The Mysterious Taensa Grammar: Imaginative Fiction or Poor Description?

More than half the world's languages are currently endangered and many have already become extinct. Linguists working in these regions -- including Australia and many parts of the United States -- are reliant on earlier documentary records, often prepared from the last speakers. Inexperienced writers introduce artifacts into the description from their own native languages or make other errors of analysis or fact. In this talk, I focus on the 1882 Grammar and Vocabulary of the Taensa Language, published in French in 1882 by J.D. Haumonté, J. Parisot, and L. Adam. It purports to be an expansion of a manuscript compiled in Spanish, undated and anonymous, recorded in the American Southeast (the name Taensa is these days most closely associated with Tensas Parish in northeastern Louisiana). At the time, the grammar attracted much attention as a unique record of a previously unattested language which was, on the face of it, unrelated to any other. However, suspicions were soon raised and by 1911, the materials were firmly believed to be a hoax -- an early "conlang" [constructed language], made up by Parisot and a friend. This opinion has persisted. I argue here, however, that numerous features of the manuscript are consistent with it being a genuine (if poor) representation of a natural language. All indications are that the writers of the grammar made errors in the description of the language. Such errors are very unlikely if the authors of the grammar are the same as the "creators" of the language. While difficulties in accepting the manuscript as genuine remain, I argue that the balance of probability suggests that the Taensa grammar might be genuine after all.

Transcript

1. Claire Bowern: Yale University The Mysterious Taensa Grammar: Imaginative Fiction or Poor Description? 1
2. Language documentation ❖ Work with native speakers of a language ❖ Work with archival materials (audio, print, and manuscript) ❖ To answer questions about linguistic structure ❖ To answer questions in prehistory ❖ To work with endangered language communities 2
3. The world’s endangered languages Source: endangeredlanguages.com ❖ Great deal of linguistics done through written or archival materials. ❖ Need to know how to work with them and what they represent. 3
4. What language documentation is ❖ Description of sounds, words, meanings, and structures of a language in terms of a metalanguage. ❖ Last 50 years: relatively agreed- on terminology (functional typology). ❖ In the 19th Century, that standard was either Latin, or whatever the language(s) of the describer knew. 4 Kennedy leading the gerundive into captivity
5. Documentation is hard! ❖ Wrong analysis ❖ adjectives vs verbs ❖ ‘Two r sounds’ ❖ Wrong meaning ❖ you ~ nose ❖ ‘finger’ ❖ Wrong language ❖ Wangkumara (Garlali) 5
6. And then… there are the fakes ❖ George Psalmanazar (1679-1763) 6
7. … Which brings us to “The Taensa Affair” 7 ❖ Anatomy of the ‘hoax’ and its protagonists ❖ Review of the evidence (selected) ❖ My Claims: ❖ there’s more to the story; ❖ features of the materials are inconsistent with the standard hoax theory
8. The story in brief ❖ The scene: Plombières-Les-Bains ❖ Seminary student Jean Parisot was working in his grandfather’s library, following his death. ❖ He discovered an undated, anonymous ms grammar of the Taensa language. ❖ It was written in Spanish with preliminary translation from his grandfather. ❖ Parisot published the fragments in the early 1880s. Paris 8
9. Taensa linguistic publications ❖ 1880: “Notes sur la Langue des Taensas” Revue de Linguistique et Philologie Comparée (XIII). c. 20p ❖ 1881: Anonymous publication of Cancionero Americano en lengua Taensa (subtitle Taensagini- Tyańgagi) published without context. ❖ 1882: Grammar, texts, and dictionary: Haumonté et al (1882) c. 600 words in the vocabulary 7 short ‘texts’ + a few prayers, with commentary 41 page grammar covering basic phonology, morphology, and a bit of syntax, and some stylistic comments. [1880+1881, + new material] 9
