Native American English Dialect Analysis

Native American English dialects are generally defined as the dialects of English

spoken by the many differing indigenous tribes that inhabit the U.S., including Alaska,

and also parts of Canada and Mexico. Many of these dialects, along with the Native

American languages associated, have become extinct due to the forced assimilation of

Native Americans into Anglo-American society. Nearly all Native American languages

and dialects are endangered or near extinction today, some with only a handful of native

speakers left. For this reason, I’ve narrowed my analysis of Native American English

dialects simply to Apachean English, which makes up the largest indigenous language

group in North America. Apachean English refers to the English dialects spoken by

various tribes of Apache and Navajo Indians that reside in the Southwestern region of the

U.S., namely in Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, and Utah. The ancestral languages of

these tribes all belong to the Southern Athabaskan language family and are closely

related. I’ve also decided to include the Warm Spring Indians in this study solely for

pragmatic discussion. The Warm Spring tribes’ ancestral language, Umatilla-Tenino,

only has a dozen speakers, but communications researcher Susan Phillips has made

significant discoveries with regards to conversational turn-taking in Warm Springs Indian

tribes.

Apache English share many phonetic and phonological differences from Standard

American English. Most of this linguistic variation is due to the interlingual transfer of

Apachean phonemes into spoken English. Guillermo Bartelt writes in “Cognitive

Processes of Apachean English” about the differences of Apache English phonetics from

standard phonetics. In Apache English the phonemes /a/, /e/, /i/, and /o/ share phonemic

nasalization, length, and tone in Navajo and Western Apache. These phonemic traits are

carried over into Apachean English and, as a result, we often find nasalization of these

vowels in Apache English when a nasal consonant follows one of these vowels. These

vowels are also made tenser in Apachean English than Standard English as they are

transferred over. I had trouble finding an example of this nasalization rule in my videos,

but we can definitely see that vowels in Apachean English are made a lot tenser. In my

first video “Interview with Samuel Tso”, at 49 seconds he says “decode.” The

phoneme /e/ has been lengthened considerably and much stress has placed on this

particular vowel. There are also no glides in Apachean languages. As a result, words

like /ple/ for play simply become /ple/ and the glide is dropped.

Consonant phonemes /v/, /f/, /theta/, /r/, and /ng/ have no correspondences in

Apachean languages. Because of this, we find many phonological differences in

Apachean English with regards to these consonants. /Theta/ becomes /d/ in initial

position, and /f/ in medial and final position. /v/ becomes /b/ or /f/ in initial position

and /b/ in final position. /r/ becomes /w/ or /l/ in any position. With /ng/ the /g/ is dropped

and simply becomes /n/. At 1:14 in “Interview with Samuel Tso” we hear the word

buildin’ instead of “building”, because /ng/ has become /n/. At 45 seconds we hear him

say “da code” rather than “the code”, where /th/ has changed to /d/.

Another interesting phonetic quirk in Apache English is that very few consonants

can appear in word final position in Apachean languages. The glottal stop, however,

occurs quite frequently in final position in Apachean languages. For this reason, words

like clock become /kla’/. This phonological change is the reason why Apachean English

sounds choppy to many English speakers. At 37 seconds in “Interview with Samuel Tso,”

we hear him say /main/ instead of /maind/. The /d/ phoneme is being dropped in final

position because it’s not allowed in Apachean languages.

Morphologically, we also find many interlingual transfers where morphemes from

Apachean languages are transferred to Apachean English. Anthony Webster writes about

morphological changes common to Navajo English in “On Intimate Grammars”. All the

research on Apache English morphology I could come across only analyzed Navajo

English, but I assume that morphology for other varieties of Apache English would be

quite similar to the Navajo variation. One of the most easily noticeable morphological

occurrences in Navajo English is the plural morpheme [-s] being attached to mass nouns,

where the plural marker is omitted in Standard English. For example, at 58 seconds in

“Intervew with Samuel Tso” he says “English alphabets” instead of “English alphabet.”

Alphabet is understood as a mass noun that consists of many English letters, so in

Standard English the plural morpheme is not added. Tso doesn’t make this distinction,

however, and uses the plural morpheme.

In Navajo English, there is no gender distinction made between gendered

pronouns. Male and female pronouns are used arbitrarily. This morphological change is

largely due to the different syntactical structure in Apachean English being transferred

over, which we’ll talk more about here in a moment. For now I’ll simply mention that the

in Apachean English sentences are often marked in third person, so the use of gender

distinct pronouns is seen as redundant and unnecessary.

