Well, I could not help but think of stereotypes. I'd never seen an Indian say "How!" for real before.
Did Indians ever really say "how" in formal greeting? --Keath G., Baton Rouge, Louisiana
Dear Keath:
Not exactly, but you've hit on one of those rare bits of frontier rubbish that actually has some basis in fact. There is no such thing as a universal Indian greeting--the original inhabitants of North America spoke some 500 different languages--but we do find variants of "how" in the native speech of many Plains Indians tribes, who spoke versions of a major language called Siouan. The Tetons said "howo" and "ho," the Dakota had "hao" and "ho," and the Omaha had "hau" (and maybe "ho" too, but I didn't find it in my Omaha dictionary).
Below: "How, paleface! Stop in and buy some trinkets."
2 comments:
Rob,
For the most part I like your writing but have 2 things to say to you. First, don't talk about us in the past tense, we are still here & still have a lot of our languages. And Lakota language the word is Hau sounds different than how non-Indians say it but it is a greeting and is still used.
Megwetch,
I didn't utter a word about Indians in the past tense in this posting, so your criticism doesn't apply. Readers of this blog know I constantly speak about Indians in the present tense. But thanks for writing.
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