In Defense of Dialect: Si'chiate
Monday, February 11th, 2019 11:59 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bairnsidheThis isn't my usual fare, but bear with me.
I was struck this morning by the strange realization that I use loanwords from Appalachian and Ozarkan English, because the exact meaning I need isn't in so-called Standard English. There are untranslatable words from dialect to dialect, but in English those who don't speak the dialect the words come from often assume that the dialectical word is simply a poorly pronounced version of a word in Standard English. (I refrain from assuming anything about other languages and their users attitudes to dialects.)
In specific, the word I realized was a loanword was "si'chiated" which is often presumed to be a mispronounced version of "situated" but it actually has an entirely different meaning. To explain what I mean, let's break it down.
Merriam-Webster gives the following definition in "Standard" English
situated - adjective
sit·u·at·ed | \ ˈsi-chə-wā-təd \
Definition of situated
1 : having a site, situation, or location : LOCATED
2 : provided with money or possessions
For one, I wouldn't class "Si'chiated" as strictly adjective, more as a past-tense verb that can serve as an adjective to a verb of being ("I am si'chiated." is a valid sentence, if a bit awkward, but "Si'chiate yourself." and "I si'chiated things for you." are much closer to the primary use.)
Looking for a closer match in Merriam-Webster gives me the verb of "situate"
sit·u·ate | \ ˈsi-chə-wāt \
situated; situating
Definition of situate (Entry 2 of 2)
transitive verb
1 : to place in a site, situation, context, or category : LOCATE
Now, that's the right form, but not at all the same definition of the word. I'm not an expert in drafting dictionary entries, but if I had to give my best go, I'd probably say it should look like this:
Si'chiate
si·chi·ate | \ ˈsi-ˈchē- āt \
si'chiated; si'chiating
Definition of si'chiate
1 : to make comfortable, easy, or welcome.
Examples: "Feel free to si'chiate yourself." "I'm si'chiating myself on the sofa." "I got your bed all si'chiated for you."
Now, yes, you COULD in theory use "Situate" or "situated" for most of those, but let's look at the technical meaning changes. "Feel free to place yourself" seems cold and somewhat arbitrary, I mean, as a person exists they place themselves wherever they happen to be. You'd be giving a person permission to do what they're already doing, what they can't not do. The imperative of si'chiate is permission to make yourself comfortable, even if that means moving things about. "I'm placing myself on the sofa" is... probably redundant information, unless you're speaking on the phone, and even then gives little context as to why the statement matters. Telling someone you're si'chiating something is a warning that the preparations are in process, and need to be finished. Interrupting the process of si'chiating hampers the comfort of the one for whom the si'chiating is done, and sends a message you do not care about them. You tell a person when you're si'chiating so they can express investment in you and the relationship by making room for that action. "I got your bed placed" is straight up not correct, and although it's closer to the right meaning "I got your bed provided with possessions" implies more of an additive nature, whereas si'chiating usually involves rearrangement of preexisting items. I find this particular case the most compelling as to the need for si'chiated as a word, because the most common use is this one, letting someone know you've arranged things ahead of time to make them the most comfortable, or to make a hard thing easy. You tell someone when you've gotten the guest room si'chiated for them, when you went ahead and si'chiated everything for a funeral, a hospital stay, or a wedding. You let your anxious mother know you've gotten properly si'chiated at college, or a new job. The past tense is prevalent, because to si'chiate something for someone is to anticipate the need to change something for the well being or comfort of someone important to you.
To my knowledge, there isn't a word in non-dialectic English that means the same thing as si'chiated. There are ways to speak around it, you can say "make yourself comfortable", "I'm getting settled", and "I arranged things" but they don't capture the essence of emotion. Making oneself comfortable is not the same as making oneself feel welcome, and neither really addresses having permission to change things in someone else's space. Getting settled is socially neutral, interrupting settling is rude only because interrupting in general is rude, and there's no invitation in that statement for a renewal of social contract. Similarly, arrangement is neutral, it happens, for a variety of reasons. You can tell someone to arrange things, you can hire someone to arrange things. Si'chiation is done freely, of an individual's own volition, unforced and uncoerced. Between equals, the imperative only ever applies to the comfort of the one spoken to, not the speaker.* It is a renewing of social contracts, an expression of love, for others and for self, and it is a word that deserves to be seen as more than bad pronunciation.
