Talk:Navajo language/Archive 1

message: That noun class for "long, stiff object" is a joke, isn't it?
:While I understand how you might think that, this is no joke. As I understand it, this noun class refers to things like sticks, rifles and planks, whereas long and non-stiff (i.e. flexible) things, like ropes, fall under a different noun class. Navajo has a large number of noun classes, and these correspond to physically observable characteristics of the noun in question. The assignment into noun class is not so arbitrary as in Latin or Greek. Here are some examples of a verb which varies according to noun class:
:* ch'í-n-lhtí~  carry an animate entity out horizontally
:* ch'í-n-lá  carry a slender flexible object out horizontally
:* ch'í-n-tá~  carry a slender stiff object out horizontally
:* ch'í-n-jaa'  carry many objects out horizontally
:* ch'í-ni-'á~  carry a solid compact entity out horizontally
:* ch'í-n-lhjool  carry non-compact matter out horizontally
:* ch'í-n-yí  carry a burden or pack out horizontally
:* ch'í-n-lhtsooz  carry a flat flexible object out horizontally
:* ch'í-n-ka~  carry something in a container out horizontally
:thefamouseccles 10:08, 6 Sep 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  noun class for "long, stiff object" is a joke? 

message: :: Hi.
:: 1. I am worried about readers who might be scared away from the weird symbols.  But, if they are intrigued & sucked into linguistics because of the weird symbols, I dont want to deprive them of this opportunity.  Anyway, I have used IPA in the Apachean languages article (although I am describing Western Apache mostly).
:: 2. If this community of wikilanguagers wants to go IPA, thats cool with me.  There are benefits of standardization esp. when making comparisons between langs.
:: 3. Americanist transcription system is not used by only Americans.  It is used by linguists who work on languages indigenous to the Americas.  This is a legacy of the early anthroplogical linguists who created it.  This system is as old as IPA, historically more stable, and also very similar to IPA. IPA wants to be international, but I think that it is not.  IPA is a European creation so it already has that bias in its choice of symbols (there are sounds in Chinese languages that still dont have IPA symbols).  The main issue, though, is that linguists working in specific language families often have transcription systems unique to that family.  From what I can tell, this situation really hasnt changed, except in work on phonetics where IPA is consisently used in journals.  And if someone wants to look into Apachean linguistics, they will have to learn 4 different systems: (1) IPA, (2) current Americanist, (3) system used from around 1935, (4) system used before 1935. I guess this is the same most everywhere.  So the point: IPA is not as international as it wants to be and therefore a claim that it is international does not convince me of it being the choice for international use. (here I'm talking about linguistics, but in other language areas like dictionaries, pedagogical materials, etc. I havent seen that much standardization either. others know more about this than me, though.)
:: 4. The Navajo orthography is different from the Americanist phonetic transcription.  So, the voiceless affricate you mention would be written as [c] in this system.  But, you are right about the Navajo orthography being purposely similar to English spelling practices.  The symbols , <d>, <g>, <dz>, etc. are used for voiceless stops because that's the way the symbols are pronounced in English.  (likewise Chinese romanization was changed for English speakers' benefit much to the annoyance of non-English speakers like French who really do have voiced stops!)
:: Simply put, the issue is either
::: (a) use IPA and provide standardized unambiguous phonetic information to linguistically minded readers but complicate the presentation for more casual readers, or
::: (b) use only the orthography and simplify the presentation but make those interested in phonetic detail have to work harder to determine the precise phonetic values.
:: If phonetic precision is desired by the community then I will have to resort to phonetic transcription to accomplish this.  But so far I havent seen the English or French language articles reach a very precise description of phonetics.
:: Your further thoughts are welcome.  Thanks. - Ish ishwar 10:17, 2005 Jan 16 (UTC)
::: Believe me, I know the issues you're talking about. :) I work fairly intensively with the Northwest Caucasian family, in which most linguists still use a Roman-based system not too dissimilar from the Americanist system in some aspects. (And in Ubykh, my speciality, there are many phonemes that do not have specific IPA equivalents – like the Chinese languages you suggest. Even the Czech ř still has no IPA equivalent.) But I think you're oversimplifying the issue – it's not just about "IPA" XOR "Americanist". I merely suggest that in the phoneme chart, both IPA and Navajo orthography equivalents are given, and that the rest of the article can then be in the normal Navajo orthography. That way there isn't a preponderance of IPA in the article, but those who do know IPA can puzzle out how to pronounce Navajo text that doesn't have an IPA transcription. IPA isn't as international as it wants to be, but a lot of that is because so many linguists simply do not use it, choosing established orthographies instead, as you mention. (This is still a problem in the Northwest Caucasian community. It took me two years of digging and research to pin down how the phonemes of Ubykh are pronounced. If IPA had been used instead, things would have been a lot simpler.) And the reason IPA is not so stable is because it does change to incorporate sounds that are newly agreed to be phonemic or phonetic. That's the idea behind it.
:::And if you'll forgive my being blunt, I don't think a specimen phoneme set for a language family, even for subfamilies, is the right way to go. As an example, in the Abkhaz-Abaza subfamily of Northwest Caucasian, no dialect of Abkhaz shares more than 85% of its consonants with any other, and Abaza is different again. There's plenty of room on Wikipedia for individual phoneme sets for each language – after all, while this may be an encyclopaedia, we're looking to collect as much knowledge as possible, even for the linguists. (But I do agree with you that French and English are very poorly done; I think that this might be because linguists who regularly use IPA are less likely to concentrate on English and French, perhaps? I think many linguists of English are still using macrons to indicate long vowels... ;) (Oh, and English *does* have voiced stops; unaspirated voiceless ones are what it lacks.)
:::Glad to have this discussion with you though – a clash of viewpoints can often be productive. Let me know what you think.thefamouseccles 12:41, 20 Jan 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  

