New Natl Geog and Sacagawea/Sacajawea

[Grant Barrett]

I did not hear Tom Gasque's speech, nor have I yet seen the particular
issue of National Geographic, but one language- and Sacagawea-related
item which I have read recently talks about the difficulties of
translation encountered.

Stephen Ambrose, in his fairly pedestrian book about Merriweather
Lewis, "Undaunted Courage," quotes from the journal of Charles
MacKenzie, a British trader who visited with the Corps of Discovery at
Fort Mandan.

"Sacagawea spoke a little Hidatsa in which she had to converse with her
husband, who was a Canadian and did not understand English. A mulatto,
who spoke bad French and worse English, served as interpreter to the
Captains [Lewis and Clark], so that a single word to be understood b
the party required to pass from the natives to the woman, from the
woman to the husband, from the husband to the mulatto, from the mulatto
to the captains."

Ambrose adds: "That might not have been so bad, except that Charbonneau
[Sacagawea's husband] and Jessaume argued about the meaning of every
French word they used."

--
Grant Barrett
Editor, World New York
http://www.worldnewyork.org/
gbarrett at worldnewyork.org