Native Languages and 'science'

[MM Smith]

I humbly precede this by saying that I am curious, not an expert, and
can only glimpse the ideas. Too, I know nothing of the wasicun linguist
who's site I sampled and pasted here, but am hoping the ideas will add
to the discussion.

The question seems to need to move quickly beyond what words exist in a
given language for a given western scientific or mathematical concept,
but rather how do Native languages relate to indigenous ways of
describing the 'cosmos.'


http://www.enformy.com/dma-ql03.htm

In reference to a conference between some Native people and some
scientists in 1992?

> Historic as far as Native Americans are concerned
>
> (Sa'ke'j:)* It was an amazing experience to get that kind of respect,
> for most Native Americans, to be sitting at the table with the
> greatest scientist on some kind of cognitive equality, and come to
> certain agreements that our language may better describe the subatomic
> world... than their language. but they don't know any other language,
> and they are very curious about why we would have pre-knowledge of
> something hat their methods and rules are just arriving at.
> Noun/verb-dominated Languages
>
> And what did Whorf mean by verb-dominated language? {Benjamin Whorf]
> Whereas every sentence in English must properly have a subject, a noun
> or noun phrase, and a verb, many if not most Native American languages
> can have sentences with no nouns at all. 'Rehpi,' a full sentence in
> Hopi referring to a celestial event, means 'flashed,' where we have to
> say 'the lightning flashed.' But this goes much further: sa'ke'j says
> that when he's speaking mi'kmaq back on the reserve, he can go all day
> long without ever uttering a single noun. this statement is
> mind-boggling to most English speakers. So much of our facts and
> knowledge are wrapped up in nouns, so what would all that knowledge
> look like in a language that doesn't value nouns in the same way? This
> includes all concepts, all the way to 'god'.
>
> (Sa'ke'j:) We don't have one god. You need a noun language to have one
> god. We have forces. All forces are equal and you are just the
> amplifier of the forces. The way you conduct your life and the dignity
> you give to other things gives you access to other forces.
>
> Even trees are verbs instead of nouns: The Mi'kmaq named their trees
> for the sound the wind makes when it blows through the trees during
> the autumn about an hour after sunset, when the wind usually comes
> from a certain direction. So one might be like a 'shu-shu' something,
> and another more like a 'tinka-tinka' something.
>
> Although physics in the western world has been essentially the quest
> for the smallest noun (which used to be a-tom, 'that which cannot be
> further divided'), as they went inside the atom things weren't acting
> like nouns anymore. The physicists were intrigued with the
> possibilities inherent in a language that didn't depend on nouns but
> could move right to verbs when the circumstances were appropriate.
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