HopiLanguage

Hopi language

a North American Indian language of the Uto-Aztecan family, spoken by the Hopi people of northeastern Arizona. Hopi is of particular interest because of the way in which concepts of time and space are expressed in it: in its verb forms, for example, an event at a great distance from the speaker is characterized as having occurred in the distant past; the shorter the spatial distance, the less the temporal distance is seen to be. Hopi verbs have no real tense but instead are distinguished by aspect (the length of time an event lasts), validity (whether an action is completed or ongoing, expected, or regular and predictable), and clause-linkage (giving the temporal relationship of two or more verbs). In addition, verbs can be inflected to show that an action occurs in repeated segments: e.g., ríya ("it makes a quick spin") and riyáyata ("it is spinning").

In the 1930s the linguist Benjamin Lee Whorf seized on these characteristics of the verbs of the Hopi language to illustrate the "Whorfian hypothesis": language closely governs our experience of reality. The Hopi language frames the way in which the Hopi talk about their universe. The same holds true, in Whorf 's view, for all individual languages and people.

Be cautious about quoting Whorf as an authority on anything but fire prevention. (He worked as an inspector for an insurance company, and is reliable on this subject.) Although associated with the professional linguist Edward Sapir (the hypothesis you refer to is more usually known as the Whorf-Sapir hypothesis) he was an amateur and the extent of his acquaintance with Native American languages is hard to assess. He certainly knew no Inuit, but did not let that deter him from speculating that Inuit would have very many more words for snow than English has, and using his speculation to illustrate the W-S hypothesis. It turns out he was wrong. The 1929 French-Inuit dictionary (the best source available to him) lists two roots for words for snow. English, drawing on several languages, has more. StephenTaylor

Definitions

ko.yaa.nis.katsi (from the HopiLanguage), n. 1. crazy life. 2. life in turmoil. 3. life disintegrating. 4. life out of balance. 5. a state of life that calls for another way of living.

Translation of the Hopi Prophecies Sung in KOYAANISQATSI

"If we dig precious things from the land, we will invite disaster." "Near the Day of Purification, there will be cobwebs spun back and forth in the sky." "A container of ashes might one day be thrown from the sky which could burn the land and boil the oceans."

See KoyaanisqatsiWorkshop for a potential workshop on balancing practices.