Why do newly immigrated ethnic groups convolute English grammatical syntax, person, number, gender, animacy, proximation, social station, and status? The answers came from studying the grammatical differences between English and the languages of national origin.

The most insightful answers came from examining grammatical standards of Native American languages. English has fewer grammatically oriented distinctions than most other languages. Other European languages are not much different. Native American languages have many grammatical distinctions, in fact, all the ones listed above.

I set on this path for more than simple curiosity. I've been searching for a method of distinguishing a culture that's encountering explorers for the first time. I've wanted a way of showing the differences of the cultures in the first contact tableau. They don't speak the same languages. After the initial contact and demonstrating the process of interpretation, I wanted a method to show that the interpretation is ongoing, but without being intrusive. Dialectic dialogue based on grammatical distinctions is the solution I came up with, particularly syntax, gender, proximation, and animacy distinctions. Again, without being intrusive, I see new methods of dialogue for accomplishing my goal.

Example, the syntax of sentences is typically different from English in Algonquin languages: adverb / subject / object / predicate. The languages themselves use noun constructions in the place of subjects and objects and verb constructs for predicates. Furiously, Leaps Over Moose, Seansmith hard browbeated. That example also demostrates animacy and proximation. The commas are added for clarity. Awkward, yeah, to native English speakers yet I've commonly encountered that type of sentence syntax in my work. Potentially intrusive, yeah. I'm working on it.

Smith Doe & Jones, LLC. No alphabetical order, so the order of animacy apparently takes precedence, proximate second preference. Smith is the senior partner in tenure and/or financial stakes. Smith is more animate in the partnership because he's the leader and assumably more profitable and therefore more proximate to the partnership because of his animacy, Doe and Jones less so. Subliminal associations that are easily taken for granted but inform our decisions and responses daily.

In scholarly writing, animate and proximate priorities organize serial circumstances, with more animate or proximate items first. In creative writing, the reverse is used for dramatic effect, the more animate item often coming last in a series.

In the previous example of Leaps Over Moose, in his mind, he's more animate to Seansmith and more proximate to his self and his people than Seansmith. It's from the native's perspective so that is logical. Inverting the relationhip with Seansmith more animate or proximate than Leaps Over Moose, which was the European perspective, causes what English grammarians call passive verb construction. An acceptable syntax in native languages. Furiously, Seansmith was, Leaps Over Moose hard browbeated.

Examples include things like "tic, tac, toe" and tenses of strong verbs: "sing, sang, sung." If you try saying those words in a different order, it "sounds" strange.

Writers can use this tendency to interesting effect. If you want a title that sounds "right" make sure the main vowels go from front to back of the mouth. If you want a title that is a little strange sounding (and therefore, you hope, intriguing), mix up the words or find words with vowels that don't go from front to back.

In extrinsic's example of Smith, Doe & Jones, notice that the vowels also go from front to back, so the animate/proximate listing can also "sound" right when spoken.

Distinguishing gender in native languages took prefix and suffix forms added on to noun or object constructs, rarely possessive pronouns, though. He-male doesn't make a lot of sense in English, he-man and macho man do, and so does she-male, of late. English interpretations of gender distinctions that are common: the diminutive forms of she dog, he dog; she wolf, she shriek, she shrew, son of a b---, and so on. Calf, cow, bull, and neutered steer. Verbs, too, spayed, neutered.

Lioness, stallion, buck, filly, colt, and so on. When applied to people, animal gender distinctions objectify and reduce animacy, reduce proximity; or promote prowess and ability and therefore increase animacy. Objects with sentimental value were given gender identities, and raised in animacy and proximity. A specimen of animal regardless of sex might be considered masculine or feminine. The hawk frequently male, the female of the species is perceived as the dominant hunter. The redwing blackbird, feminine, the male has the brighter plumage. The deprecated practice of gender assignment in English to objects, she for a maritime vessel or car or machine. He for a weapon, a handtool, whatever.

