# Do North American "Indians" really talk so slowly?



## Arrius

I use the P.C. incorrect word _Indian_ here because Native Americans would also include what are currently named Inuits, whom I am not asking about.
It has become the practice in modern Western films to introduce much dialogue in various Indian dialects, usually with subtitles but often not. This is a great naturalistic improvement on the archaic and florid English used in former years or a kind of "Tarzan-speak" (whether the film iwas in English, German, Spanish or whatever) with all the verbs bizarrely in the infinitive.
When one hears a foreign language which one does not understand one's usual impression is that the rate of speech is more rapid than in one's own language - generally an illusion caused by the incomprehensible cascade of alien sounds. However, with verbal exchanges in Mohican, Apache, Cheyenne etc., this is not the case: they seem much slower. One reason might be that the actors of Indian blood are a bit rusty in their traditional tongue, or that the actors have learnt off by heart some chunks of the language from scratch and cannot get their tongues around the words too well, a third reason could be that often they are talking with a paleface, such as Kevin Costner in "Dances with Wolves" who has just learnt the language (at a speed which would be the envy of Berlitz!) and they slow down a bit out of deference to the newcomer. However, they are also extremely slow in their delivery when talking to one another.
Does anybody acquainted with any of these languages and its speakers know whether in real life the rate of speech in Indian languages is actually slower than average, perhaps due to the leisurely pace of traditional life, or is this impression a Hollywood myth?


----------



## xhalli

Indian languages are slower because in one word they have a lot of meanings and that shortens the language. On the other hand, they speak slowly because they show respect to the listener, in this way they can be perfectly understood. They also use a lot of hands movements to signal the nature as they are speaking. They are in a complete harmony with nature and some of them speak and move just as feeling nature in their bodies.


----------



## alouette_loves_paris

They probalbly do speak a little bit English slower if their main language is their native language, just like I speak French slowly cuz *because* I'm not quite used too it yet.


----------



## Arrius

Very interesting, *xhalli*, thank you. So the impression I have gleaned from movies would appear to be true. You seem to have taken an indio nickname, with an x like axolotl or Mexico itself (a pesar de escribirlo con jota vosotros mismos), so you must know what you are talking about. 

From films too, one knows of the hand signs you speak of. In fact, there appears also to be a *system of signs for use between Native Americans whose spoken languages are not mutually intelligible*. Have you experience of this? And may one generalize about linguistic behaviour among them or are there notable exceptions? They appear to have originally come from Asia and moved southwards possibly retreating from the advancing ice sheet that I have heard figures in their legends , so pèrhaps they are all either closely or distantly related, and therefore have a lot in common. I have never been to the Americas, but I have observed all over subsaharan Africa that traditional life is remarkably similar from the villages outside Cape Town to the southern edge of the Sahara, also mainly because of the southwards emigration of the tribes. 

No, *alouette loves Paris*, I was not referring to the way they speak English in the movies old or new, but to the modern tendency of incorporating long sequences of their own Indian languages in them, that gives the impression of the slow delivery now confirmed by *xhalli.*
Bonne chance avec l'apprentissage au français! Chaque homme a deux pays: la sienne et puis la France.
Cheers,
A.


----------



## badgrammar

Is it also possible in these films that the actors have had to memorize their lines in a language they (maybe) do not know?  That might seriously slow down fluidity and speech rate...


----------



## xhalli

My nickname means "sand" in Nahuatl, the original language of Aztecs. And you are right, it is believed that all these great cultures have a common origin. It is supposed that they came from the North of USA (Utah), went down the South and entered Mexico by Tamaulipas. All tribes have many similarities, even in the construcction of languages.


----------



## Alxmrphi

Inuits are Native Americans?


----------



## Arrius

Well they are in North America and have probably been there as long as what used to be called "indians" and so can hardly be consider as immigrants in the same way as the English, Germans and other Europeans, so I should think some people might think so. Canada which has plenty of "indians" many of whose ancestors fled northwards, and Alaska form part of North America as well as what is loosely called America. What would you have me call them besides Inuits or the now PC incorrect Eskimos (Esquimaux)? I doubt very much that they also came from Mars.


