tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Fri Sep 08 09:33:02 1995
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Cherokee Re: }} Chakotay -- what did he say?
- From: Dave Sturm <[email protected]>
- Subject: Cherokee Re: }} Chakotay -- what did he say?
- Date: Fri, 8 Sep 1995 13:33:02 +0000 (GMT)
On Thu, 7 Sep 1995, William H. Martin wrote:
> According to Mark E. Shoulson:
...> > most I can say is that so far as I can tell "akuchimoya" is
> > consistent with
> > the phonology of at least some dialects of Cherokee (a-ku-tsi-mo-ya in
> What little Cherokee I've heard pronounced is unlike anything
> I've heard on Voyager. The Cherokee basically pronounce the
> hyphens - they emphasize every syllable almost equally with
> something near a pause between each one, as if it were a
> separate word. Syllables don't slide together.
> I definitely get the sense that the Cherokee generally speak
> very slowly.
I don't think I've ever mentioned that my wife is half Cherokee before,
but um, Will, I think the reason that you might hear Cherokee spoken so
slowly and accentuated is that the number of *fluent* speakers is such a
low percentage of the Cherokee nation. You know the difference between
say a 3rd-year American student of French and a native French speaker....
So one would suspect that because so many have a lower level of fluency
that this explains what you observed. I'd agree with your general
observation, except that the conclusion is due more to educational level
than phonology. Actually, Cherokee is more analogous to Chinese in the
sense that yes, they clearly separate the syllables, but it doesn't affect
the potential speed of delivery. (After all, ' is just another
consonant.)
Trust me, the fluent Cherokee speakers really book it. I'm so close to
Cherokee, North Carolina now, that we hope to get over there some and
work on our Cherokee. Dave.