Ceremony

The nuance, detail, and beauty of indigenous languages emerges as a prominent aspect of the way characters communicate in Ceremony. Throughout the novel, Tayo and other Laguna Pueblo characters often acknowledge the complexity of their native language and its various dialects. For instance, in the following excerpt from Section 2, Tayo reflects as Ku'oosh converses with him in an old dialect of their shared language:

[Ku'oosh] spoke softly, using the old dialect full of sentences that were involuted with explanations of their own origins, as if nothing the old man said were his own but all had been said before and he was only there to repeat it. Tayo had to strain to catch the meaning, dense with place names he had never heard. His language was childish, interspersed with English words, and he could feel shame tightening in his throat.

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