Indians speaking like Tarzan

[Ryanx]

Only in German, TupSum, but see how fun it would be if you could do this in English, too. Bear-arms: Baren-Waffe. A huge weapon or something to kill bears. Not to be mistaken with the arms-bear/ waffen-baer - a bear that is armed.

And here we go. See - multiple people do this. What language is this, songtsen? Skyship and iron horse we got, too (wire-mule we call it). Fire-arrow? Is this some Asian? Wuut? 'Arrow'... If this is Chinese I thought you invented everything... and you came up with ' "fire-arrow"? That was the best you got? And it is not even an arrow... Did you really invented that? ^^ - jk
But, please, tell, what language is this?

 

[Gvelion]

This is a total myth – do not fall for that bogus. You can not be raised by wild animals. Specifically not dogs or wolfs.

So, story of Mowgli was a lie ?!

 

[songtsen]

And here we go. See - multiple people do this. What language is this, songtsen? Skyship and iron horse we got, too (wire-mule we call it). Fire-arrow? Is this some Asian? Wuut? 'Arrow'... If this is Chinese I thought you invented everything... and you came up with ' "fire-arrow"? That was the best you got? And it is not even an arrow... Did you really invented that? ^^ - jk
But, please, tell, what language is this?

Its Tibetan. We have many terms that will sound strange to foreign ears. When we say food we say "khalak" which means"hand mouth" which is what you use when eating. When we meet a great man we call him a "great mountain" though this term is quite old and not many use it. Our succesfull businessmans are called " lord of business" and we call our teacher "old sir" but never "old lady".

 

[Ryanx]

So, story of Mowgli was a lie ?!

I am sorry.
But Orang Uthans do have a call that sounds close to singing.

 

[Shtajerc]

@Ryanx & co, I think you're missing my point here. It's not about composita, which in German are very frequent (Donaudampfschifffahrtsgesellschaftskapitän and the like), nor is it about languages in general. Admitted, it's an interesting subject and perhaps deserves a separate thread of its own, but here I am trying to see, whether or not the movie portrayal of Native Americans communicating with English speakers has some basis in reality or if it's a fabrication. The way Indians speak in movies is sometimes overromanticised and comes across as artificial because it's too poetical to be genuine - the number of metaphors and phrases used all the time demands a very good knowledge of English to even be possible. People who struggle with a language don't speak that way. You pointed out at my remark of my father speaking Indianerdeutsch: yes, he speaks a broken German, but he doesn't speak like Winnetou. So while speaking "broken" with lots of infinitives, without particles, indefinite articles and such, I doubt they'd use soooo many picturesque phrases. A noble savage simpleton in a novel might, actual people less likely so.

The "fire stick" from my OP cought the attention of all of you to an astonishing degree even though it was only meant as an example to show what I mean. But if it's already such a tripoing stone, I'd like to say that I do indeed find it a weird expression. Not because it is impossible to come up with such a name, the oposite, but because it was an item known to many tribes ewually as long as horses or sometimes even longer and for sure it was an important item, making an impact both on hunting and warfare with other tribes and whites. So there must have been at least one Indian who could ask a damn trader, voyageur, soldier or any other poor soul he ran across what this thing is called in English. "Gun" or "rifle" aren't that hard words to learn. It's not hipotalamus or otolaryngologist. I always imagine a native doing trade with some white dude asking "do you have some guns?" and the white dude saying "nah mate, sorry, I only got some fire sticks, but they do the trick just as well". It is also not like that someone came up with fire stick and then all the tribes across North America used this for 200 years. There were missionaries among the natives who not only taught them their Christian religion but also their language - be it English, French or Spanish. I guess they wouldn't all go "this fire stick, this make bum bum, this bad".

 

[Frank81]

This is a total myth – do not fall for that bogus. You can not be raised by wild animals. Specifically not dogs or wolfs.

You can see this on a very simple fact. All these people who are accused or claim that happened – they should have inside knowledge far beyond our scientific knowledge about that species. They do not.
Specifically what dogs eat – kills you and dogs do not know what humans eat.

Humans can be particularly well integrated into wolf packs. Don't think Mougli is the only example of this (a literary one), but uncontable number of individuals lived through that real experience

 

[deaf tuner]

I dont see anything wrong with phrases like "fire stick" or "fire water". In my native language the gun is called "fire arrow" and bycycles are called"iron horse". The aeroplane is called "skyship" and so on. It just sounds strange to english ears because they have not heard terms like it before. I am sure Chinese and Japanese are as confused with english terms.