message: I dont find łéé'íí'nííł in Young & Morgan's (1987) dictionary or Young et al.'s (1992) lexicon.  I do find for both łeeh hwii'níłí 'cemetery, graveyard (lit. 'the place where they are buried one after another')' [łeeh 'into ground' < leezh 'dirt, ground, soil' + -iih 'into'; hwii'nííł 'they are put one after another' < -nííł 'to handle PLO1'; -í (relative enclitic)] and łeeh ho'dii'nííł 'graveyard, cemetery, burial ground'.  (There is also  jishcháá'  = 'grave, graveyard, cemetery'.) However, there is a form łee'  'inside/within the ground' [ < leezh + -ii' 'inside'].  Can the person who provided this form please state the source?  I am interested.
Since I dont find this form, I am removing it and replacing it with other words which I hope are equally interesting.
Thanks. - Ish ishwar 18:31, 2005 Jan 12 (UTC)
:I provided this form, which can be found in Gladys Reichard's Navaho Grammar (1951; Publications of the American Ethnological Society) as an example form for the prefix łéé' in the ground. This may be an idiolectic usage, and I have no issue with you replacing it, but it is (or, perhaps, was) real Navajo. thefamouseccles 02:34, Jan 16 2005 (UTC)
:: Cool.  Thanks for the note.  I havent gotten my hands on this one yet.  I have been told her grammar is good but sadly neglected.  Also heard that there are many words missing from Young & Morgan's work — not hard to get a word from a native speaker that isnt there.
:: Young & Morgan also list a prefix łe'- that means the same.  Peace – Ish ishwar 08:48, 2005 Jan 16 (UTC)
::: No worries. I've come across this in Wichita too, where foreign nouns are often construed with verbs – very similar to Navajo, and just as hard to write a definitive dictionary for. ;) Reichard's grammar is good, but being from 1951 probably not the best for modern Navajo usage. The transcription is good though – I recommend it if you can find it.thefamouseccles 13:22, 20 Jan 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  łéé'íí'nííł 'cemetery' ? 

