Re-post on Translations

[Dark Cloud]

This is something I put here a while back and on the AAO board, so you're warned if this annoyed you the first seven or eight postings. The regulars have read or ignored it.

But I think it important to reflect upon the zillion ways it becomes apparent that innocent but major errors in translation could occur even when someone is expert in both languages, a situation unlikely to have ever occurred in this time period. And really, trying to tell this story in sign language would be like Monty Python's Wuthering Heights in semaphore. And semaphore is a lot more accurate given clear vision.

Because people are hauling out Indian quotes that sound like Thomas Carlisle and British war movies again, with specific times and precise locations, Captain Bringdown visits again. Captain Bringdown always visits.......

Posted - April 15 2006 : 4:17:08 PM Show Profile Visit Dark Cloud's Homepage Reply with Quote

I have long smirked about people who discuss Indian 'testimony' about the LBH. This is not because I think Sioux or Cheyenne lie - or are stupid -in greater proportion to anyone else. It's that there is no indication ANY of them spoke English, at least till much later, and that therefore the 'testimony' has been sieved through translaters. Sometimes after that it goes through relatives or tribe for the then-concurrent PC treatment, which is why so many of the accounts sound so awkward at best.

This is acceptable if we have proof or even remote evidence who the translators were, and if they themselves were any good and had been vetted to preclude alternative agendas to accuracy. We really do not, and sometimes, as with Marquis, we're to believe that sign language is as precise as can be.

But there is another problem: the nature of Indian languages themselves, which is VERY different from English not only in vocabulary and grammar but the way the language reflects a different sense of time AND MANNER OF THINKING.

From www.sacred-texts.com/earth/fu/fu13.htm

"In the first place, we find that as in those Ural-Altaic languages, so in a like manner in the Sioux or Dakota tongue, there exists that remarkable syntactical structure of sentences which we might call a constant inversion of the mode and order in which we are accustomed to think. Thus, more or less, the people who speak those languages would begin sentences or periods where we end ours, so that our thoughts would really appear in their minds as inverted.

"Those Asiatic languages have, moreover, no prepositions, but only postpositions. So, likewise, has the Dakota tongue.

"The polysynthetic arrangement which prevails throughout the majority of the American-Indian languages is less prominent, and decidedly less intricate, in the Dakota tongue than in those of the other tribes of this continent."

As pointed out, this 'tendency' is less in the Dakota tongue but still exists. I think it vastly important, because I find it hard to believe that many people could be sorta/kinda fluent in both English AND Sioux and/or Cheyenne without serious study. I can't find an example in Dakota but I have found this example of a polysynthetic Native American language sentence and its translation into English. This is in the Iroqouis of the Oneida rendered into English sounds.

g-nagla-sl-i-zak-s.

It is said like one long word, but it is a sentence. Well, German can be like that, featuring real long words, but this is different.

g = this sound carries the meaning of "I" but isn't a mere substitution of one word for another, like farmer for agricola. In fact, in this language "...the entire language forms one word units, with none of its component parts enjoying true separate existence..." as English words do.

nagla = this conveys the meaning of 'living', but again is not its exact counterpart.

sl = a suffix giving nagla the force of a noun

i = verbal prefix meaning zak (which follows)is to be understood as a verb

zak = looking for

s = continued action

(from The World's Chief Languages, Pei,page 36)

It apparently means "I am looking for a village", but by the logic of English speakers, that isn't all that clear.

Note how weak the concept of time specificity is.

Keep this in mind when reading the sometimes intricate verbal tenses of supposed Indian accounts.

And we really should cease calling it testimony.

[clw]

I posted this 'over there' regarding Indian casualites, but it fits here too. dc is absolutely right in my opinion.

---

They understood the lower numbers and had words for them. They didn't have much need for high numbers so their way of expressing them was less sophisticated. And that may have been a contributing factor to the confusion what with interpreters and all.

For instance 231 would have been said.... "opawinge numpa sam wikcemna yamni aka wanji "

231 - opawinge numpa sam wikcemna yamni aka wanji

opawinge - 100
numpa - 2
wikcemna - 10
yamni - 3
wanji - 1

And so it goes...
388 - opawinge yamni sam wikcemna saglogan aka saglogan

opawinge -100
yamni - 3
wikcemna - 10
saglogan - 8
saglogan - 8

If a translator got even one word wrong... well you see the point.

As a aside, the language is filled with "thought words" that when tranlated literally to English mean something entirely different. I don't speak Lakota, but I'm familiar enough to sometimes know when they pop up wrong in the various translated accounts. It has caused me to be very careful when weighing them. I can sometimes tell whether an interpreter was really fluent or translating literally. "Literally" doesn't work. And of course some interpreters just paraphrased the whole thing. I suspect many accounts contain these types of errors.

I have a scanned copy of the English/Lakota field dictionary compiled by the army and issued in 1866. It compares well to "See Spot Run".

