Cherokee Classificatory Verbs

Abstract

Summary This article examines the role played by the Cherokee verbs for ‘wash’, first cited in 1820 by John Pickering (1777–1848), in studies which postulated lexical redundancy and the lack of generic terms in ‘primitive’ languages. Like the more well-known “Eskimo words for ‘snow’”, the Cherokee verbs provide an example of misanalysis of the complexity of polysynthetic morphology and negligence in the presentation of data from ‘exotic’ languages. In addition, the accounts of the verbs for ‘wash’ demonstrate a misinterpretation of the function of the Cherokee classificatory verbs. In the article the author traces the description of the verbs in 19th and 20th century studies in linguistics, psychology, sociology and anthropology, with the aim of illustrating the claims made about the lexical and grammatical properties of American Indian languages, and the cognitive and cultural characteristics of the American Indians, in particular their inability to express abstract notions and the absence of moral and social values.

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