sapir - two navaho puns

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Linguistic Society of America

Two Navaho PunsAuthor(s): Edward SapirReviewed work(s):Source: Language, Vol. 8, No. 3 (Sep., 1932), pp. 217-219Published by: Linguistic Society of AmericaStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/409655 .

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MISCELLANEA 217the 6th century. In John's account of the joint reign of Justinus andTiberius (574-578 A. D.) he describes the latter's extravagance in thefollowing words (ed. Jessie Payne Margoliouth, Semitic Study SeriesXIII, Leiden 1909: 14): 'So that even when he was on the sea in adarman (Gr. bpb'wv), rom all sides hastened qarabhiy? Gr. Kapa~ptaithSyriac plural ending), and to all of them he threw largesses.'In this one sentence occur two Greek loan words denoting boats.There can be no question of the derivation or meaning of either. If,then, Kapd~tLOvould be used in a Syriac work of the 6th century, wemust assume its common use in Greek in the 5th century, and, in accord-ance with Professor's Preveden's own reasoning, assume the use ofKapaposn a still earlier period. RALPH MARCUS

Two NAVAHOPUNSIt is a well known fact, often stressed by Boas, that the AmericanIndians do not go in for riddles and proverbs. What few exceptionshave been found serve only to emphasize the rule. If to riddles and

proverbs we add puns, as it seems we have a right to do, it begins toappear likely that the American Indian has a generalized lack of in-terest in light verbal fancy. There is plenty of metaphor in his rituals,there is considerable etymologizing ad hocin his legends, and his oratoryis famous, but the zest in quick, irresponsible reinterpretation of familiarwords or phrases which lies at the bottom of the pleasure that we experi-ence in the telling of riddles, proverbs, and puns seems strangely un-Indian, whatever may be the reason.Yet puns are not entirely absent, as the two following Navaho ex-amples show. They were collected in the summer of 1929 at Crystal,New Mexico.In a council held some time ago the leader of one of the two contend-ing parties said,' xdct'-' ndhano"d'" 'You people decide on one thing!'A cripple who was present whispered to one near by, ndcidi"'d"'Pickme up!' The latter, catching on at once, picked up the cripple and,holding him in his arms, asked, xd-dic ndh~rc'd-' 'Where am I to puthim down?' Everybody laughed. This is said to be a favorite anec-dote among the Navaho and depends for its point on the double mean-ing of the verb n6-hd-ni- . .. -'da', which may mean either 'todecide on the matter' or 'to put him down'.1Grave accent (a) represents low tone, acute (d) high tone, circumflex (d) fall-ing tone.


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218 MISCELLANEAA close analysis of this pun shows that it is more subtle than appearson the surface and that to enter fully into its humor requires sensitive-

ness to no less than three changes of linguistic front. The fundamentalpun is simple and would hardly be enough by itself to raise a laugh, onesuspects. This is the use of the verb stem -'d' 'to handle the "round"object' in the transferred sense of 'to handle the affair, words, plan,date, decision'. The secondary use of -'d-' (-'d) in an abstract sense isvery common in Navaho, e.g. tc'6-ho-ni- . .. -'da' 'to tell'; nd-h6-ni- . . -'d' 'to make the decision'; nd-hd- . . . -'d 'to make plans',-d-nd-hd- . . -t'd.' (= -d-'da') 'a date is being set for one'. Thetingling moment in the anecdote comes with the cripple's whisperedrequest; for, in addition to the very general transfer of meaning alreadynoted, there is the added point that one does not normally use the verbnd-di- . . . -'d' 'to pick it up' (and its correlative ni-ni- . . . -'d''to put it down') of an animate being, but only of such inanimate'round' objects as a potato, or apple, or watch, or rock. In other words,the wily cripple, turning his helplessness to humorous account, classifieshis hunched up body as a 'round object', ndcidi.'d.' substitutes for nd-cidi%1tx~-'nd xd-dicndhch'd-' substitutes for xd-dic nhidhctxz.' (-1-tx~.''to handle the animate being'). Had a little boy of normal physicalhealth made the request, the pun would have seemed a bit far-fetched,for he could not easily be thought of as lifted up and put down likean inanimate object. The quick understanding by the second punsterof the cripple's use of -'d' socializes the pun and kindles it into some-thing like satire of the ponderous doings of important people. Finally,the climax of the pun, 'Where am I to put him down?', reinterprets the-hd-, which in the first usage has the meaning of something like 'theaffair, circumstance', while in the second it is a personal pronoun re-ferring to 'this one'. These two uses of -ho- are historically distinctin Athabaskan. Briefly, then, the first element of the pun is imperson-ally contributed, as it were, by the language itself; the second is thecreation of a masochistic cripple; the third is the echoing understandingof his friend, who equates 'the great business in hand' with 'this poorchap'.The second pun is much simpler. It is told as a joke rather than asan anecdote. 'So and so has gone over there', one says. 'What for?'xwdjdd6txdsapparently 'he is going to give one a kick' (future of semel-factive verb yi ctxds 'I give it a kick'), actually 'he (the medicine-man)will perform a ritual "chant"' (future of xdctxd'1 I perform a "chant"',a denominative verb based on xdtxd-1'a ritual "chant"'). Here again


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MISCELLANEA 219the xwd- (= -hd- above) changes from an impersonal to a personalapplication. It adds to the flavor of the joke if one remembers thatNavaho medicine-men are often hired to come from great distances inorder to direct curing rituals and that the spaces between the scatteredNavaho hogans are wide indeed.The great number of homonymous elements in Navaho, due largelyto the leveling influence of phonetic laws, and its peculiarly intricatestructure, which derives quite definite meanings from the assembling ofelements that are generalized and colorless in themselves, combine tomake Navaho a peculiarly tempting language for the punster.

EDWARD SAPIR

sapir - two navaho puns

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