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Birds "stand," they don't "fly"
It's believed that only one fluent speaker of Mandan is left in the world: Edwin Benson, a rancher from North Dakota. Sara Techtor (a linguist) is working with Mr. Benson to preserve the language. Their most recent effort entailed transcribing Mandan folk stories: The project's goal is to produce material for language labs on the reservation, ideally with the videotapes of Benson telling his stories in Mandan and follow-along captions of Trechter's transcriptions on the bottom of the screen....Since finishing the folk stories, Trechter and Benson been recording and transcribing Mandan social and cultural customs. Trechter has had master some quirks of the language. She learned, for example, that a bird is said to ``stand'' while flying but ``sit'' when perched on a tree. She has found that some words or phrases simply defy translation into another tongue. (ELHAM)
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