Forced Attribution
From the New Scientist Q&A with Alexandra Aikhenvald on disappearing languages:

Q. What's your favourite example of a big difference between languages?

A. In English I can tell my son: "Today I talked to Adrian", and he won't ask: "How do you know you talked to Adrian?" But in some languages, including Tariana, you always have to put a little suffix onto your verb saying how you know something -- we call it "evidentiality". I would have to say: "I talked to Adrian, non-visual," if we had talked on the phone. And if my son told someone else, he would say: "She talked to Adrian, visual, reported." In that language, if you don't say how you know things, they think you are a liar.
This is a very nice and useful tool. Imagine if, in the argument about weapons of mass destruction, people had to say how they knew about whatever they said. That would have saved us quite a lot of breath.

My husband said it would be the perfect language for all those journalists with attribution problems.
- posted by Amy @ 2/09/2004 06:27:00 PM