message: The following was added by Barfooz at 20:40 on 24 April 2005:
:Many concepts that exist as nouns in other languages exist as verbs in Navajo. Noun phrases exist in Navajo outside of syntactic space: that is, they are not necessary for forming a grammatical sentence and exist purely for semantical reasons. Noun phrases are unique in Navajo because they lie in the adjunction domain, rather than in A or A’ positions, and do not receive overt case marking.
As I pointed out nearly a year ago, this explanation unnecessarily relies on knowledge of Chomskian syntactic theory to be comprehensible (if even then). I propose rewriting it thus:
:Many concepts expressed using nouns in other languages appear as verbs in Navajo. The majority of true nouns are not inflected for number, and there is no case marking.
:Noun phrases are often not needed to form grammatical sentences due to the informational content of the verb.
I believe this is clearer and will be more easily understood by a general reader. If there are no dissenting opinions, I will change the article within a few days. RJCraig 04:58, 26 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: There being no dissenting opinions in the ensuing weeks, I have made the change proposed above. RJCraig 15:12, 9 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  POV or General Comprehensibility? 

message: i am trying to figure out the correct pronunciation for "mosi/mósí", navajo name meaning cat.  anyone able to help me??
:: Hi. mósí is the word for cat. mosi probably isnt a Navajo word. The consonants m and s are pronounced the same as in English (which i assume is your native language). ó is pronounced similar to the vowel in go or mode but with a high tone. í is pronounced like the vowel in see or tea but with a high tone. So both vowels are pronounced with high tones — the accent mark (  ´  ) represents a high tone. If you dont know, Navajo is a tonal language (like Chinese, Thai, or many Bantu languages). High tones are pronounced with a higher vocal pitch than low tones. There is another similar word that means cat which is másí and an unrelated word that also means cat: gídí (which is borrowed from English kitty). Also you can specifiy a male cat by adding something to the word, giving you mósíką’. happy languaging — ishwar  (SPEAK) 05:41, 2005 Jun 6 (UTC)
:::: howdy!  i agree with ishwar with the above pronunciation and definitions.  Mósí also has a lax variant as well, mʊsɪ (with high tones) --Daghaalsuii 21:31, 6 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  ??help 

message: Under the "name" section in the USA article, it states that the Najavo (Dine) name for the US is Wááshindoon bikéyah ałhidadiidzooígíí. Does anyone who speaks Navajo have any information about the literal meaning of the words and the name's origins and implications? Thanks so much! --198.59.190.201 21:52, 16 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Interesting.  I wonder if Wááshindoon = "Washington."65.102.39.98 19:11, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Question 

message: Hi.  Shouldn't this article be at Diné bizaad, with Navajo language forming a redirect? Vizjim 15:11, 8 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: No. See Wikipedia:Naming conventions (use English). --Ptcamn 15:32, 8 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Looking at that article, it allows for the use of the accented é, and encourages the proper names of languages to be used.  I'd think that "Navajo language" is not a term for the language, it's a description, so it's not in any sense a prefereable term under that policy. Vizjim 23:04, 8 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  The language is generally called Navajo in English. And this is what is used in Navajo-English dictionaries. language is added to the article name to distinguish it from the ethnic group. This is similar to the use of German language and Germans as opposed to Deutsch Sprache and Deutsche. Additionally, Navajo is probably what is most encountered in general and linguistics encyclopedias. – ishwar  (speak) 20:45, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

text: * Yep, that all makes sense.  Cheers! Vizjim 10:02, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Suggested move 

message: Hi. In the section on "Yi-/bi- Alternation (animacy)", the animacy hierarchy is addressed, but the actual yi-/bi- alternation isn't even mentioned, let alone explained, and there aren't any examples. Given its prominence and imporance in Navajo linguistic studies, it seems like a good thing to include. I'm not entirely clear on the specific workings of the system, myself, though, so I hesitate to try adding that info. Take care, --Miskwito 06:20, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Hi. Yes, that remains to be written. The section on pronominal marking should probably be a written first. You can a read brief description with Navajo examples here: Southern Athabascan grammar#yi-/bi- Alternation (Animacy). I think I'll eventually replace those Navajo examples there with Western Apache examples. Obviously, much more can be written about it. – ishwar  (speak) 16:59, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Yi/bi 

message: Hi there. I'm very surprised that no one has made use of Gary Witherspoon's work here.  He's a leading expert on the language.--Dylanfly 16:37, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Just a note--the work by William Morgan & Robert W. Young is the accepted standard used for all Navajo language classes including those offered by Diné College. All language text books for modern Navajo are based on their work which, I assume, includes Witherspoon Asdzani Bah (talk) 23:20, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

text: He actually is the primary author of the original versions of these works no matter what the catalogs say. But, you're right that we should have the bibliographic info match the catalog since that is what people will need to find these. – ishwar  (speak) 04:26, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Witherspoon?? 

