby talk of young mothers,
who insist on placing verbs where nouns
ought to be, and who prefer mixing up
their first, second and third persons to
For instance. there is the word 'mebbe.'
At frs. thought this to be a sort of cor
rupton Of may De- meaning ming perhaps or
The Indian and the white in conversation
use 'mebbe' as an affirmative. 'Mebbe get
wagon Is the strongest way OF declaring
that you will get wagon. You eat meb-
be- brings delight to the Indian. for that
is promise of giving him food. a promise
which may by no means be evaded.
"A white man, too, in conversing with
an Indian. when the Indian will converse,
ana eba he ko S sE this Pato in
word. or IL he gets excited he puts II in at
the third.
There is no pronoun in the mixed vocab-
ulary OF the reservation. The words
white man and Injun' will fill in for all
the persons and all the cases. too. by the
way.
Somebody win write an Indian-English
grammar some day, and IL will be COM
prised in less than a Kindred words. Sim
plicity takes the place of explic!tness, l
am bound to say, and sometimes you have
TO use a carefully trained ear to know
whether Ii is a threat, a command, prom
Use or request that is being flung al you.
Mood is unknown in the grammar of the
Bannock.
II discover that the English language of
Fenimore Cooper and Oh CoomeS are nom
existent. i have dug profoundly into Ugh
and the three-word sentences of the novel;
you succeed in getting an Indian to talk
TO you at all he will not shut off with
three words ending in an exclamation point.
Neither will he use the expression pale
face No self-respecting Indian says pale
face now.
''Seriously, I imagine a textbook could be
compiled which would really result in
great good for the government in bringing
the Indians to something like civilized hab-
it's. AS il is, the instruction is based on
the same conditions as prevail in the En-
glish language and with English-speaking
persons.
This does not fit the Indian. His Ian
guage is simplicity ITSELF and there are no
twists of case tense or the like. AS to
tense one illustration will show. Take the
word Co We have IL go, went. gone, go
Jig, will 60, while the Indian puts In two
cases. go and was CO. If he wishes to
make it future tense he simply puts in the
mebbe.' which TO my mind is quite express
i've of the idea.