Two similar words in Powhatan distinguish a female headperson from a male one: werosqua and werowance. The Powhatan society was a matrilineal one, where headperson succession is through the female line. Wance means warrior or hunter. A woman or man might be an elected seasonal hunt leader or head gatherer or head farmer. Werosqua, head squa or usssqua in Algonquin meaning woman, is the origin of the diminutive term squaw.

In English, the preposition of distinguishes animacy and proximity. Opechancanough's village, the village of Opechancanough. (Ostensibly, Opechancanough means man with a white spirit.) The possessive former example places the man's animacy and proximity over the village; the following, the village over the man, and places the object in superior relationship to the man, thus objectifying and diminishing the man's animacy.

Possession was not a common practice in Native American societies. Share and share alike, at least among the tribe. Nor was a paramount headperson a monarch in any sense of the word, until Powhatan was designated as such of the Powhatan Nation by the Anglos. A headperson ruled at the sufferance of the collective. The individual exercised sovereign freewill. So names of places were more about what they meant than who ruled them. Werowicomico, paramount Headperson's village, Wahunsonacough's (Powhatan-father of Pocahontas) village established after the Anglos' immigration to Jamestown.

From John Smith's (Seansmith) vocabulary of Powhatan words, "Vtteke, e peya weyack wighwhip. Get you gone, and come again quickly." A fond goodbye expression. Though Smith didn't do the translation justice. Probably more on the lines of, go you, and in bestest mood return soonest you. Antropologists don't know; the Powhatan language is extinct.
http://www.mariner.org/chesapeakebay/native/dictionaries/#

On a separate issue, there is a movie that takes a unique view of someone learning a new language - The 13th Warrior based on Michael Crichton's Eaters of the Dead. I'm not sure if Crichton's book did this, but in the movie the dialogue slowly morphs from being incomprehensible, to being partially understood, and then to being completely understood. I thought it was a unique approach to understanding a new language.

Japanese almost lacks pronouns entirely being a highly contextual language, you are expected to understand who or what is begin talked about unles someone changes topic. Thus subjects are often omitted.

Okay, a dozen examples, hopefully in a recognizably logical narrative sequence, ranging between third person proximate to obviative person, sometimes considered the fourth person. Fourth person in English might be where obviate pronoun or noun usages such as one, people, and such are used to establish the narrator's objective remoteness from the topic. Fourth person and perhaps even a fifth person are features of Algonquian languages. One uses one in place of I in formal scholarly narrative. People make language so complex. In Algonquian syntax; Woefully, language people complex make. Note the precedent adjective placement of complex before the modified verb make. A sentence adverb wasn't always used but was common. How common, I don't know, but I'm given to understand it's very common.

Funnily, Little She Clown, headman lodge inside capered.
Cleverly, she heels over head tumbled, skipped, flipped, stomped, danced, pouted, smiled.
Boisterously, watchers clapped, hooted, whistled, tossed copper beads.
Little She Clown, beads collected, sleeping bench sat.
Loudly, Makes Deer Run headman, "Food for guests, more bring forth," said.
Maidens dried oysters, nutmeat stew, roasted tuckahoe, green corn carried in.
Hungrily, Strangers, who as infants in their lodges demand food, ate.
Strangers no by selves gather, farm, or hunt, lodges surrounded by food won't eat.
Mockingly, "caw-caw," brother marsh crow outside called.
Suddenly, pine sap pockets lodge fire snapped.
Cinders everywhere flew.
Menacingly, Strangers thunder clubs drew, pointed.

Those are just for illustrative purposes and about as awkward to write as they read. In the story I'm working on, in the narrative and in dialogue among the natives, I intend on using standard English syntax. The nonstandard syntax just for showing the language barriers during native dialogue with the explorers. And, hopefully, a lot less awkwardly after practice.

Not coincidentally, a wonderful story, tragically beautiful, though, Mark Richard's "Her Favorite Story" in his anthology The Ice at the Bottom of the World experiments with semantic space through awkward syntax. Her favorite story is the story of John Smith's near death experience in his explorations of the Chesapeake Bay. The setting of the story is near the site where Smith was stung by a stingray, today called Stingray Point, but from the first line of the story, "In Indian, this place is called Where Lightning Takes Tall Walks."