On the importance of language

The January issue of Downeast magazine contains a profile of Wayne Newell, an elder in Maine’s Passamaquoddy Tribe and a linguist who is diligently trying to preserve the Passamaquoddy language.

Newell was instrumental in the publication last year of The Passamaquoddy-Maliseet Dictionary, a hefty 1,200-page tome from the University of Maine Press. That was a major accomplishment in the ongoing effort to preserve what is an oral language, and one that is endangered to boot.

What I find interesting about this is that the new dictionary provides yet another reminder that languages are intriguing because each is so unique. Whether it is differences in grammar, syntax, vocabulary or idioms, a language is not simply a means of communication. It is a way of seeing.

In French, for example, every noun has a gender; it is either masculine or feminine. This concept is unknown in English.

Similarly, words or phrases in one language cannot always be readily translated into another, suggesting that people from different cultures not only speak differently, but think differently. 

Evan Pritchard, in his book No Word for Time: The Way of the Algonquin People, notes that “there is no word for time in the Micmac language, nor in most Algonquin languages. You can’t say it.”

He goes on to explain that Saturday, in Micmac, is gesspeteq, which translates as sitting on the edge of the week. Sunday is gweltamultik, or day of feasting.

Even within one language, variations are possible, based on geography, history and culture. For example, French-speaking people in Canada have expanded the French language by adding Indian words to it, such as toboggan.

In France, a mosquito is a moustique. In Quebec, the French word for mosquito is maringouin. A bleuet, in France, is a type of flower. In Quebec, bleuet is the French word for blueberry.

When I picked up The Passamaquoddy-Maliseet Dictionary at the Maine state library the other day, I looked up dog in the English section of the dictionary, to find the equivalent word in Passamaquoddy.

The search turned up, not one word, but well over a dozen Indian words for dog, many of which define a dog that is used to hunt a specific animal.

As Newell makes clear, however, his fascination with language is not as widely shared as it should be. 

“In other parts of the world, being bilingual or even trilingual is no big adventure,” Newell is quoted as saying in the Downeast article, “but here in America we have this very narrow view of what people should be.

More's the pity.