*I specify equals because parents may tell children to si'chiate things for someone else, such as "Si'chiate the guest room before Granny gets here." This, however, is a form of teaching manners and reminding them to use a known love language while they're learning how to socialize properly. It isn't usually an unpleasant order, more a reminder of what we do to show our feelings.
I was struck this morning by the strange realization that I use loanwords from Appalachian and Ozarkan English, because the exact meaning I need isn't in so-called Standard English. There are untranslatable words from dialect to dialect, but in English those who don't speak the dialect the words come from often assume that the dialectical word is simply a poorly pronounced version of a word in Standard English. (I refrain from assuming anything about other languages and their users attitudes to dialects.)
In specific, the word I realized was a loanword was "si'chiated" which is often presumed to be a mispronounced version of "situated" but it actually has an entirely different meaning. To explain what I mean, let's break it down.
Merriam-Webster gives the following definition in "Standard" English
situated - adjective
sit·u·at·ed | \ ˈsi-chə-wā-təd \
Definition of situated
1 : having a site, situation, or location : LOCATED
2 : provided with money or possessions
For one, I wouldn't class "Si'chiated" as strictly adjective, more as a past-tense verb that can serve as an adjective to a verb of being ("I am si'chiated." is a valid sentence, if a bit awkward, but "Si'chiate yourself." and "I si'chiated things for you." are much closer to the primary use.)
Looking for a closer match in Merriam-Webster gives me the verb of "situate"
sit·u·ate | \ ˈsi-chə-wāt \
situated; situating
Definition of situate (Entry 2 of 2)
transitive verb
1 : to place in a site, situation, context, or category : LOCATE
Now, that's the right form, but not at all the same definition of the word. I'm not an expert in drafting dictionary entries, but if I had to give my best go, I'd probably say it should look like this:
Si'chiate
si·chi·ate | \ ˈsi-ˈchē- āt \
si'chiated; si'chiating
Definition of si'chiate
1 : to make comfortable, easy, or welcome.
Examples: "Feel free to si'chiate yourself." "I'm si'chiating myself on the sofa." "I got your bed all si'chiated for you."
Now, yes, you COULD in theory use "Situate" or "situated" for most of those, but let's look at the technical meaning changes. "Feel free to place yourself" seems cold and somewhat arbitrary, I mean, as a person exists they place themselves wherever they happen to be. You'd be giving a person permission to do what they're already doing, what they can't not do. The imperative of si'chiate is permission to make yourself comfortable, even if that means moving things about. "I'm placing myself on the sofa" is... probably redundant information, unless you're speaking on the phone, and even then gives little context as to why the statement matters. Telling someone you're si'chiating something is a warning that the preparations are in process, and need to be finished. Interrupting the process of si'chiating hampers the comfort of the one for whom the si'chiating is done, and sends a message you do not care about them. You tell a person when you're si'chiating so they can express investment in you and the relationship by making room for that action. "I got your bed placed" is straight up not correct, and although it's closer to the right meaning "I got your bed provided with possessions" implies more of an additive nature, whereas si'chiating usually involves rearrangement of preexisting items. I find this particular case the most compelling as to the need for si'chiated as a word, because the most common use is this one, letting someone know you've arranged things ahead of time to make them the most comfortable, or to make a hard thing easy. You tell someone when you've gotten the guest room si'chiated for them, when you went ahead and si'chiated everything for a funeral, a hospital stay, or a wedding. You let your anxious mother know you've gotten properly si'chiated at college, or a new job. The past tense is prevalent, because to si'chiate something for someone is to anticipate the need to change something for the well being or comfort of someone important to you.