Well, in this forum's official language, skyship is called ... aero-plane ! Odd way to name it, don't You think? Most of them aren't able of planeing into the air, for example!

 

[MAGolding]

To get back to the original question, if you are a talking about the speech of Indians in western movies set in the trans Mississippi west in the 19th century, the real 19th century was a time of ever increasing literacy among English speaking Americans. A lot of fiction and non fiction was written about interactions with Indians in the west in those days, both Indians who needed interpreters and those who spoke English more or less well. So possibly Some of those original sources will give some idea of how Indians who had some knowledge of English spoke or were believed to speak.

 

[Ryanx]

@Ryanx & co, I think you're missing my point here. (...)

Sorry, I was one step ahead.^^
This is fiction – I thought that was answered already.

I tried to look up something there for you, but I do not know in which book it is written anymore – and I have other stuff to do atm. That is why I did not search to long.
But NO – this is fiction and you are right with your assumption.
You can tell by – that all the natives talk differently.
May's native do not talk like Cooper's.

That is like May from the books:
"Ryan of the Colognians tried to look up something for you, but my brother Shtajerc has to wait many moons, till Ryan might return with a source of an eye-witness who wrote down how American natives talk.
Does my brother Shtajerc, know the bottom of the page where he finds what the English call number and the Slovene people call stevilka? There he will find the thread again."

So it is totally made up and still a stereotype in the US because they had multiple traffic languages in that century and not everybody spoke English.
So if you talk natives translators are right around the corner.

They talked like you said.

Humans can be particularly well integrated into wolf packs. Don't think Mougli is the only example of this (a literary one), but uncontable number of individuals lived through that real experience

No. This is the same myth. Same mechanics at work like that native talk.

That story only works with people who do not know natives or people who do not know wolfs.
That is not only people in far away countries – the people in the Canadian woods are not the experts on wolfs.
The guys who study wolfs are the experts on wolfs and while they might travel the Canadian woods they are not living on hick-county knowledge.

That stories always come from places, where people run not on the latest education level.
Might it be the backwoods of India, Africa, Russia or South America. That is where such stories come from.

You can not eat what wolfs eat. They can not feed you.
If wolfs would adopt you – they would require to know that you are a human.
Because if they play by wolf-rules they would kill you.
So they integrate you into a pack – but on the other hand do not think you are a wolf?

But let's say wolfs would be like that – don't you think that should happen more often, with more species?
Like with coyotes or dogs or at least other dog-like animals – that would be much easier to integrate than a totally different species? Here comes the catch: They kill them all on sight, they even eat humans - but here for miracle reasons they behaved not like wolfs.

Wolfs do form up friendships if they do not have a pack. So it can happen that you have the cross-species relationships. All social animals do this. Even lions (and they are cats).
But here we do have a pack existing.

So one wolf is no problem But two wolfs already – play by pack rules.
Do you know pack rules? If you would need to take a pee in a forest – would you do it?
That is how one wolf-biologist nearly got killed himself in the habitat of wolfs he raised by hand.

So you have to learn on your own, how to get food. You have to learn the wolf ways and you have to protect yourself, as you can not hide in the den like a baby-wolf when a leopard or bear or a lynx comes.

What is the pack good for you? Why are you even staying with wolfs?
They have thousands of parasites on them.

So if you are not a suicidal fur-fetishist there is no reason for you staying with predators of any kind in the wild – because it makes your life more complicated than better and by complicated I mean life-threatening.

And before you are in the situation that the pack protects you against a tiger or bear or wolverine – you died by branch falling from tree on your head in the jungle – or cold in the north.
That pack is for hunting to obtain food and not for protecting weak species that bring in zero advantage for anybody. Specifically wolfs consider everything three times before taking an action.
But on humans they would waste their ressources? True Christian animals. The church had it all wrong.^^ You know what I mean?

Is being fooled like the natives talk. That there is even one guy on the North-American continent who thinks that Americans do have problems speaking the language of the United States – even as a stereotype – is totally irrational. That should not even be a rumor or something they should be associated with.
Like you do know that wolfs are top end predators and every meat you eat is cooked for you.

