languagelearning

So I was looking at Wiktionary's list of translations of the name "Japan", trying to find some inspiration for what I might call that country in my conlang. There were a few mildly interesting ones, although most of the names were basically just what you'd expect, so I wasn't really getting any inspiration.

And then I noticed the Navajo translation: {Binááʼádaałtsʼózí|????} {Dineʼé|people} {Bikéyah|their-country}. And because Navajo was literally the only spoken language outside of East Asia to not call Japan by some variant of 日本, I thought that maybe learning the etymology of the first word of this mysterious name would solve my conlanging woes... So I clicked the link, and my jaw just immediately dropped. I probably gasped and covered my mouth, too, and I said out loud, "Ohhhh noooo......!! What the fuuuuck broooo......! OK, I'm not calquing THAT for my conlang, that's for sure."

Yup, it's an eye thing! And at that, the Wiktionary page for Binááʼádaałtsʼózí Dineʼé Bikéyah included one link in its "derived terms" section: Binááʼádaałtsʼózí Dineʼé Bikéyah Yázhí. So I of course had to click on that page, too, and it turns out that that's what Korea is called in Navajo, with the somewhat disturbing implication that the Navajo name for Korea is just "Little Japan" — but hey, it's their language, not mine!

So then of course I had to check if Navajo went for the hat trick and also gave China an epicanthic name, and lo and behold, {Binááʼádaałtsʼózí|their-eyes-are-narrow} {Dineʼé|people} {Bikéyah|their-country} {Ntsaaígíí|big}. This is however evidently a less common name for China than {Tsiiʼyishbizhí|braided-hair} {Dineʼé|people} {Bikéyah|their-country}, referring to Qing-era queue haircuts... So there's that.

Edit: Someone commented something that seems obvious in hindsight, which is that these names were deliberately coined by Code Talkers during WWII and have simply remained in use since!

But yeah, American Sign Language. Just like Navajo, it developed naturally within what is now recognized as Seppoland; it has a long and continuing history of repression; its speakers number 100K ~ 1M; it has polypersonal grammar; and it is, on the whole, poggers. And, interestingly enough, it ALSO gave China, Korea, and Japan names modeled on epicanthi! Basically like pointing to the corner of your eye with the initial of the respective country. I learned about this from EtymologyNerd.

These old ASL signs are probably still used by some older people, although they started to fall out of favor in or about the 1990s, and are today discouraged. Here's a 1994 South China Morning Post article about it, with this somewhat striking opening line:

IN a new twist to America's growing thirst for political correctness, Asia's citizens are being defended against an unlikely enemy - the deaf. [sic]

...Which makes it seem to me like SCMP was just kind of laughing at the whole ordeal and not particularly offended by the old signs to begin with. And this kind of gets into how the way people talk (or sheepishly don't talk) about racialized features is very much an arbitrary and culturally bound thing, as much as race itself is. Like if there wasn't this centuries-long history of slurs and caricatures, imperialism and systemic racism, children pulling their eyes... How would we react to these Navajo names and ASL signs?

...Probably differently, but in any case, I'm certainly not going to insist that Navajo should change its names for the countries of the world, because that's an issue I'm entirely not party to.