Talk:Forked tongue

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I love humming birds.they are the cutest birds i have ever seen.this explanation on them has really helped me with my presentation.

Dubious info
This info looks dubious, and should be removed as OR if unable to be sourced:

''Native American oral history tells that Ben Franklin's political cartoon turned military banner of a severed snake entitled Join, or Die, sought to create a Union to "manage Indian relations" and depicted fractured colonial support for Native American suppression leading up to the French & Indian War/Seven Years War. Join, or Die, and the subsequent serpent flag Don't Tread on Me became the dominant spirit image of the white man in the Native American psyche[citation needed], and the expression "white man speaks with forked tongue" is said to originate from these symbols that flew during Native American massacres[citation needed]. The first known quotation of this phrase is by Chief Joseph (1840-1904) of the Nez Perce, whose peaceful people suffered under broken treaties and deleterious US policies.''

On the contrary, it can probably be sourced that most North American languages have had the traditional expression 'to speak with forked tongue' - including the languages that went extinct even before Chief Joseph was born. And it can certainly be sourced that many tribes would call their military opponents "snakes" well before Franklin, and probably before white men. So better research needs to be done. Til Eulenspiegel (talk) 12:13, 13 March 2010 (UTC)

(Logged out) - Okay, just stumbled across some good stuff researching it myself... The account of the 1811 Astor Expedition by Washington Irving has lots of great material in it, including a quote showing the expression was already in use in the NW by then, at least... I'll keep digging, and revise the article... Til Eulenspiegel (talk) 12:59, 13 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Got an earlier ref, which I'm mentioning here for now, to help me sort the citations as I find them, when I do update the article. Apparently Young Tobacco, or one of the chiefs with him, used the same expression at Cahokia in speaking with Clark just before the 1779 capture of Vincennes, according to one early account of the discussion. Still looking, bet I can find even earlier?  Til Eulenspiegel (talk) 13:19, 13 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Oh, and in 1829, President Andrew Jackson himself used the phrase, in addressing the Creek Nation: "Friends and brothers. By permission of the Great Spirit above, and the voice of the people, I have been made president of the United States, and now speak to you as your father and friend, and request you to listen.  Your warriors have known me long.  You know I love my white and red children, and always speak with a straight, and not a forked tongue; and that I have always told you the truth..." (Niles' Register, June 13 1829)  Til Eulenspiegel (talk) 13:32, 13 March 2010 (UTC)

173.67.199.157 (talk) 16:41, 18 September 2015 (UTC)

There are appearances of this phrase in Europe that are unlikely to relate to contact with American Indians:

"And he hath the art of cleaving. He shewed it in the beginning, when he made the Serpent, lingnam bisulcam, a forked tongue, to speake that, which was contrary to his knowledge and meaning, They should not die; and as hee did the Serpents, so hee can doe others."

Moreover, this metaphor would not likely make any sense to a native American. The word "fork" derives from an implement invented hundreds of years ago in Europe. Subsequently, the notion of a "fork" meaning a "split" derived from that implement ("fork in the road," "fork in the river"). While it's possible that some other word in one or more Indian language(s) referred to the same geographical feature, or maybe the split of a snake's tongue, I have scoured the usual sources and can't find anything more than "probably" as an origin's attribution.

The phrase also appears in Milton's Paradise Lost:

"According to his Doom: He would have spoke, But Hiss for Hiss return'd with forked Tongue To forked Tongue, for now were all transform'd..."

There's some convincing research that shows these and other references long pre-date the use by Jackson, and none of them remotely suggest this was ever a native American idiom.


 * The discussion is about the phrase 'speak with a forked tongue' in the sense of 'to lie', originating as a Native American idiom, and your literary examples of the words "forked tongue" appearing together are not relevant to that. Your assumptions about native languages are also irrelevant since there is none that lacks a word for "split, forked" as in roots, a tree branch, or a snake's tongue. There are some great leads in the conversation from 2010 above and one source in the article traced it from events of the 1690s. 71.246.148.24 (talk) 17:07, 18 September 2015 (UTC)


 * I moved my European examples out of your section on First Nations use. The article itself is much broader than the specific appearance in 'speak with forked tongue.' My examples clearly show 'forked tongue' was used in Europe to mean 'not telling the truth,' and are from direct sources. What Europeans guessed about the Indians from Jackson's writings or their dealings with them over a century after the fact are not conclusive evidence that the phrase originated in First Nations, much less that it was used by more than one of them. Having moved my material to its own section, can we agree to peaceful coexistence? 173.67.199.157 (talk) 01:37, 19 September 2015 (UTC)


 * It should definitely be toned down in light of WP:SYNTH which I would ask you to read carefully, as the section is very strongly pushing an idea not found in any source, viz. that the example usage given of Jackson dated to 1829 is somehow significant as the earliest known usage. Once again, if you will check above there were examples of its use proving it is certainly older than 1829 as a native American idiom. 71.246.148.24 (talk) 02:12, 19 September 2015 (UTC)


 * I accept your latest edits. Good compromise. 173.67.199.157 (talk) 02:43, 19 September 2015 (UTC)