Woodland Indians Forum

Im digging all the usage of words like pilsitch, okch... ya if that glitch didn't come up figuring out the best way to transliterate i could've started much sooner. but then i moved a couple times, had a baby, graduated 2 grad school programs, learned to remodel 1 home and now remodeling another.... but i will always make sure to circle back to items dear on my list when life permits it.

You've been busy!  Of course, okch and pilsitch are just "and-will" and "he-who-is-pure-will."  (For those unfamiliar with them, the -ch is simply the future marker, which can be added onto any part-of-speech--here, a particle and a participle.)  I assume these aren't the ones with which you were having trouble.

Nope! Those were the ones I really liked seeing over and over. Those are more of the funner parts of grammar i love to learn. I rather oddly have a weird talent for breaking words apart to figure meaning and grammar, for words i've never seen before. like people have thrown words at me knowing i'd figure them out like a game.

in fact another project that is personal is breaking apart every lenape word i learn and recording them in a file i keep. because it makes me nuts to be told word A means B but i can clearly see there are 2 or 3 parts in the word and the meaning of each part actually tells me more about the word than just accepting the suggested meaning on faith. In my opinion i dont see how anyone can learn a language fluently without knowing all those parts upfront or there's no way to think!

Anyway, here's one of the odd ball words = "uneaol"

Maxkwtet wrote:

Nope! Those were the ones I really liked seeing over and over. Those are more of the funner parts of grammar i love to learn. I rather oddly have a weird talent for breaking words apart to figure meaning and grammar, for words i've never seen before. like people have thrown words at me knowing i'd figure them out like a game.

in fact another project that is personal is breaking apart every lenape word i learn and recording them in a file i keep. because it makes me nuts to be told word A means B but i can clearly see there are 2 or 3 parts in the word and the meaning of each part actually tells me more about the word than just accepting the suggested meaning on faith. In my opinion i dont see how anyone can learn a language fluently without knowing all those parts upfront or there's no way to think!

Well...  What you're doing is finding the etymology of words.  Sometimes, the etymology and the meaning are exactly the same--but, not always.  For instance, the English word, "bridge," is, etymologically, "log."  But, we wouldn't call the George Washington Bridge the George Washington Log!  The etymology of "fox" is "bushy," but we don't call a fox "a bushy."  In other words, people are not always thinking of the etymology of a word when they use it.  This is true in Lenape, too--though, Lenape meanings are often closer to their etymological structure than are some other languages.

yes! languages have always been a hobby. so many times i just look at a word in german or another language and it automatically explains the english word to me because german constructs their words using parts that make sense to everyone that speaks that language. Lenape does the same. English is a very different animal being a language with a majority of loan words form various languages.

Well dont mean to bore. Putting my nose back into my books.

Oops, to be clear, that is a direct transliteration. Then mapping that to the modern system would be the following step.

wonderful! no question it would take me much longer to work thru that. thank you so much

Let me caution you about one thing.  Many people in the mid U.S. have trouble distinguishing between the Lenape short a (pronounced like the u in the word mud) and the schwa [ë] (pronounced like the a in the word sofa).  Blanchard was no exception.  So, you always have to check the words with these letters, in Blanchard, with those in the Lenape Talking Dictionary, in order to see which vowel is correct.  In your sentence, for example, the schwas I have underlined and put in bold type should really be short a:

Taku hishi awen uneoiuël Kishelëmuetchi në shikënsh tlëi mawsin wekwisink, wtulhyilit oxël tëpin tëli watëlukunenap.

This is probably true for tlëi, also, but I'm not sure about that word.

i understand. i was going to check any words i dont know to talking lenape. i would want to show the direct transliteration. then the update to how it stands in talking lenape. i think the comparison and anlysis btw the 2 are interesting to see. like how they say 'luensu' but we would say luwensu. i'm looking at a case of 'luensuch' right now; love those added particles

I keep wanting to correct words like ëntë but am purposely maintaining the way he says it is spelled for historical interest. So then I would show the modern spelling next in line on paper. Then the translation. I guess this will just be a weird file buried in my cloud that only i will have since that book is coming out i am glad this information has been liberated though for many many more eyes. 

another word i notice changes along the way in this book is xkwe sometimes transliterates to xkwë or ukwë; so x versus b in his system. in my method, ë because that is how the letter he uses most usually transliterates knowing other words his letter occurs in. so i meerly maintain that pattern of his system of writing. 1st transliteration then translation and really it would be a translation between his transliterated writing and into modern unami spelling, isnt it? that is a twisty concept to scare most ppl!

"can you tell i geek out on this stuff?"

  Yes.  I love it!

You mentioned a couple other books that might need transliterating too? Are those online?