Oli'ichi Tla Wilano

About

Tla Wilano is a language of traditional territory in the mountains of South West Virginia and North Western North Carolina, along the New River. The language was originally spoken over a wide area from the mountains of North Carolina up to the North fork of the Holston River and East to the lands of the Roanoke and Monacan peoples, and then south into North Carolina Charles Howard Thomas came to the mountains to study the plant life there. Granny Graham, as he calls her, didn't know the names of the plants in English so she along with Creed Burcham and Lottie Patton taught Charles the language. He preserved the language in his notes and in his memory. When he began learning the language, there were still around 36-38 speakers. He became the last speaker upon the death of Creed Burcham in 2008. Hershel Bilbry learned the language from the Youngbloods who are all gone now. None of the remaining Bilbrys speak any Native American language. Myrtle Marsh, Ethel Davis, and Edith McRoberts, all knew a little bit of the language. None of their children learned any of the language. Myrtle, Ethel, and Edith are all all gone now, too. Alice Wombles of Leslie County, Kentucky, spoke the language with a neighbor who was a member of the White Crane Society back in the 1970s. The neighbor was elderly at the time. Alice's granddaughter, Vicky, remembers hearing her grandmother and the elderly neighbor speaking the language when she was a child. Vicky does not speak the language but she recognizes it when she hears it even to this day. Alice Wombles family came from the New River area in the 1800s. It is feasible that they brought the language with them. This dictionary is being built by Charles Howard Thomas, Marc Snelling, Darlene Campbell, Kylie Green and Chris Green at NativeLanguageProject.org.* The voices you hear in the recordings, the drawings you see and all the entries have been contributed by these people in an effort to document and preserve this beautiful language. *…

Grammar

Grammatical Structure of Tla Wilano WORD ORDER It seems that for the most part word order isn't all that important in Tla Wilano, but rather flow and sound matter more. There is no requirement, most of the time, as to which comes first, the verb or the subject. It does seem that the thing being done is more emphasized than the person or thing doing it. This requires an understanding of the language and a certain amount of intuitive knowledge of the cultural context from which it is derived. However, there are several exceptions to this such as found in the following example: Kokohela eshu means=may a smooth day present itself to you or rather, have a nice day whereas Eshu Kokohela means "presenting a smooth day," or in modern English, "It's a nice day." Koko, by the way is a component that denotes smooth anytime it is found in a word. COMMANDS Also, there are no "commands" in the language as the concept of commanding someone to do something is foreign to the culture. Words that we would think of as being commands in English are more like suggestions in Tla Wilano. PRONOUN USAGE Also, pronouns may be excluded from sentences if the knowledge of who is being spoken to is obvious to both speakers. Pronouns are used when it is not obvious or when a particular emphasis needs to be made. Tonality plays a major role in the language. The tone in which something is said can determine its meaning. For example: Let's say there are two people present, John and Sue. John says to Sue, "Viu somblinki?" He uses a questioning intonation when he asks, "See the squirrel?" Sue will automatically know he's asking her if she sees the squirrel, so there is no need to say, "Viu tu'u somblinki?" Which means "Do YOU see the squirrel?" He would only add the YOU (tu'u) if he thought it was unclear to her that he was talking to her. If he changes his tone and simply states, "Viu somblinki." She will translate that as "I see the squirrel." Since commands are not given in Tla Wilano, he would not…