The Ketchum keystone. [volume] (Ketchum, Idaho) 1885-1899, 1896-01-11
INDIAN ENGLISH.
How the Red Man Expresses Him
self in Our Tongue.
A AlIitlamAn's Observations on the Pc
culiar Speech Of tho Western In
dians-Somc Queer Con-
otructiOns.

Lieut.. Grote Hutcheson, aid-de-camp
to Gen. Coppinger, ia IT. receipt OF q
highly interesting letter from one of
Hall agency, Idaho. the home of the In
dams who were mixed up in the
recent Jackson's Hole trouble. The
letter is interesting becar.se it has
nothing to say Of Jackson's Hole,
which is relief Instead, it deals
largely with conditions at Fort Hall
from the standpoint of student OF
ethnology.
Il am talken," says the writer, whose
name Lieut.. Hutcheson does not feel at
liberty to mention, with the speech of
the Indians in their communications
with the whites. Having little to oc-
cupy time, have bothered to look into
the origin of the kind of language
which I hear used by Indians and
traders in their talk with one another.
1t suggests the slang of the Bowery,
being purely artificial adjunct to both
the indian and the English language.
1t suggests, too, the baby talk Of young
mothers, who insist on placing verbs
where nouns should be, and who prefer
mixing up their first, second and third
persons to taking them straight. For
instance, there is the word 'mebbe.
At first I thought this to be sort of
corruption of may be, meaning per-
haps. or used in a doubling way. This
is not true. The Indian and the white
in converse ton use 'mebbe' as an af-
firmative. 'Mebbe get wagon is the
strongest way of declaring that you
will get wagon. you eat mebbe'
brings delight to the Indian, for that is
a promise of giving him food, a promise
which may by no means be evad.d. A
white man, too, in consersing with an
Indian, when the Indian will converse,
and when he knows even this patois, in
iects 'mebbe' into his talk at every
fourth word, or, if ne gets excited, he
puts it in at the third.
''There is no pronoun in the mixed
vocabulary of the reservation. Jhe
words white man and sInjun' will fill
in for all the persons and all the cases,
too, by the way. Somebody will write
and it will be comprised in less than a
hundred words. Simplicity takes the
place of explicitness, I am bound to say,
and sometimes you have to use care
fully-trained ear to know whether it is
threat, command or promise, or a
request that is being flung at you.
Mood is unknown in the grammar OF
the Bannock.
81 discover that the English language
of Fennimore Cooper and Oh Coomes
are nonexistcnt. have dug profoundly
into the Ugh and the three-word SEN
tences of the novelist, and find they
are out Of fashion. If 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.
altogether the language is a study
worth attention. Seriously, / imagine
q text book could be compiled which
would really result in a great good fol
the governmental bringing the Indians
. TO something like clNlllZcu udDlIS. As
it is, the instruction is based on the
same conditions as prevail in the Eng.
lish language and with English-speak
ing persons. This does not fit the In
lian. His language is simplicity it
self, and there are no twists of case
tense or the like. As to tense, one illus
tration VIII show. Take the word Go.
We have it go, went, gone, going, will
CO. while the Indian puts in two cases
'go' and was 60 If he wishes to make
it future tense he simply puts in The
specific time, as He go tomorrow, me5
be- which to my mind is quite express
i've of the idea. seriously believe at
tention might be called to this situa
ton among scholastic men and perhaps
we would be able to get along witllou'
rascally and incompetent Interpreters
One hundred words would be goot
vocabulary" - Council Bluffs Non
pareil.