[pohanka]

As Dark Cloud so eloquently points out "translations" are exceedingly difficult to substantiate due to the acute complexity of language in and of it's self. In addition, it seems that not a few interpreters had their own self interest at heart. The needless death of Crazy Horse, due to corrupted translations, is but one example. However, to disregard Indian translations entirely may not be the answer either.

Of all the translators who have contributed to the story of the Battle of the Bighorn, is it not possible that one, or two, or maybe even three of them may have possessed the ability to interpret correctly say to at least a 70% probability?

A substantial portion of what has been reported about this battle has come from Indian testimony. Information that has been corroborated by authors such as Fox, Hardorff, and Scott. When Indian testimony/oral tradition is substantiated by physical confirmation than it behooves us to, at least, stop and listen. Without a doubt you are both correct in establishing an important truism; caution. Caution in accepting any speculation, assumptions, or possibilities without some type of confirmation.

After all, anything not impossible is possible, don't you agree? Besides, look at all the money those authors have accumulated writing books that we all buy!!!

[AZ Ranger]

A substantial portion of what has been reported about this battle has come from Indian testimony. Information that has been corroborated by authors such as Fox, Hardorff, and Scott. When Indian testimony/oral tradition is substantiated by physical confirmation than it behooves us to, at least, stop and listen. Without a doubt you are both correct in establishing an important truism; caution. Caution in accepting any speculation, assumptions, or possibilities without some type of confirmation.

DC I think you are correct on the author of this post. Its as if the word testimony has no meaning different than account. Isn't a translation second hand information from the start which makes it an account to me and not direct testimony. Corroborating an account does not go to its veracity. There is no physical conformation that would pass any scientific test for time of day precisely to the hour and minute. If someone proves an Indian account incorrect it does not mean the Indian was lying. It could be the translator was lying or at least a poor translator.

Accounts have merit and can be used but apply the standard of "consistent with" rather than factual beyond doubt to them.
Custer died is factual there are many Indian accounts on who killed him some consistent with other known facts. This is about as clear of a distinction as I can draw. One account maybe factual but others are consistent with the events and some are not.

AZ Ranger

[biggordie]

Evidence and testimony are not the same thing, as Steve and dc so ably point out, and much can be either lost or added during any translation -sometimes the translation is a paraphrasing of the entire statement into the words which the interpreter [note the distinction inherent between the words "translator" and "interpreter"] thinks fit the situation, as clw posted above. There are many risks in accepting NDN accounts without question; but it would be useless to try to find out what happened at LBH without them. The accounts of the survivors among the troops are every bit as suspect, and one must be equally wary of accepting them as gospel.

It seems to me that this is particularly true when it comes to the exact time of day. Most free-roaming NDNs had no need for knowing the EXACT time of day, not in the sense that Anglos did. "Noon" to us means 12:00 M [within a couple of minutes, depending upon how exact one wants, needs or chooses to be]. Had an NDN been interpreted as saying "Noon" he probably said something like "the sun was in the middle" or the "sun was about there" - and the interpreter provided what he thought the questioner would understand.

If I'm asking and NDN a question in November as to what time something in June happened, and he points to the heavens and says "the sun was about there," how do I equate that with a specific time of day in June? Especially if the event happened in June 30 years ago?

NDN accounts are rife with times such as "I was just starting my lunch" which might have been the same clock time as another source's "I was just finishing my breakfast" or another's "I had just come from the river from swimming." Or completely different - which is one of the reasons why the NDN times for when the fights started and ended cover equally as long a gamut as do the troops'. Sometime between March and August.

Anyone who has witnessed, or taken part in, the debate, here and elsewhere, over what time things happened from the military point of view - those guys did have watches and clocks and did need to know the time of day for some events [especially if you were the itinerist, whose times have become, in the eyes of those who know more than most of us, somewhat suspect] - where the most learned among the LBH scholars try to reconcile times, distances and speeds - are hereby invited to turn their attentions to, and try their hands at, a new project in which you can attempt to reconcile the time factors as they appear in the various NDN accounts.

And as we used to say in my neighborhood [when I was just a kid] "Good luck in your future endeavors." LOL

Regards,

Gordie

PS I wonder what the response would have been if one warrior had walked up to another on June 25, 1876, and asked "What time is it?" at about noon [or even if there was such a question in the Lakota vocabulary of the day].

[Dark Cloud]

It's what I mean by the prissy precisions covering up the reality we can't actually know.

I'd also like to point out that one of my detailed objections to A Terrible Glory on other threads is that suddenly he rewrites standard translations. For example, the "...going home by a road we do not know" becomes something else meaning essentially the same thing. Think about that. It's not that we have the actual words of the scout subject to various translations for interesting variation, much less the written words of the scout. We have only the initial translation of whoever made it. So, where does Donovan get off doing this, or quoting whoever had, and leaving it in quotes? It doesn't leave a sense of ease to his truthfulness, frankly.

As to Wiggs, realbird, pohanka, only he would write (again and again, along with exclamation points....) 'it would be the height of arrogance...' Of course, there are some here who would hope to fool me for the sake of fooling me, so we cannot be entirely sure. But it isn't worth the energy.