message: In the Nouns section, am I right in thinking that beeʼdldǫǫh is a typo for beeʼeldǫǫh?  -- Curious, - Erik Anderson 98.225.16.161 (talk) 06:04, 6 April 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: That’s right. —Stephen (talk) 14:32, 6 April 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Typos? 

message: Since when is yi- a possessive prefix? Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 > haneʼ 23:56, 20 August 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Nevermind... it's so rare, I couldn't think of an example right away. Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 > haneʼ 00:07, 21 August 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  yi- 

message: I'd greatly appreciate it if someone would add a sentence or two explaining the different concepts of person -- the text and tables use 3a, 3o, and 3i with no real explanation of what these are.  The page on Grammatical person wasn't too much of a help, though if I understand it aright, Navajo's a- prefix sounds similar to how Finnish passive is described at the bottom of the Grammatical person#Additional persons section.  -- Cheers, Erik Anderson -- 205.166.76.15 (talk) 02:01, 13 October 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Person 

message: Regarding the edit that removed the following from the article according to the edit summary, "doesn't say that",
:"nonetheless, despite modernization of the language, as of 2013, radio station KNDN maintains certain traditional cultural practices in its Navajo language programming."
It looks like the statement is supported by the following part of the cited source,
:"The station, for example, has a separate room where it allows people to come in as guests and make death and funeral announcements over the radio so that the radio hosts do not have to participate. If the hosts did participate, they later would have to go through special ceremonies since death is such a taboo topic."
--Bob K31416 (talk) 14:52, 9 April 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: where is "nonetheless"? "despite"? (And how is that relevant here, anyways?) Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 > haneʼ 23:01, 10 April 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: Your clarification of your position now makes your objection reasonable to me. Regards, --Bob K31416 (talk) 00:26, 11 April 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  KNDN, modernization, cultural practices 

message: If anyone adds a section of notable works translated into Navajo, consider adding Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope.  Reference:
*
davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 18:18, 28 May 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Modern translation efforts 

message: There is an error in this source. The paragraph quotes him as saying there are 120,000 native speakers, and that 115,000 live on the Navajo Nation. But it then says that the remaining 12,000-15,000 live elsewhere. That is more than 120,000 people, so that statistic is either misquoted or inaccurate.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.33.103.183 (talk) 16:21, 20 February 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  linguist Victor Golla 

message: From Wikipedia, we all know that Navajo or Navaho comes from  Athabaskan language. But the text lack some information about how Navajo Language developed. Navajo belongs to the Apachean branch of Athapaskan languages, language found in three geographic zones: the subarctic of interior Alaska and western canada, the Pacific coast in southern Oregon and California  and southwest in Arizona and New Mexico. The Navajo Language was not well-known by people until World War 2 because the Japanese use the Navajo Language as code for their wireless connection until World War 2. The Navajo Nation Government plays an important role in Navajo Language development which is not included by Wikipedia. . In 1923, a tribal government was established to help meet the increasing desires of American oil companies to lease Navajoland for exploration.
Navajo government has evolved into the largest and most sophisticated form of American Indian government. The Navajo Nation Council Chambers hosts 88 council delegates representing 110 Navajo Nation chapters.
The next part i want to add is the language structure of the Navajo language. From Wikipedia, we have the idea of consonants, vowels, tones. From the grammar section, we know how the sentence structure works. But it lack the word structure. And the word stem us very important which is not included by Wikipedia. The list below is a specific list of classifying stems in Navajo
* -ʼą́'  --- to handle a roundish object, such as ball, box, hat knife, book, boot.
* -tą́'  --- to handle a slender or long stiff object , such as pencil, gun, cigarette.
* -tiʼ  --- to handle an animate object such as a person, bug, mouse, moose as well as images of living beings, such as a doll and the backbone, ribs and neck are still intact
* -nil  --- to handle a set of objects or plural objects that can be individually distinguished, such as a half dozen eggs, people, coats, sacks of wool, a small number of books, rocks.
* -jaą́' --- to handle a mass, or plural objects that cannot be easily ditinguished individually, such as a handful beads, salt, a large number of objects such as books, matches, rocks.
* -lą́'  --- to handle a slender , flexible or ropelike object such as a rope, belt , snake; also object that come in pairs such as gloves, shoes socks.
* -ką́'  --- to handle an object in an open container, such as a dish of food, a bucket of water, an open bottle of beer, a baby in a cradle board , an injured person on a stretcher.
* -tsooz--- to handle a flat flexible object ,such as a sheet, a shirt, handkerchief, as well as small sackful if objects, such as a small sack of coffee or groceries.
* -yi   --- to handle a large bulky object, in a sack or a load, such as a large sack of wool or potatoes, a trucjload of firewood , a saddle.
* -jool --- to handle noncompact or wool-like material, such as loose hay, wool, gaseous matter such as fog, smoke, dust.l
* -tiee --- to handle mushy object such as oatmeal, mud butter
The list above shows all the stems of the Navajo Languages. And there is an interesting phenomenon that every object must  be placed into one of these categories when used with a classifying verb of handling.
The final aspect i want to add is the importance that Navajo language makes to Native Indian Language.The Navajo language developed the classification of the words. This is new concept such that English and Spanish don't have this word stem system.
Cheneyxun (talk) 15:41, 23 April 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Adding Some Information Of Navajo Language. 

