This is an old revision of the document!
Table of Contents
An American Indian Model of the Universe
Important Ideas
- Linguistic Determinism: The way we think, the way we categorize, compartmentalize, and compare information is determined by the patterns of our primary language. This can be seen by observing differences in patterns between languages of different families. This is also known as the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis. (Whorf 191-192)
Introduction of the Article and Purpose of the Article
People of the Hopi tribe, according to Whorf on page 192, exhibit no sense of time as a linear, flowing concept. This is seen in the Hopi language as well, as “the Hopi language contains no reference to ‘time,’ either explicit or implicit”. Hopi language has a metaphysical system of its own, unrelated to the time-vs.-space model and general relativity models we use. Whorf aims to make the Hopi metaphysical system understandable to the audience through English language approximation. (Whorf 192)
The Metaphysics of the Hopi Language: Direct Comparison
According to Whorf on page 193, the English conception of metaphysics is divided into Time and Space, and time is further broken down into three subcategories: Past, Present, and Future.
On the other hand, the conception of metaphysics in the Hopi language is divided into Manifest (Objective) and Manifesting (Subjective).
- Manifest includes, to use English approximation, both the present and past (with no real delineation between them) and everything experienced by our senses.
- Manifesting includes not only the future, but everything that exists only in the heart (in our minds, to use English approximation).
Understanding Manifesting: Hearts and the Future
The Manifesting includes an element of what Whorf refers to on page 193 as the “mystical”, comparing it slightly to the more cosmic beliefs of occult groups in English speaking countries. He does not do this with the intention of creating a negative connotation.
Building off of the last section, this manifesting is not only in the hearts of the Hopi people, but in the hearts of everything physical, whether the thing is conscious by English standards or not. It is, in some ways, preordained, and in some ways not guaranteed (Whorf 193-4).
Unlike in English, where this future is arriving to us from some predestined linear point, the manifesting of Hopi language is something which is springing out from the collective of hearts with dynamic pacing, with nonlinear, seemingly random (though not really so) staggered pacing (Whorf 194).
Shared Aspects of Manifested with Manifesting
The manifesting is always in the process of becoming, but the process vs. the full existing of the becoming is not a distinction in the Hopi language. These are one in the same. Due to this, part of what we in English would call the ‘present’ is wrapped up in the manifesting (Whorf 194).
Like this sharing of present between the manifesting and the manifested, there is a moment shared of the beginning point between these two. “There is also a verb form, the inceptive which refers to this edge of emergent manifestation in the reverse way—as belonging to the objective, as the edge at which objectivity is attained; this is used to indicate beginning or starting, and in most cases there is no difference apparent in the translation from the similar use of the expective” (Whorf 194).
As a symptom of this shared connection, the suffix to start and to stop (in English equivalent) is the same in the Hopi language.
