[CP19366]

Why does it seem that many First Nations people (natives) speak very slowly?
Original Code R647. Click here to see responses from the original archives. Click “to respond” below to reply.

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Name : CP19366, Gender : F, Race : White/Caucasian, Age : 21, City : Montreal, Quebec, State : NA, Country : Canada, 

[willy24316]

The reason is because ‘slow’ white people can understand what they are saying. =)

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Name : willy24316, City : townsville, State : AZ, Country : United States, 

[John]

Very interesting question to me, a military linguist whose great grandmother was a full-blooded Cherokee. Being from the South, I always noticed that our Northern compatriots seemed to speak faster than us in the South. When stationed in England, I noticed the remarkable speed with which the English spoke our ‘common tongue’ compared to any American. And when I learned French and other European languages, the speed of their spoken language was a hard hurdle for me to overcome, as it was with British English. To jump to my point, I believe that industry-based cultures had a need to speak faster just to be ever-more industrious, whereas rural, agriculture-based societies, such as Native American and Southern, had a slower lifestyle and ergo a slower speech pattern.

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Name : John, Gender : M, Race : White/Caucasian, Age : 33, City : Tucson, State : AZ, Country : United States, Occupation : Military, Education level : Over 4 Years of College, Social class : Middle class, 

[A.J]

There is a two-fold answer to this question. 1.) Many First Nations people that have a background of living on a reservation have a certain accent to their speech like many other people from specific areas. Part of this accent derived from Natives who learned to speak english after speaking their own traditional languages for years. The structure of many traditional languages tend to be unhurried. However… 2.) Certainly not every First Nations person speaks that way. The overall perception of us all speaking that way derives from depictions of us in films and tv speaking in the sterotypical ‘wise old primative’ voice. (think Tonto) I think if anyone was to spend a weekend with my family, they would possibly get quite a different perception!

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Name : A.J, Gender : M, Age : 27, City : Smethport, State : PA, Country : United States, 

[Barbara Kohn]

For many native elders, English is not their first language. Many tribes have an orally passed down language, that is spoken with a ‘story telling’ type feel to it, with a lot of emphasis on words that have emotional or spiritual meaning. When they learned English, this ‘story telling’ type speech pattern remained, and of course was picked up by the younger generations of native peoples who were taught both English and their native language by their elders. Also, with anyone learning a foreign language, there is always a tendency to speak slowly, just to make sure all the words are coming out right!

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Name : Barbara Kohn, Gender : F, Race : American Indian, Age : 26, City : Albuquerque, State : NM, Country : United States, 

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