Map of Native American etymologies for “horse”. There were no horses in the Americas before the colonists arrived. Native Americans quickly developed new words for this strange animal, often associating them with dogs, their one other domestic animal before contact with Europe.
In Inupiaq its tuttuqpak, which means “big caribou”, which I’ve always loved. But I didn’t realize that the Creek, Choctaw, Cheyenne, and Shawnee etymologies were so similar! I love how associative animal names tend to be, like how “catfish” were named for their whiskers. What’s important about horses? They’re domesticated, they resemble other American ungulates but only have one toe, the Spanish and the French brought them (so you might as well use a loan word) and they’re quite useful for various tasks. It sounds goofy, but that’s how humans think, and its how we categorize animals- by their relationship to us, their appearance, where they’re from, and how useful they are.
Yeah our tribe used Cavaayo, from spanish caballo, because the Spaniards were the ones who brought them.
There’s actually a really endearing Lakota story about the discovery of horses tbh. But the only comparison anyone was able to link them to was dogs…just large, really fuckin weird dogs.
Heheh, looks like a lot of other people thought the same way. All we know with our tribe is we saw them, realized there were ways for a person to move faster than they could running, and our eternal hunger to GO FASTER was born- to this day we’re obsessed with cars, motorcyles, anything to feel the wind in our hair and Go Fast.
I’m not sure how this quite compares to other tribes, but when we moved about, we would place things to haul the fabric and wood between dogs, and they would pull it. So, naturally, horses meant BETTER at pulling stuff around, and less worn out pups. Clearly a decent choice.
(Source: reddit.com, via kyrayaassbutt)
Speaking of linguistics, there’s one particular linguistic tick that I think clearly separates Baby Boomers from Millennials: how we reply when someone says “thank you.”
You almost never hear a Millennial say “you’re welcome.” At least not when someone thanks them. It just isn’t done. Not because Millenials are ingrates lacking all manners, but because the polite response is “No problem.” Millennials only use “you’re welcome” sarcastically when they haven’t been thanked or when something has been taken from/done to them without their consent. It’s a phrase that’s used to point out someone else’s rudeness. A Millenial would typically be fairly uncomfortable saying “you’re welcome” as an acknowledgement of genuine thanks because the phrase is only ever used disengenuously.
Baby Boomers, however, get really miffed if someone says “no problem” in response to being thanked. From their perspective, saying “no problem” means that whatever they’re thanking someone for was in fact a problem, but the other person did it anyway as a personal favor. To them “You’re welcome” is the standard polite response.
“You’re welcome” means to Millennials what “no problem” means to Baby Boomers, and vice versa.The two phrases have converse meanings to the different age sets. I’m not sure exactly where this line gets drawn, but it’s somewhere in the middle of Gen X. This is a real pain in the ass if you work in customer service because everyone thinks that everyone else is being rude when they’re really being polite in their own language.
This is weird because I’m among the last of the Baby Boomers (I remember being told so) and I’ve always said “no worries”.
Maybe it’s an Aussie thing…
(via guernica322)