pointing, not with finger

[Genee, Inge]

I'm not sure if it is relevant and/or has a parallel in Algonquian, but when I grew up (in the Netherlands, speaking Dutch) we were emphatically and early taught not only not to point at people ("Niet zo wijzen!") but also not to refer to a person who is present in the speech situation with a third person pronoun. The correct way to do it is to say "Mr. Jones/Daddy told me it was allowed" ("Meneer Jansen/Pappa zegt dat het mag."), not "He told me it was allowed" ("Hij zegt dat het mag"), in any situation where Mr. Jones/Daddy might be able to overhear you. Direct third person deixis is rude. No idea why, actually.
In order to stop young children from pointing (which is hard because it is such a natural thing to do in toddlers and needed to establish joint attention) my mother would close her hand over the little child's pointing hand and gently move the pointing hand/arm down, while establishing joint attention with her eye gaze and verbally acknowledging the topic of discussion. Very subtle, now that I think on it.
Inge

-----Original Message-----
From: ALGONQUIANA [mailto:ALGONQUIANA at LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG] On Behalf Of Richard Preston
Sent: Thursday, March 07, 2013 9:24 AM
To: ALGONQUIANA at LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG
Subject: Re: pointing, not with finger

yes, finger pointing is old, but what did it denote and connote? What were the appropriate contexts? 
cheers
Dick

On 2013-03-07, at 9:27 AM, Goddard, Ives wrote:

> No one has pointed out that in many Alg. languages the word for 'seven' is derived from 'point at' and related to words for index finger (Rhodes and Costa, "Number words," #24-25).  So finger-pointing was old and must have had a stable and recognized cultural presence, even though lip-pursing is universal in normal use.
> 
> Ives
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: ALGONQUIANA [mailto:ALGONQUIANA at LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG] On Behalf Of Amy Dahlstrom
> Sent: Wednesday, March 06, 2013 8:55 AM
> To: ALGONQUIANA at LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG
> Subject: pointing, not with finger
> 
> Hello Algonquianists,
> 
> I'm a discussant at an upcoming conference on gesture, and one thing I thought I would mention to the (extremely diverse) audience is the practice among at least some of the Algonquian peoples of pointing with the lips or with the chin, rather than pointing with the finger.
> 
> I would like to ask you all how widespread this practice is.  And for native speakers (native pointers? :-) ), do you have any intuitions about why pointing with the finger is avoided?  Would it seem rude to point with the finger?  Or inappropriate in some other way?
> 
> thanks in advance for any thoughts you can share!
> 
> Amy
> 
> P.S.  if you hit "reply" remember that you are replying to the whole list! :-)