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According to our Mighty Queen Wikipedia:

Quileute features an interesting prefix system that changes depending on the physical characteristics of the person being spoken to. When speaking to a cross-eyed person, [ƛ-] is prefixed to each word. When speaking to a hunchback, the prefix /c̀-/ is used. Additional prefixes are also used for short men (/s-/), "funny people" (/čk/), and people that have difficulty walking (/čχ̣/).

Does anyone else know of any other languages' features as specific and "weird" as that? Features having to do with communication between people...

how many hunchbacks, cross-eyed people and people who had difficulty walking were present in the Quileute-speaking population

I mean there's only about 2,000 of them now and I doubt there were that many more historically ??

This is very much an instance of ^{[citation needed]}

sirdanilot wrote:This is very much an instance of ^{[citation needed]}

Mithun (1999). "Special Language. p. 275 of Mithun, Marianne (1999). The Languages of Native North America. Cambridge University Press.

The same source then goes on to describe changes in "voice qualities" when quoting legendary characters in stories, such as Deer replacing all sibilants with laterals in Nootka with a similar change in Kwakwala when quoting Mink. The original source of this information, though, comes all the way back from the 1910s, so whether that information had stood up over the 80 or so years between being written and being repeated by Mithun or not, I don't know.

sangi39 wrote:Mithun (1999). "Special Language. p. 275 of Mithun, Marianne (1999). The Languages of Native North America. Cambridge University Press.

The same source then goes on to describe changes in "voice qualities" when quoting legendary characters in stories, such as Deer replacing all sibilants with laterals in Nootka with a similar change in Kwakwala when quoting Mink. The original source of this information, though, comes all the way back from the 1910s, so whether that information had stood up over the 80 or so years between being written and being repeated by Mithun or not, I don't know.

I must say that what is true of Wikipedia is also true of papers; some things have been copied from other sources to the point of vacuousness. I call on a citation needed for that 80 years old source, it's begging for update.

Yiuel Raumbesrairc wrote:

sangi39 wrote:Mithun (1999). "Special Language. p. 275 of Mithun, Marianne (1999). The Languages of Native North America. Cambridge University Press.

The same source then goes on to describe changes in "voice qualities" when quoting legendary characters in stories, such as Deer replacing all sibilants with laterals in Nootka with a similar change in Kwakwala when quoting Mink. The original source of this information, though, comes all the way back from the 1910s, so whether that information had stood up over the 80 or so years between being written and being repeated by Mithun or not, I don't know.

I must say that what is true of Wikipedia is also true of papers; some things have been copied from other sources to the point of vacuousness. I call on a citation needed for that 80 years old source, it's begging for update.

Oh, most definitely. The storytelling phonology thing could be interesting to see, especially if the tradition's been kept alive (assuming the original source was correct), but changing morphemes depending on whether the listener has a hump or is cross-eyed may have been a misunderstanding, but Quileute is, unfortunately, extinct so I'd imagine that it wouldn't be retained during any revival attempts.

Anyway, back to the point, even if this Quileute feature turns out to be wrong and unrealistic, do you know any other languages with weird(ish) features like that?

I wonder if the original researcher on this topic was a small man with a limp and lazy eye syndrome and they just were messing with him. Other than that I agree that it's difficult to believe people would contort their words when speaking to someone with those characteristics. The other thing, though, seems a lot like what people in other languages do when reading childrens stories and imitating foreign accents.

Only thing this reminds me of is that some Khoisan sentences inflect the 1st person pronoun for whether the speaker is standing up, sitting, or lying down. Source is an old EB article (the 1993 verrsion of http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/top ... -languages) I cant access right now.

The supposed Quileute feature seems kind of rude, especially the ones for short men and funny people (since those reflect more of the judgement of the speaker). How does the speaker decide what qualifies as "short" anyway, just anyone shorter than the speaker?

Natchez has a distinct lexical register that is only used when quoting speech by characters in stories who are cannibals.