I agree with gordy with one added emphasis. We don't even have Indian accounts. We have what we are told are Indian accounts.

[biggordie]

dc:

I'll disagree with you on the "we don't even have Indian accounts." MOSTLY, we don't even have Indian accounts; but I have accounts directly from NDNs to me, admittedly not from NDNs who were there, but from their direct descendants. Obviously this does not make them any less hearsay, but I consider them better sources than accounts supposedly given, through however competent an interpreter to whoever it was that recorded them for posterity. And family histories not given to me directly, but, rather, shared with me by the person to whom they were given [in writing].

The caveats still apply to these, of course; but I consider them closer to the original sources.

Gordie

[Montana Bab]

What has always bothered me about Camp's interviews with NAs is the fact that he always presented them with a list of questions that were prepared by his standards and ones that would give him the answers that he was specifically looking for.

If you ask questions in enough ways, eventually you will get the answer you are looking for. Especially if the person being asked doesn't have the faintest idea what you are saying.

Those answers are only as good as the translators and I happen to believe that ALL of those so-called 'translators' had their own agendas to satisfy.

I totally agree with DC, clw, and Gordie, and they've made some really good points that convince me further! Thanks for the confirmation! I havn't heard or read anything that negates my point of view!

Bab

[Treasuredude]

I love reading the Camp interviews. They are some of the best information that we have available to us.

That being said, I also have a bit of a problem with Camp's Indian interviews. To make it easier he would ask a question and then give them a couple of choices to answer. "Did the troops cross the river or stay on the hill?" What if the answer was neither? What if the correct answer was, "They rode down into the coulee"? The interviewee tailored his answer to fit one of the choices given to him.

[biggordie]

BaB:

You're dead on about Walter Camp. Some of his interviews were conducted by others using prepared-by-Camp questionnaires [there were two or three different types - I'd have to look them up], and not only did some of the questions solicit certain answers, as you've pointed out, but the interviewer utilized a map, also provided by Camp. I'm not altogether certain how many NDNs knew what Ford A or Ford B were, or C or H or G and etc.

I used to think that Walter Camp was the fount of most knowledge - until I got into his actual interview notes, and discovered that many were not notes of interviews at all, but were, in fact, notes of newspaper articles, books and excerpts from others' letters. To put it bluntly, many of the people he "interviewed" were people he never saw in his life.

Which is not to say that one should discard all of his research - just take it for what it may be worth. There is lots of interesting and valuable information contained within those notes, if you can read them. Same as with the NDN accounts.

Gordie

[clw]

I've shared some Lakota family history with Gordie, mainly because his grasp of the battle is much greater than mine and, since he has respect for these accounts, he's able to see correlations I don't and can assess them without denigrating them. I won't subject them to that as I honor the fact they were shared with me. And consider also that these famioy history accounts were translated into English by the Lakota themselves.

The most outstanding thing about them to me is that the people who present them usually haven't studied this battle -- certainly not in the depth that we do here. All they know about it is what has passed down through the generations and yet the stories fit. What really facinates me is the perspective. There's a whole different feel to the tales when they're told from the other side without benefit(?) of research, even though they often mesh. The perspective is totally different, but the overview rings true.

[Montana Bab]

clw,

I hope you don't misunderstand my post above. I was in no way denouncing the NA for the "interviews", but the persons who interpreted them.

As a matter of fact, when I fortunately was able to view the DVD's of Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse that were sanctioned by their families, I was really moved by the information and spiritual
content. (Don't smirk, DC, this is serious!)

I don't discount the recollections of the NA participants of that battle, but simply take them at face value. Mostly for the personal views of the fighting . There were some interesting tid-bits in there.

Bab

[clw]

Heck no, Montana! It was just my view I was expressing, although it may have been generally directed at the fact that these stories are sometimes dismissed as tall tales. Even that is understandable -- I've heard some whoppers. But there are those who not only feel the stories have zero validity, they feel obligated to denigrate the people who tell them. Consequently I don't mention them much here.

I'm glad you liked the DVD's. It's been mentioned that they are slow paced, which is true. But that's their way. Storytelling is an art to be savored and one should give the listener time to think. It's an acquired taste for those of us in this busy world.

[crzhrs]

I believe Edgerly stated he never was interviewed by Camp, let alone met the man.

However, Edgerly stated that he corresponded with Camp and that may have been where the "interview" came from.

[chadron21]

Jun 8, 2008 15:29:53 GMT -6 Treasuredude said:

I love reading the Camp interviews. They are some of the best information that we have available to us.

That being said, I also have a bit of a problem with Camp's Indian interviews. To make it easier he would ask a question and then give them a couple of choices to answer. "Did the troops cross the river or stay on the hill?" What if the answer was neither? What if the correct answer was, "They rode down into the coulee"? The interviewee tailored his answer to fit one of the choices given to him.

My sentiments exactly. Why not ask an open ended question and let them talk? The way it was, if none of the answers were correct, the poor Indians were forced to pick the least incorrect answer.