I was mostly being just silly, but I do know a few words in the languages I
mentioned that I believe are part of North American English, but not English
proper.
Of course I can't think of an example off hand. Perhaps some will come to me
during the work day.
As to what Native Americans prefer to call themselves & to be called by others,
I can't say with much authority (although my wife's grandmother was Cherokee
("full blood") & thus she & our children are officially Native Americans
according to some criteria.)
I once heard a guy, I think he was Apache, say, "We call ourselves Indians, the
white man started it, so anybody gets confused, blame it on him."
See, for example, the National Museum of the American Indian:
http://nmai.si.edu/home/
I've also heard the term "First Peoples". (What, nobody else existed anywhere?)
The island of Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts, is home to the Wampanoag Tribe,
the only indigenous people east of the Mississippi who have continuously
resided on the same land since before the Europeans arrived. (Why that is so --
why they were not wiped out -- is a fascinating story, but no time to go into
it now.)
People differ in how much tribal identity matters to them. I know two sisters
in their sixties. One is the Tribe's genealogist and is very involved in Tribal
matters and goes to powwows and such with members of other Native American
groups. Her sister says "Oh, the Tribe. They make me crazy with all their talk.
Who needs that baloney?" They're equally Wampanoag.
In haste,
jrs
On May 25, 2012, at 2:23 AM, Kiran K Karthikeyan wrote:
> On 25 May 2012 02:09, Udhay Shankar N <[email protected]> wrote:
> > Moccasin?
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moccasin
> >
> > Totem?
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Totem
>
> Suresh already pointed out that John said "excluding those that have
> been appropriated in to English", but your parse error is rather deeper
> than that - he actually claims to KNOW words in "Cherokee, Sioux,
> Apache, Wampanoag, Hopi, Navaho, Iroquois, etc" - so your examples are
> erroneous.
>
> Udhay
>
> Apologies. I read his examples as the ONLY category of words (i.e. proper
> nouns) appropriated into English.
>
> Kiran
