English language is a transaction language. It’s a trade language and no longer has a land to call it own. It’s a drifter language. Don’t get me wrong, there are beautiful expressions and adjectives and adverbs... but most English verbs are dull and bland and lack description
English places emphases on nouns that many other languages don’t. My mentor, who created the best writing system for our language (Blackfoot) creates his own literacy rules as well. He doesn’t capitalize anything... If you don’t understand the significance of this move then ookss
Also, early European linguists/anthropologists had the audacity to call indigenous languages ‘primative’ and ‘childish’ for having animacy and inanimacy as syntacal features of our languages. One can say that that is were our ‘gender’ sits- is it animate or not??
Just FYI: ‘animate’ and ‘inanimate’ May not be the best discripor words for this grammatical feature but it works. Often it’s the spirit and how that spirit has importance and influence within that culture. One tribe will call an onject animate where another one doesn’t...
This doesn’t mean that the animacy/inanimacy is totally arbitrary- it is a direct refection of the culture and spirit of the people.
Which lead me to think about how unimportant it is for euro languages to have gender pronouns. Something my language does not have. Talking about once’s gender everytime they do something is so unimportant... it’s primitive
That is not to say I believe that the discussions of our usage of pronouns isn’t important. Matter of fact, it’s extremely important because of the structure of this language (English, in this case- its what I know and speak). Since it forces us to talk about sex all the time...
...we ought to put in the conscious effort to make sure our statements and phrases acurately represent who that person we speak of truly is. Language is important and how we talk of and the words we use to describe others and this earth and cosmos needs to have respect
This is where I get into a wacky theory: English is also a monotheistic language that reinforces monotheism. ‘God’ isn’t merely just a noun, it’s a vocative that we scream either in pleasure or pain akin to the word ‘fuck’... it’s really strange to me
Then English has separated the rest of the cosmos from humans with pronouns. Only humans are generally ‘she’ and ‘he’. Animals are ‘it’ (exceptions are pets and a rich man’s yacht that he refers to as ‘she’ [which is pretty fucked up that the female pronoun is used as inanimate])
So, English syntax, from my observation, separates humanity from the rest of the world. Further, dieties share the same pronouns as humans, which possibly makes it more ‘logical’ that we have the rights to put earth under our dominion [im well aware this is a reach but I’m at...
...peace with this reach. My whole life I had to hear about how primitive my people are/were despite them being for more ethically and spiritually advanced then the colonizers calling us that shit
My language lets the speaker understand that we are related to the earth and cosmos through *syntax*. It’s implied... it’s a given... you don’t have to take shrooms and go on a interpersonal journey to discover it... it’s built into the fabric of everything you say. It’s real!
Lastly, I digress, and I question... does our grammar have influence in our bigotry? Indigenous peoples don’t have the same violent bigotry towards Non-Cis peoples as the euro world seems to have. Is it because value what people *do* more than what we say they ought to *be*
I mean, a missionary once knocked on my door in college. I answered not knowing who it was... from the doorway you could see my tribal flags and they said, ‘you’re Native American? We believe you’re a part of the lost tribes of Israel’ and I busted out laughing...
... I told him, ‘we (ndns) always knew where we are and always stood on this land... y’all the ones wondering aimlessly in this world asking people to believe what you believe... you’re the one who’s lost, your the one looking for something’ lol
Need to go more: concerning English is a transaction language. Look at the USA where the most ignorant English monoglots demand that they are served in English while engaging in the market. Not saying languages syntax forces or creates these attitudes, but it sure in feeds it
Just as the anatomy of the Blackfoot language feeds a speaker the notion that we are related to the earth and that the sun is a sacred being and that plants have consciousness, English feeds the idea that there are only two genders- she and he
Just to be clear, I’m not arguing that the languages create these attitudes (nor am I saying people who don’t speak a languages with gender pronouns can’t be a bigot) but I make the argument that these languages *feed* these beliefs
