Indn Words for Science

[annie ross]

hello

i too am interested in words, not as a linguist, but an a scholar of oral histories, and as an artist and teacher interested in native philosophy and place.

i wonder, would the mainstream concept of 'science' be compartmentalized outside of the panoply of information in native logic?  (would 'science'  be a separate category/subject word?)  or...perhaps, would there be a suffix or prefix or modifier to a word that would mean something like 'understanding' in an indigenous language ,  that would translate to what is meant by the western word "science" ?
what if the word mainstream culture uses, "shaman'" mean, in part, "scientist'?  aren't our medine men and women, in part, true scientists? and what of other indigenous occupations - those that demand study, observation, analysis, knowledge of factual information - are not those 'science', using an indigenous scientific method of personal experience?

annie ross


Mia - Main Red Pony <miakalish at REDPONY.US> wrote:
Hi, Andre,

This is a wonderful document for the Exploratoria that we will be building
if we get the big NSF grant we applied for.

I wasn't asking for the words for use in teaching materials, though. I
wanted them for a generalized approach that says, It's time to stop looking
at Indns as simple, superstitious creatures, because white people screwed up
to begin with by biasing their learning about the people here because of
J.W. Powell.

I am taking a class in petroglyphs, and the ideas that the people writing
come up with are really, truly, offensive (at least to me, but being a
Cognitive Psychologist, I am probably more sensitive to it than most
people). On the one hand, we have David Lewis-Williams with his theory that
much of what has been created on rocks is "shamanistic in nature", a theory
he started to try to "understand" the rock paintings of the San bushmen, and
on the other Ron Eckland, who has aptly and admirably demonstrated that
African patterns are based on fractal geometry. As you might well imagine,
David Lewis-Williams had only to make his theories up in his head, and
search through the literature finding people who had written things that
agreed with his ideas. Eckland, on the other hand, had actually to derive
the equations, and run them through the computer to demonstrate that the
equations appropriately represented the structures.

I think I have mentioned this before: I use technology to develop effective
teaching materials, but unlike most people, I target my goals at adults. The
things I have developed so far work well for children, but more
significantly, they work well for adults, who people think can't learn
languages. Now I am expanding a little, to take the simultaneous,
multi-perceptual presentation form and apply it to more difficult learning,
like computer algorithms, for example. This is a course most people fail; I
think I can develop materials that teach enough, painlessly, enjoyably, so
most everyone does well. I say "most", because you can't guarantee that
everyone will do the class work.

This was kind of an aside: my goal here is really simple. It is to be able
to say, Powell was a vicious idiot, and the rest of us are living with the
results of that perniciousness.

Kind of harsh, huh? There was a lake named after him when they dammed the
Colorado. Harrington, unarguably one of the best linguists and ethnographers
Ever, left us a clue in a 1907 publication that Powell was forcing all
analysis of Native languages in the English structure and component
framework. He could do that, because he was the gatekeeper at the
Smithsonian.

So thanks, Andre. I was going to say, I guess there are no words for
scientific and mathematical concepts left in your language, either. However,
I have one more perspective to share. The "tools" that a non-destructive,
hunter-gatherer society uses (and looks for) are different from the tools a
sedentary, ecologically destructive agricultural society uses (and looks
for) and both of these are extremely much different from the tools of an
industrial society. These different "ways of surviving" also contain
different sets of questions asked and answered, cultural goals and
expectations, and vocabularies in general.

Hence my question: Did any Indn words survive the Powell Purge?

Hope you are having a nice day. It is beautiful here in NM; a wonderful
winter storm went through leaving us much needed rain and snow. I know you
don't have that problem up there in exquisitely beautiful northern
California.

best,
mia
----- Original Message -----
From: "Andre Cramblit"
To:
Sent: Wednesday, March 03, 2004 5:04 PM
Subject: Re: Indn Words for Science


FYI (attached)

Mia - Main Red Pony wrote:

> Hello.
>
> In the middle of these devastating assaults on Native languages, laws
> that say classes must be taught in English, No [Rich] child left
> behind. . . and so on, I have what I think is an important question to
> ask, especially for people working on revitalization.
>
> Do your languages have words for science?
>
> I have been looking through my dictionaries (Young and Morgan's
> Colloquial Navajo, Perry's Western Apache Dictionary, Bray's version
> of the Western Apache-English Dictionary, Toluwa and Hupa]. I have a
> small set of really basic words: add, subtract, multiply, divide,
> circle, square, triangle, measure, count, repeat, rhythm, angle, line,
> cloud, mountain, rain.
>
> Most of the languages have recorded words for circle, mountain, and
> rain. Many have words for cloud, although Toluwa, in the Pacific
> Northwest, and with words for fog, don't have one listed for "cloud".
>
> So, my really important question: Do Your Languages have these words?
> Some?
>
> You don't have to send me what they are, unless you would enjoy
> engaging with them. But I would like to know if they exist.
>
> I am convinced that Powell created a limited, and somewhat pernicious,
> view of the people who lived here originally with his prescriptive
> Introduction to the Study of Indian Languages: Words, phrases and
> sentences to be collected.
>
> I am also convinced that without this narrow and exclusive view, some,
> of not all, of the language issues that we have today, particularly
> with regard to languages which may be used in schools for teaching,
> would not exist.
>
> The question arose because I am looking at geometric patterns at Three
> Rivers Petroglyphs. The patterns show up in pottery designs in
> 1100-1300 ad. I wondered if people had conceptualized these forms
> linguistically.
>
> Thanks in advance for your help.
>
> Mia Kalish
>
> PS: Thanks for that information on grants, Andre. Wouldn't this be
> just a Perfect Project!
>
> "Civilization advances by extending the number of important operations
> which we can perform without thinking about them. Alfred North Whitehead
>
> Mia Kalish, M.A.
> PhD Student, Computer Science
> Tularosa, New Mexico USA 88352
>


--


André Cramblit: andre.p.cramblit.86 at alum.dartmouth.org is the Operations
Director Northern California Indian Development Council NCIDC
(http://www.ncidc.org) is a non-profit that meets the development needs
of American Indians

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