To my knowledge, there isn't a word in non-dialectic English that means the same thing as si'chiated. There are ways to speak around it, you can say "make yourself comfortable", "I'm getting settled", and "I arranged things" but they don't capture the essence of emotion. Making oneself comfortable is not the same as making oneself feel welcome, and neither really addresses having permission to change things in someone else's space. Getting settled is socially neutral, interrupting settling is rude only because interrupting in general is rude, and there's no invitation in that statement for a renewal of social contract. Similarly, arrangement is neutral, it happens, for a variety of reasons. You can tell someone to arrange things, you can hire someone to arrange things. Si'chiation is done freely, of an individual's own volition, unforced and uncoerced. Between equals, the imperative only ever applies to the comfort of the one spoken to, not the speaker.* It is a renewing of social contracts, an expression of love, for others and for self, and it is a word that deserves to be seen as more than bad pronunciation.
*I specify equals because parents may tell children to si'chiate things for someone else, such as "Si'chiate the guest room before Granny gets here." This, however, is a form of teaching manners and reminding them to use a known love language while they're learning how to socialize properly. It isn't usually an unpleasant order, more a reminder of what we do to show our feelings.
no subject
Date: 2019-02-11 08:27 pm (UTC)I am learning more and more that just because it's not RP (or the American equivalent) don't mean it ain't no proper English. Such claims are the kind of absurdity up with which we will not put!
(I remember Judi Miller elsebook noting an African American English peculiarity: "Is you crazy?" is directed at an individual, and ignored by classmates. "Are you crazy?" and every head in class swings around towards the speaker.... who _meant plural_.)
YES!
Date: 2019-02-11 09:24 pm (UTC)There is a distinct need for a second person plural that isn't the same word as the second person singular, and RP/American RP doesn't seem to get that. Y'all is a good one because there's a slider scale of plurality. You (singular), Y'all(plural non-expansive), and All Y'all (plural expansive). So 'you' is one person, the addressed, 'y'all' is more than one person, but just the addressed, and 'all y'all' is all the people being addressed and anyone they consider direct expansions of social self regardless of presence to be addressed. So inviting y'all to a party means you don't get plus ones, just the people standing in front of me as I ask, but inviting all y'all to a party means even if I'm on the phone with only one person, I mean their household.
>>I am learning more and more that just because it's not RP (or the American equivalent) don't mean it ain't no proper English. Such claims are the kind of absurdity up with which we will not put! <<
Well said! Dialects have their place, and in my book, if I can say it and you can understand what I meant, then it's proper enough. Walk into an area where everyone shares a dialect and bust out the RP, you may not get understood, which makes it not proper enough in that case. Actually, I'd say most RP speakers can understand most dialectic terms, even if they somewhat loses connotations, but the sheer density of Entirely Proper RP English can make it gibberish to someone who primarily or exclusively speaks dialectic English, which renders RP the less effective (and thereby, for my standards, less valid) language. It doesn't communicate as widely as the dialects do. It just happens to be the one that a bunch of classist snobs decided was 'best'. (Now that I think of it, that may be why the snobs liked it, it's an inaccessible frankenlanguage that requires way too much formal schooling to comprehend.)
Re: YES!
Date: 2019-02-12 01:49 am (UTC)There's some evidence that the accessibility of a given accent is at least partly dependent on genetics... I've got a fairly strong Celtic heritage. A once-companion warned me about Geordie, the accent around Newcastle-upon-Tyne... but I had very little trouble with it. OTOH, when Sir Patrick Stewart (a past master of RP) yards out his native Huddersfield (Yorkshire) accent, eeee, lassie, I dinnae ken a word out 'is gob! (FWIW, that's Geordie I was using.) Sir Patrick recites an old Huddersfield poem...
Hmm ...
Date: 2019-02-12 06:57 am (UTC)Re: Hmm ...
Date: 2019-02-12 05:34 pm (UTC)I'd be interested to see a study of dialectic tags like si'chiated mapped against physical and cultural space, to find where the meaning shifts occur. I know a lot of what I learned as Appalachian Vernacular English (AVE) is, away from Appalachia, more readily understood as African-American Vernacular English (AAVE). I've had people look askance at me for "acting black" when what's actually happening is I've fallen into the language of my Dad's family.
Now that I think of it, I also get that reaction when I ask for or offer Red Drink. It's the drink that you have at barbecues, the specifics are unimportant but it should taste red. In the Midwest it's a black culture thing, but it's the only drink that tastes good with smoked meat when you have a sunburn. So if you're serving smoked meat at a party in summer, you should have Red Drink available for people who want it, regardless of race.