Modes and aspects in Apachean languages are often combined together, and

additional verb inflections are added to the sentence to signify the meaning. In Apache

English this is often carried over and we find the present tense used for usitative,

imperfective, and progressive aspects of English verbs. This combining of modes and

aspects is most common in storytelling, where the preterite or imperfective mode is most

frequently used. For example, at 28-33 seconds in the “Interview with Samuel Tso” he

says “The coded message, we cannot write it, but we can decipher it.” Tso is telling a

story about his life where the imperfect aspect would be used in Standard English,

indicating that the information being shared happened habitually in the past. In Standard

English the sentence would read “We couldn’t write it,” using the past tense of the modal

verb to express the imperfect tense.

Syntactically, we also find many transfers from Apache languages into Apachean

English. Guillermo Bartelt in “Cognitive Processes of Apache English” and William

Leap in “American Indian English” write that in Apachean languages the sentence

structure follows (S)OV. The subject is not necessary but optional at the beginning of the

sentence because the subject pronoun is attached as an affix to the verb complex. This

basic sentence structure is sometimes converted into Apachean English. In the previous

example we looked at Tso said “The coded message, we cannot write it, but we can

decipher it.” Here we find remnants of (S)OV structure with “The coded message”

showing up first as the object and the rest of the sentence following after it. As mentioned

before, this different sentence structure also makes English pronouns arbitrary. With the

object appearing first the sentence is written in third person, and subject pronouns are

cognitively grouped with the verbal complex in Apache English speaker’s minds. As a

result, we often see “he” used frequently as a default gender pronoun in Apache English.

I was unable to find any linguistic research done on lexical differences between

Apachean and Standard English. However, I have come across some interesting

observations in my studies that I thought would be worth mentioning. In my studies of

Native American mythology in Erdoes and Ortiz’s “American Indian Myths and

Legends” they commented on the lack of taboo words in Native American languages.

While I’m certain that taboo words do exist in Apachean English, they do seem to be

different than taboo words in Standard English. In Standard English taboo words are

generally sexually based, and include words like “snatch”, “twat”, “dick”, “peter”,

“Johnson”, etc. In Apachean English, taboos words of this nature simply do not exist.

Cultural factors play a large part in lexical formation of taboo words in Apachean

English. For example, the body is seen as sacred in Apache culture and no part of the

body has a “dirty” connotation to it. We seem to find more taboo words in Apache

English with specific animal characteristics. This makes intuitive sense for a hunter-

gather society where predator and prey would be taboo to speak about, in fear of ruining

the hunt or becoming hunted. Susan Philips noted in her work with the Warm Springs

Indians that “pig” seemed to be the most derogatory insult for a person she had found.

Ronald Scollon notes as well in “Interethnic Communication” that in Apachean English it

is taboo to speak hopefully of the future, to say good things about yourself, or to speak

badly of someone else. For this reason, we find relatively few insults in Apachean

English.

In Apache English one other interesting lexical phenomena is the repetition of

“and” at the beginning of sentences. This lexical occurrence has a strong pragmatic

element, because time in Apache culture is seen as cyclical rather than linear. This

phenomenon appears from 50 sec-1:07 in “Apache Talks.” “And” is repeated frequently

as the woman speaks to reflect this cyclical view of time.

Pragmatic differences in Apachean English are quite varied and different from

Standard English pragmatics. In White Mountain Apache English, for example, William

Leap writes that direct personal questions are often avoided. When approached with a

personal question that Apache speaker often responds “I don’t know” as an indication

that the question is inappropriate. Also, imperative commands are seen as rude and

insulting. In our videos interviewers accurately avoid using commands and personal

questions with Apache English speakers.

Keith Basso writes in “Giving up on Words” that the Western Apache use silence

whenever they find themselves in situations that are ambiguous and unpredictable. For

example, Western Apaches will use silence when meeting someone for the first time

because as strangers their actions are still unpredictable. We find silence used as well

when Western Apaches are in an unfamiliar environment. Because both of our videos

take place in a familiar setting and our interviewers seem to be culturally aware, we don’t

really see silence being used this way in our videos.

Susan Philips notes in “Invisible Culture” that in the Warm Spring tribes face-to-

face communication is highly valued, and that speaker skill is linked with age of the

speaker. For young speakers, they are encouraged to listen more than talk until they’ve at

least turned 35. Throughout Apachean English in general, pauses are an integral part of

speech, and longer pauses are taken between sentences than Standard English speakers.

At 50 sec-1:07 of “Apache Talks”, we see that “uh” is frequently used as space filler in

Apache English to indicate the longer pauses that Apache English speakers use while

speaking. When Standard English speakers approach Apachean English speakers,

however, they often don’t notice this important pragmatic difference and tend to

dominate the conversation, because we take shorter pauses and speak much faster.