10. The story in brief ❖ By the mid-1880s, there was doubts about its authenticity ❖ cf. Brinton (1885) and subsequent back and forth with Adam, Vinson, and others, published in booklet form by Maisonneuve ❖ Swanton (1908) ‘proves’ the Taensa spoke Natchez. 10
11. Subsequent work? 11 ❖ Martin (2004) ❖ Kaufman (2014) ❖ Campbell (1997) ❖ Landar (1974) ❖ Sturtevant (2005) ❖ …
12. The protagonists ❖ Jean-Dominic Haumonté: (1806-1872) ❖ Mayor of Plombierès ❖ Wrote a book on the town ❖ Interested in ‘the world’ ❖ Kept mayorial house as ‘salon’ 12
13. The protagonists ❖ Jean Parisot (1861-1923) ❖ Seminary student at the time of the ‘affair’ ❖ Later Syriac scholar ❖ Documents history of the church and Syriac in Turkey ❖ And works on language 13
14. The protagonists ❖ Lucien Adam (1833-1918) ❖ Did comparative work on Miskitu, Carib, Tupi, also Manchu and local French dialects. ❖ Encouraged Parisot to publish Taensa grammar, co-edited it. 14
15. Who were the Taensa? 15 Delisle, 1718
16. ❖ Native American group from the Mississippi, Northern Louisiana. ❖ First mentioned by La Salle (1682), described by Henri de Tonti in 1686. ❖ In the early 18th Century, they move several times. ❖ By the early 1800s, they had merged with the Natchez and Chitimacha, and disappear from the record as a tribe. Who were the Taensa? La Salle 16
17. Brinton’s arguments for hoax Daniel Brinton: Yes! ❖ Trick by students; constructed language and subsequent authored grammar ❖ Unusual typological features for languages of the region ❖ Implausibly recorded vocabulary: ‘ice’ and ‘maple’ in Louisiana? Sugarcane? ❖ Taensa ‘known’ to speak Natchez 17
18. Typology 18
19. Typology ❖ Gender: ‘nonnoble’ -â on nouns (e.g. animal names) ❖ ‘three forms of the plural’ 19
20. Similarities to French and/or Spanish ❖ Brinton: 20
21. Similarities to French and Spanish ❖ Brinton: Due to original writer. Therefore evidence of fakery. ❖ Adam, Parisot: Subsequent editorial additions were made. ❖ Alphabetization of vocab. ❖ Glossing, expanding description. ❖ Therefore we don’t know what’s original. 21
22. French meta-description ❖ gn is a digraph that describes a cluster ❖ Case prefixes m(e)- ACCUSATIVE, k(e)- DATIVE are described as ‘prepositions’ ❖ Little metalinguistic awareness? But that’s required for the hoax theory. 22
23. Lexicon 23
24. Lexicon ❖ Found in region? ❖ Ice, maples are found in northern Louisiana ❖ Acculturation terms? ❖ Bananas, rice, potato, apples, sugarcane ❖ We don’t know the date of the source. ❖ Anachronistic if early, but not if later. ❖ Translation problems? ❖ ours blanc - no polar bears in Louisiana… 24
25. Similarities to other languages of the region? ❖ Would expect Chocktaw, Mobilian loans, or possibly Natchez. ❖ Their absence is suspicious. ❖ One Spanish loan? anado ‘sumac’ (cf. annatto) 25
26. Lookalikes with surrounding languages ❖ sérup ‘bird [oiseau] : cf. Timucua chulufi ❖ ha, yeha ‘one’ [un(e)] : cf. Timucua yaha ❖ sokop ‘black bear’ [ours noir] : cf. Natchez tchokop ❖ isual ‘cow, bull’ [boeuf, taureau] : cf. Timucua yanisowa ❖ wakworao ‘water’ [eau] : cf. Houma oke ❖ meganda ‘corn, maize’ [maïs] : cf. Muskogean; Chickasaw tanchi’, Alabama cassi, Houma tantce, cf. Mobilian Jargon čašši. 26
27. Lookalikes with surrounding languages ❖ Not mentioned in the 19th Century. This is odd if they are ‘plants’ to make a fake look more realistic. 27
28. Other arguments 28
29. “We know the Taensa spoke Natchez” ❖ Swanton (1908:32): “The conclusion seems to the writer obvious that the ancient language of the Taënsa was practically identical with that spoken by the Natchez, and that consequently the language derived from or through M. Parisot is not Taënsa, and was probably never spoken by any people whatsoever.” 29
30. Did the Taensa speak only Natchez? ❖ Simplistic assumption of monolingualism ❖ Doesn’t fit what we know of the region (cf. Goddard 2005, Haas, others) ❖ We know the group was fragmented by the 18th C. 30
31. Curious manuscript tradition ❖ The original ms is lost. ❖ Adam, Vinson, and Brinton asked for it. ❖ Parisot didn’t reply (he was in Turkey). ❖ Parisot Snr. looked for it and couldn’t find it. 31
