Re: Tepper's Shadow's End

On Tuesday 05 November 2002 06:19 am, you wrote:
> I've been reading Sheri S. Tepper's _Shadow's End_, which has some nifty
> ideas and some execution I'm not too fond of--in any case, one of the
> settings involves Dinadh, which has a language that intrigues me.  I'm
> wondering if she devised it from scratch or if it's derived from
> something--I'd guess Native American, of which I have no knowledge.  :-(
Knowing Tepper, it's something from New Mexico.  and Dinadh sounds like it
derives from the Navaho name for themselves - as far as I know.  Any Navaho
on the list to say me yea or nay?

Wesley Parish

>
> Gods mentioned are Weaving Woman, Brother and Sister Rain, Daylight Woman.
>    Names mentioned include Saluez, Hallach, Dzibano'as, Hamam'n, Damnabi,
> Chacosri.  Place-name: Simidi-ala (the Separated Place).  A ceremony
> called Tahs-uppi (Tasimi "our borders," plural possessive, Tahs probably
> "end" or "limit," uppas, uppasim, uppasimi).  There's some indication of
> active? case-marking ("Choosen, intrinsic...in our language we wouldn't
> say the rain chooses to fall.  It just naturally falls").
>
> Also an interesting inclusion-exclusion thing going on:
> "When our serving woman spoke of the gods...when she left us to our dinner,
>   she said, 'May the Gracious One hold us all in beauty,' and by using the
> word for 'us all,' she excluded the mentioned being....There are a dozen
> Dinadhi words for 'all,' or 'us all.'  For example, there's a word that
> means us all, everything living in the universe.  There's another word
> that means all us Dinadhi, and still another word that means all us humans
> here in this room.  When you use an 'us all' word, if you mention anyone
> in particular in the same phrase, it means that person is excluded.  You
> can say, 'Simidi-ala and *us all* Dinadhi are faithful worshipers,' and
> actually mean, 'Except for Simidi-ala, we on Dinadh are faithful
> worshipers.'  Or you can say, 'Martha and *us all* were laughing at the
> jokes,' which actually means, 'We were all laughing except Martha, who has
> no sense of humor.'"
>
> I'm tempted to steal the feature in some future conlang, in any case,
> whether anyone identifies Tepper's lang, or not.  =)
>
> Yoon Ha Lee [requiescat@cityofveils.com]
> http://pegasus.cityofveils.com
>
> Never do anything standing that you can do sitting, or anything sitting
> that you can do lying down.
--
Mau e ki, "He aha te mea nui?"
You ask, "What is the most important thing?"
Maku e ki, "He tangata, he tangata, he tangata."
I reply, "It is people, it is people, it is people."