----------



## Alxmrphi

Inuits are from far North I always thought, like the top part of Canada going into Greenland, not in North America, though I could be wrong, I'll go wiki it.



> *Inuit* (Inuktitut syllabics, ᐃᓄᐃᑦ, singular _*Inuk*_ / ᐃᓄᒃ[1]) is a general term for a group of culturally similar indigenous peoples inhabiting the Arctic regions of Alaska, Greenland, the Canadian territories of Northwest Territories and Nunavut, the province of Quebec and the northern part of Labrador.


----------



## Arrius

I have not consulted your references yet, but the titles of the links admit that Inuits are indigenous, which takes care of the native part, and live in Alaska which makes them citizens of the United States, and Canada, making them American in a more general sense. 
I nave read that some of the relatives of the Alaskan ones live in that part of Russia closest to Alaska, which latter territory, as you probably know was purchased from the Russians in the century before last. In recent history it was possible for each to visit their relatives in the other continent when the Behring Straits froze over, but with global warming they can sadly no longer do this. A point certainly not brought up at the current international conference. This icy road across the sea was probably the way the ancestors of the Native Americans entered the Americas.
If we include them in our present discussion (such as it is), to which I have no objections, I do not think there is much cinematographic evidence of their speech in the few films set in those areas. There was "Nanook of the North" in 1922, but that was silent, and "The Savage Innocents" (1960) with a young Anthony Quinn as an Inuit and Peter O'Toole (in his first rôle I think) as a mountie. Quinn included in his genealogical cocktail some Mexican Indio blood, which made him part Native American. It is a long time since I saw this excellent film but I do not think a single word of Inuit was uttered in it. Nevertheless, here is a link to its description on the IMDb, with my recommendations to get it out if you have a local shop with vintage films. (If Mars is actually in the States you may have already had to see it at school).
http://imdb.com/title/tt0053244/


----------



## Alxmrphi

Ah those weren't my links but rather links that copied over from Wikipedia, essentially the important part was just the text. No need to go off reading all that!


----------



## xhalli

Arrius
You will find a lot of similarities between indian languages, specialy in speed. They always take their time to answer. We still have a lot to learn


----------



## Flaminius

Moderation Note:

The current discussion should be about the question contained in the first post.  *Arrius* asked;
Do North American "Indians" really talk so slowly?

The topic of the thread is none of the ones below:
How far advanced native American civilisations were
How _conquistadores_ perceived their civilisations
Where native Americans came from

If you have any points to raise for or against the original question by *Arrius*, your posts are welcome as legitimate contribution to the current thread.  Discussions outside the thread topic merits a new thread.  But please be advised that the topics listed above are not language questions.

Thank you for your cooperation,
Flaminius
moderator


----------



## palomnik

Arrius, my admittedly small experience with actually speaking Native American languages on the ground is limited mainly to Mexico (Yucatec) and South America (Aymara), and my impression is that in those languages speakers do indeed seem to speak slowly.

As for North America and the images of Native Americans in the movies, you can't rule out the fact that the lines often are memorized. In "Dances with Wolves", for example, it was just as badgrammar points out - most of the Native American actors were not Lakota (Graham Greene, for example, is a Canadian Mohawk), and they did have to have coaching in the language.


----------



## xhalli

Indian languages in Mexico are reallyslower than Spanish or English, it is because one word can have a lot of meanings and also many of these languages are "aglutinating", they join more than three words in one, just as German does. We also use a lot of sounds for one vowel, for example in Otomi, one of the languages in Oaxaca, you have to learn 5 or 6 sounds for "a" or "o", so they speak slowly to give the correct intonation to the word. But they speak slowly mainly because they are always in harmony with nature, they use a lot of body language when they are speaking. If they talk about the sky, they look or point to the sky, if they talk about the mountains, they point or made the form of a mountain with their hands. They feel nature when they speak and this is sacred for them. We don't have any insult in any indian languages because language is to comunicate not to insult. So it is true, indian languages are slower but I think they are beautiful, they speak poetry and give to their words the exact meaning of their feelings.


----------