32. Parisot’s linguistic competence 32
33. How good a linguist was Parisot? ❖ Not very good, according to his coauthor: ❖ M. Parisot … n’est certainement pas très adroit. 33
34. Errors in the grammar ❖ The plural marking section (p7) lists possible forms as g, gi, gin, gini, k, ki, kin, kini, yi, yin, yini, without noting, though given below, that there are also forms in ogi. ❖ The discussion of case and prepositions is very mixed up. Some forms are never fully glossed, such as twe, mentioned under case marking as a preposition that marks case. ❖ No connection between the ‘augmentative’ -ini and the ‘emphatic’ -ini. ❖ He (or Adam) makes a distinction between derivational morphology (which doesn’t show agreement) and inflectional morphology (which does), but doesn’t consistently apply the distinction in the tables of affixes. ❖ He calls the verbs ‘irregular’ if there are morphophonological alternations (e.g. glide formation), but these appear to be at least quasi-regular. 34
35. Grammar overlooks generalizations ❖ There are a number of words that appear with and without an initial vowel. ❖ avâratâl, vârta ‘ear’ [oreille] ❖ ayar, yar ‘that.masc.’ [pronom demonstratif au genre noble] ❖ arrâkango, rranko ‘goose’ [oie] ❖ aktaka, ktaka ‘blue sky’ [ciel azuré] ❖ They are cross-referenced in dictionary but not mentioned in grammar. 35
36. Grammar overlooks generalizations ❖ Different allomorphs based on sonority and phonotactics: ❖ Final clusters get an epenthetic vowel (mart ‘stockade?’ [clôture] > mart-i-gi), while final r takes -yi (konswar ‘horse’ [cheval] > konswar-yi) 36
37. Grammar overlooks generalizations ❖ ‘possessive particle’ gi-, gis- (p82) [particule indiquant la possession]; ❖ givvorte ‘stranger’ [hôte, étranger] : ❖ Parisot’s analysis: gi-v-vorte; gi-, gis- as ‘possessive’, from gisse ‘have’; -v- as reduplication, and vorte ‘come’ [venir]. ❖ My analysis (based on texts): gis- is an agent nominalizer and the form is gis-, but the final s assimilates to a following fricative. ❖ ‘reduplication’ of vorte as v- does not conform either to the data elsewhere in the grammar or to his own rules for reduplication [CVC-]. 37
38. Typologically unusual features (for Europe) ❖ Clusivity: inclusive/exclusive distinction built on the 1plural ho-g: exclusive çon-ho-g, inclusive çlu-ho-g. ❖ Autobenefactive marking on the verb ❖ Simultaneous tense prefixation and suffixation ❖ Light verbs, prestems? ❖ Authors typologically aware, but not enough to avoid simple errors? or doing a poor job on difficult materials? 38
39. Fraud? Cui bono? 39
40. Fraud today: ❖ Requirements for Fraud: ❖ Pressure ❖ Opportunity ❖ Low personal integrity 40 ❖ Motivation for the fraudster: ❖ Personal financial gain: 66% ❖ “Because I can”: 27% ❖ To avoid negative consequences: 35% ❖ Other: 10% KPMG Global Fraud Profile, 2016
41. Summary 41
42. Summary 42 Forgery? Not forgery? Typology Original criticisms don’t stand up French similarities due to Parisot and/or Adam Lexicon Lack of Mobilian loans points to forgery Timucua similarities point to genuine. Ms Tradition Odd, fishy, points to forgery But not decisively so Competence Must have been clever to create the texts But all signs are that he wasn’t a good linguist (then) Motive No motive, no gain (financial or otherwise) except personal satisfaction
43. Summary (cont) ❖ Poor quality ❖ But poor because of missed generalizations and European metagrammar ❖ That is, if it’s a fake, it’s an obvious fake. ❖ The language materials show more internal complexity. ❖ So, the forgers must have been pretty experienced linguists to have come up with the original language materials. ❖ But, the evidence is that they weren’t very good linguists! ❖ So, either they are really clever, or they’re producing a poor job on materials that are difficult to work with. ❖ But, if they’re really clever, seeking to perpetuate a fraud on Americanists, why would they use features that draw suspicion? 43
44. 44 ❖ Fiction? ❖ Description? ❖ At the least, more than meets the eye. …