You do not even have to know that Kipling gave Mowgli a natural scientific perception that goes on confrontation with the village people who believe in supernatural stuff (read the book - it is a really good one - it even got songs - very smart ones - the monkey song is my fave, as I do have to support my kind) .
Or that there is no expert on any animal on that planet – that will advise you to live with animals they do study and love.

Here Goodall f.e. is a gigantic Tarzan fan and the same person who explained to the world that this does not work in reality. No human baby can be raised by chimpanzees.

It is all Uri Geller if you hear or read such stories.

 

[Frank81]

No. This is the same myth. Same mechanics at work like that native talk.

That story only works with people who do not know natives or people who do not know wolfs.
That is not only people in far away countries – the people in the Canadian woods are not the experts on wolfs.
The guys who study wolfs are the experts on wolfs and while they might travel the Canadian woods they are not living on hick-county knowledge.

That stories always come from places, where people run not on the latest education level.
Might it be the backwoods of India, Africa, Russia or South America. That is where such stories come from.

You can not eat what wolfs eat. They can not feed you.
If wolfs would adopt you – they would require to know that you are a human.
Because if they play by wolf-rules they would kill you.
So they integrate you into a pack – but on the other hand do not think you are a wolf?

But let's say wolfs would be like that – don't you think that should happen more often, with more species?
Like with coyotes or dogs or at least other dog-like animals – that would be much easier to integrate than a totally different species? Here comes the catch: They kill them all on sight, they even eat humans - but here for miracle reasons they behaved not like wolfs.

Wolfs do form up friendships if they do not have a pack. So it can happen that you have the cross-species relationships. All social animals do this. Even lions (and they are cats).
But here we do have a pack existing.

So one wolf is no problem But two wolfs already – play by pack rules.
Do you know pack rules? If you would need to take a pee in a forest – would you do it?
That is how one wolf-biologist nearly got killed himself in the habitat of wolfs he raised by hand.

So you have to learn on your own, how to get food. You have to learn the wolf ways and you have to protect yourself, as you can not hide in the den like a baby-wolf when a leopard or bear or a lynx comes.

What is the pack good for you? Why are you even staying with wolfs?
They have thousands of parasites on them.

So if you are not a suicidal fur-fetishist there is no reason for you staying with predators of any kind in the wild – because it makes your life more complicated than better and by complicated I mean life-threatening.

And before you are in the situation that the pack protects you against a tiger or bear or wolverine – you died by branch falling from tree on your head in the jungle – or cold in the north.
That pack is for hunting to obtain food and not for protecting weak species that bring in zero advantage for anybody. Specifically wolfs consider everything three times before taking an action.
But on humans they would waste their ressources? True Christian animals. The church had it all wrong.^^ You know what I mean?

Is being fooled like the natives talk. That there is even one guy on the North-American continent who thinks that Americans do have problems speaking the language of the United States – even as a stereotype – is totally irrational. That should not even be a rumor or something they should be associated with.
Like you do know that wolfs are top end predators and every meat you eat is cooked for you.

You do not even have to know that Kipling gave Mowgli a natural scientific perception that goes on confrontation with the village people who believe in supernatural stuff (read the book - it is a really good one - it even got songs - very smart ones - the monkey song is my fave, as I do have to support my kind) .
Or that there is no expert on any animal on that planet – that will advise you to live with animals they do study and love.

Here Goodall f.e. is a gigantic Tarzan fan and the same person who explained to the world that this does not work in reality. No human baby can be raised by chimpanzees.

It is all Uri Geller if you hear or read such stories.

You should have more interest in researching the issue, because you're making speculations out of air. There're lot of examples coming from Europe, one of the most recent was Marcos Rodríguez Pantoja, born in 1946, he was left in the forest of southern Spain in 1954, where he grew up among wolves to 1965, becoming one of the pack, eating like them, behaving like them. When he was found, the guy was total savage and behaved like a wolf. And he is STILL alive, and remember everything perfectly (in fact, he never was used to live with humans again)

And this is just one among many in a long series of European children risen by wolves, as far back as the mythological Romulus and Remo. Do NOT apply conclusions among human and chimpazee interactions to human and wolves. Chimps and humans can't live well together; packs of wolves and humans can get together finely on the other hand.

Here he explain, in Spanish, the very first time he entered the pack. He discovered a cave with all the cubs, where he took refuge; the she-wolf gave him a piece of raw meat which he ate badly. The she-wolf at very first threat him roughly, but after giving the meat and Marcos eating it, she licked his face and allowed the guy to stay with the pack