You said what?

It's always been a fear of mine that I would say something horrible in a another language just by mispronouncing something.

For me, it was speaking Navajo to Mr. Salt a few weeks ago.

As I said to Diva in the comments below, Navajo (Dine bizaad) is a tonal language, meaning that where you put the emphasis in a good portion of the words can totally change the meaning of the word. Say it one way, it means this. Say it another, it means that.

So, when we were at the softball game I referenced a few posts ago, there was a grill fired up to cook burgers. Mr. Salt referenced the smoke coming our way in Navajo. Repeating him, I attempted to say the word for smoke. Mr. Salt immediately corrects me.

What I said wasn't smoke.

I had said shit.

Ah, for the joys of learning a new language.

It does has it fun moments. For instance, you can talk about people that give us evil looks (Angry Black Cat referenced this in her blog), and they can be totally confused because they expect Spanish(due to Mr. Salt's coloring). It always throws them for a loop.

Saying "over there" in Navajo can be fun too. The distance to get to o'er there where something is can change from two feet to ten miles depending how long you draw out a certain constant.

And, of course, misspeaking the language isn't always limited to me. Mr. Salt says that when he was little and learning the language, SaltMama had sent him over to his grandma's house for onions. So when he gets there, he tries to ask for onions using Navajo.

He didn't say onion. He said the vulgar word for a woman's lower anatomy.

So grandma was offended and was mad at SaltMama for teaching Mr. Salt dirty words.

Oh, and Mr. Salt's first learned English word?

Shit.

-DineBoo

Tales from Dinetah: Sleeping Man and Sleeping Woman

This is the first of a few tales that come from Mr. Salt family in Dinetah. Dinetah is Mr. Salt's home, the Navajo reservation.

Mornings in the Mr. Salt/DineBoo residence go something like this:

DineBoo: Get up! Sleeping Woman was crawling all over you!
Mr. Salt: I know. She had me wrapped up pretty tight. I had to get Sleeping Man to come get her off me.

When you have trouble waking up in the morning (or just waking up period like I do), it is said that Sleeping Man (or Woman if you're a guy) has you all wrapped up tight and is not letting you go.

Sleeping Man and Sleeping Woman are said to be foul, smelly people. Just really rank and dirty. Their breath stinks (morning breath) and they have matty hair (bed hair). That dried, crusty matter in your eyes after you wake up either dried drool from your respected Sleeping person or something else entirely. Mr. Salt can get creative with what that 'something else' is, so I'll just leave it as other body fluids and continue on.

Sleeping Man is always trying to get with Sleeping Woman, but if she rejects him, he'll find someone else to be with for the night. Same with Sleeping Woman. So you (or your partner) need to shake him off and chase him away.

When you're waking somebody up you need to shake them hard so that Sleeping Man will go away and find another person to be with for rest the night. The harder it is to wake the person up, the harder you need the shake the person awake. You might say some really gross things (like Sleeping Man's drool is all over them) so that they'll wake up faster. Mr. Salt says this works great with kids.

It can also be a sign of laziness when you are told that Sleeping Man(or Woman) is always around you. It means you're sleeping too much and not getting ready for the day!

-DineBoo