message: Because WikiProject Languages has very few recognized-quality articles and it's a field I enjoy, I'm interested in taking this article to GA status and possibly FA after that (I've recently done this with Czech, which is being reviewed at GAN now). The most major obstacle, though, is that the Grammar section is positively gigantic, particularly in the Verbs subsection. It's far too inaccessible and detailed as it is, yet I don't feel I know enough about the language yet to have a handle on what's essential to stay and what can be cut. Can anyone help with this? Might a separate "Navajo grammar" article be useful? Tezero (talk) 23:34, 2 August 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  GA push 

message: I've taken the bold, possibly controversial step of migrating the vast majority of the Grammar section to a new article: Navajo grammar. It went way too far into detail for a general language article, though I'll be building it up from the couple of paragraphs it is now. Please tell me if you have any concerns. Tezero (talk) 19:36, 6 August 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: I think there is a clear lack of structure in the grammar section, it provides information in a disjoint way that is not helpful for the reader. Before writing the grammar section you need to know what are the most important aspects of Navajo grammar, and then write it in a coherent way that starts by presenting the basics, then the specifics with examples of usage. For example in the section of verbs, what is the structure characteristic of a Navajo verb? What does it look like? (examples of fully inflected verbs) What categories does it inflect for (declension is only for nouns, and mostly in languages that have case)? You may not need to provide an exhaustive overview of the Navajo verb in that section but it has to be an accurate summary that gives the reader a feeling of what Navajo is like both typologically and specifically. User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 17:24, 15 August 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: I've added some examples and translations per your hidden comments. I'll try to find a fully conjugated verb with all of the categories and write a brief introduction to the section (even if I personally feel that's made redundant by the article's introduction), as well as some more full sentences to illustrate grammatical features. Tezero (talk) 18:30, 15 August 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: The article's introduction can never make anything redundant, because the intro is supposed to summarize the article and everything in the intro has to be mentioned with sources in the article body. Also an article should consist mostly of prose, and prose introductions and descriptions are necessary for the reader to be able to understand and contextualize the information given in tables and examples.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 19:10, 16 August 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: What does the na- prefix mean? And what does it dual/plural mean? (you dont mention the number system when you describe the person  system, does it have a dual category?)? These kinds of things is what you need to put in the prose introduction, the language inflects verbs for aspect, mode, verbs agree with subjects by inflecting for their person and number, the pronominal system distinguishes the following persons and numbers, etc. This is the basics of describing a language summary style.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 20:02, 16 August 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Grammar section 

message: The settlers graciously "allowed" Navajo children to attend schools and have their mouths washed out? I doubt that's really the word-choice, but if it is, you're using some really nice racist apologist literature here... So, at least give the page number and line for that word-choice. 174.19.209.252 (talk) 20:53, 26 August 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: Agree that this is a bad word choice. I would write that sometimes Navajo children attended or were able to attend the schools of settlers.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 21:32, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