Hadza has a series of "triumphal" terms to refer to dead animals which have been killed in a hunt. "Woodburn describes them as celebratory. Such names occur for large prey species; they are used when a dead animal is found, prototypically an animal shot with a poisoned arrow and tracked down the following day."¹ These triumphal terms, interestingly, have the morphology of imperative verbs-- with suffixes matching the number and gender of the dead carcass matching those of object suffixes on imperative verbs, and with suffixes agreeing in number and gender with the addressee, again the same as imperative verbs:

ɦantá-ta-si
"female zebra carcass [I say to you, you group of men]"
ɦantá-ɦitʃʰí-ʔi
"male zebra carcasses [I say to you, you single individual, you]"

cf.

!ʰaʃá-ta-si
carry-3fs-IMP.mp
"carry [that one feminine thing, you group of men!]"
ǃʰaʃá-ɦitʃʰí-ʔi
carry-3mp-IMP.sg
"carry [those multiple male things, you one person, you!]"


Arrernte has a "playful" register called Rabbit Talk which works a bit like Pig Latin. The first syllable of a word (which is /VC/, remember) is taken off and reattached to the end of a word. This can also split apart individual morphemes.


¹ Kirk Miller, Highlights of Hadza Fieldwork, unpublished, 2009.

Yiuel Raumbesrairc wrote:I must say that what is true of Wikipedia is also true of papers; some things have been copied from other sources to the point of vacuousness. I call on a citation needed for that 80 years old source, it's begging for update.

You got a citation: Mithun (1999). And Mithun is just about the most trustworthy North Americanist linguist working today. Not quite equivalent to Wikipedia... I think y'all are being unreasonably skeptical.

EDIT: I originally wrote that her source was Sapir (1915) "Abnormal types of speech in Nootka". Mithun reports basically the same thing in both Nootka and Quileute, but her source for the latter is Leo Frachtenberg (1920) "Abnormal types of speech in Quileute", not Sapir. She incorrectly cites this in the text as "Frachtenberg (1917)"

The original source of this information, though, comes all the way back from the 1910s, so whether that information had stood up over the 80 or so years between being written and being repeated by Mithun or not, I don't know.

What do you mean "stood up over the 80 or so years"? Presumably, this linguistic datum wasn't passed down by word-of-mouth, and it's not like Plato or the New Testament where all we have are copies-of-copies-of-copies-of-copies. Odds are the original study still exists somewhere. EDIT: Here it is.

If you guys are that curious, you might try emailing her yourself instead of declaring it false outright.

Relevant:

Edward Sapir (1915) wrote:It should be remarked that such people, particularly when adult, are apt to become offended if addressed in this fashion, and that one would not use such forms in their presence unless with the express purpose of showing contempt or of teasing.

Leo Frachtenberg (1920) wrote:Most affixes and forms representing an abnormal type of speech are used either by the speaker himself or by another person speaking of the individual whom such a speech-form intends to single out. In few cases only is the abnormal form used in direct address, the reason for this being too apparent to require any comment. In some instances the speaker himself refrains from using the appropriate suffix affix, because such a use would constitute an admission of some deformity.

(Apologies for the triple-post)

Well it does look like something did get lost in the transition to Wikipedia, if we're talking about the same language. Wikipedia says it uses prefixes rather than suffixes, and specifically that it *does* apply when speaking to the person with the deformity rather than merely speaking about them to someone else. If that isnt true I think definitely we should change it to our best perception of the truth. Unless all that is talking about the animal-speech thing only, which it doesnt seem to be.

Publipis wrote:Well it does look like something did get lost in the transition to Wikipedia, if we're talking about the same language. Wikipedia says it uses prefixes rather than suffixes, and specifically that it *does* apply when speaking to the person with the deformity rather than merely speaking about them to someone else. If that isnt true I think definitely we should change it to our best perception of the truth. Unless all that is talking about the animal-speech thing only, which it doesnt seem to be.

Nah, Wikipedia's right. It does say that it is used when addressing the person-- just that this isn't usually the case. And the bit I quoted above should say "affix", not "suffix"-- that was my mistake when transcribing.