text: I don't disagree, but please, you need to assume good faith here. It's certainly not so overtly poorly worded that you can jump straight to accusing people of racism. Please stay calm when discussing matters. Thanks. Sergecross73 msg me 21:34, 26 August 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: "allowed" and "have their mouths washed out" were not in the same sentence and are different issues. There were several punishments used for children speaking Navajo, including soap in the mouth, kicks in the butt, rulers across the knuckles, withholding of food, and blows to the ears. I know a number of Navajos today who received those punishments in the various schools they went to (boarding schools, mission schools). School teachers and administrators were not across the board cruel; some were very kind. And some of the harsh teachers were Navajo themselves. In the cited book, Encyclopedia of American Indian History by Johansen & Ritzker, p. 421, it says: Various methods were used in schools to keep students from "talking Indian," including washing student’s mouths out with lye soap if they spoke their Native languages. The only real issue is the word "allowed", and whether another word might be better. In the book, various terms were used, including "ordered", "forced", "required", and "compulsory": p. 98, to invade homes and order children aged seven or older into residential schools. p. 414, the issue of whether children should be removed from homes to attend government boarding schools. p. 79, Additionally, boarding schools forced children to attend Christian services and to recite biblical scripture with the intention of squelching their Native spiritual beliefs. p. 89, Presidet Ulysses S. Grant: Schools should be established, which children should be required to attend; their barbarous dialect should be blotted out and the English language substituted. p. 538, A 1920 amendment made residential school attendance compulsory and set out penalties for parents who refused to part with their children;.... —Stephen (talk) 12:29, 27 August 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: Yeah, I think the article should definitely describe the well documented abuse against Navajo and other native children that played a big role in the language becoming threatened in the early 20th century. But I think it was more the use of the word "allowed" that made it look very odd and insensitive in the context. I am sure the children didnt feel as if they were being extended a favor.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 14:07, 27 August 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: Look, I really don't care what the wording is. Change it if you want. Tezero (talk) 14:39, 27 August 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: It already has been changed.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 14:43, 27 August 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  "allowed" 

message: Not in source at all -- how is having more than one interpretation the same as "improvising"? "Lift" is not what some people "improvise" for "elevator", they're just different words. 174.19.209.252 (talk) 21:01, 26 August 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree that "improvised" is the wrong word. New coinages like these are called neologisms, and some languages use neologisms created by the speaker on the spot. This can be called an ad hoc coinage or neologism.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 21:30, 26 August 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: Not in source, either. Again, "lift" is not an ad hoc way of saying "elevator". Read "Body rituals among the Nacirema", that might ring a bell to show you what you guys are doing here... 174.19.209.252 (talk) 02:24, 29 August 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: Lift and elevator are synonyms, but there are languages in the world where people create new words on the spot, those words are not synonyms but brand new coinages that are nonetheless intelligible to others because they follow the grammatical rules for how new words can be created. Your analogy is not correct. If I say "the thing that lifts people up to the second floor" to refer to what in English is an elevator, and one of my friends in another situation says "the box that is hoisted up by a cable", then we are not creating new synonyms, but making ad hoc coinages. There are several languages where this is an important strategy for communicating. I know that this is thew case in some Athabaskan languages and it would not be surprising if it were also the case in Navajo. It does all boil down to what the source says of course. But Horace Miners Nacirema really have nothing to do with it, some languages do work differently from English or other Indo+European languages, and there is nothing wrong with describing that when it is the case.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 05:45, 29 August 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: It IS also the case in Navajo. In Navajo, anything can be said in many ways, and the fact that descriptions rather than specific nouns are used for most things is the main reason why. When we needed to have a word for planet in Navajo, some chose to use the word kéyah, but that just means land/country: the eight "lands" that circle the sun (obviously not a very good choice). Others used the more natural Navajo solution to come up with jóhonaaʼéí yináádáłígíí (the one that is walking around the sun) and kéyah yádiłhił biiʼ hólónígíí (the land that exists in the jet-black sky). But there are many other ways to say it, all equally valid. —Stephen (talk) 15:19, 30 August 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  "improvised"