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Tonto Talk
- 308 statements
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A variation of You No Take Candle, but one which applies specifically to Native Americans. For decades (if not centuries) Native Americans were portrayed in fiction speaking a form of pidgin English characterised by the phrases "heap big," "ugh," and "how," and verbs conjugated with "um" (justified, as some native American languages have a feature in which “um� is added to the end of a verb if the speaker is reporting something they saw firsthand, and “ay� if not). Trains are referred to as "iron horses," guns as "thundersticks," white people as "palefaces" (who speak with forked tongue), a baby as a "papoose," the tribal leader as "Big Chief," money as "wampum," and whiskey as "firewater."note In Spanish -in humoristic depictions- there's something similar too (the You No Take Candle style), with them conjugating verbs just in infinitive as well as knowing stuff as trains or whiskey as mentioned before. While most assume that this is just some baloney stereotype invented by ignorant racists, it was actually originally Truth in Television. In the 17th century, Native Americans adopted a pidgin now called American Indian Pidgin English (AIPE) in order to communicate with white people and members of other tribes. Here are a few recorded real-life examples of AIPE: Straight usages of this trope have fallen out of favor due to racial sensitivity (and due to the language barrier that AIPE was meant to bridge simply not being there anymore, since the vast majority of Natives are raised with actual, fluent English these days; unfortunately most of the old languages are dead or dying, although there are efforts to preserve/revive them), although it does get parodied quite frequently. A common gag involves a white (or otherwise non-indigenous) character speaking to a Native American in this manner on the assumption that this is how all Native Americans talk, only to receive a bemused response in perfectly articulate English. Occasionally you may even find someone so ignorant as to think this is the Native American accent, which is incorrect, as the accent that Native Americans had before the colonists arrived is the very one that non-native Americans adopted and now speak.note There is such a thing as a "rez accent", distinguished by inflection, slight softening on consonants, etc. This likely got started in the residential schools where children of many tribes lived together for years and were forced to learn and speak only English. You can hear a lot of people speaking with rez accents on Native America Calling. See Asian Speekee Engrish for the Asian equivalent, and Stereotypical South Asian English for the South Asian equivalent. Related to Braids, Beads and Buckskins. Sometimes the dialect of choice for the Magical Native American or, for extra-special Unfortunate Implications, The Savage Indian or Hollywood Natives. See also Elective Broken Language, for when a Native American can speak English perfectly and just fakes this trope, either for making fun of white people's stereotypes or for the sake of Obfuscating Stupidity. |
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Averted in the negotiations with Cochise in Fort Apache, where we have a somewhat reverse situation: the focus is not on Cochise not being able to speak English, but on the negotiating officer York not being fluent enough in Apache. Therefore, York decides to use a Spanish interpreter to interpret for Cochise, who is rather fluent in Spanish. | |
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Chief Screaming Chicken, a character who is exactly as painful to watch as the name suggests, talks like this in the Batman (1966) episode he appears in. | |
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In The Frisco Kid, when Avram and Tommy are captured by Native Americans, they attempt some Tonto Talk, e.g. something like, "Me rabbi. Jewish Rabbi. I cross big ocean. I read much book about Indians." The chief is not amused and replies "You don't speak English very well." | |
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Parodied in Reaper Man: Mrs. Cake's spirit guide, One Man Bucket, is from "one of them heathen Howondaland tribes", and talks like this... but only when he's on the job. He was actually born and raised in Ankh-Morpork, so his exaggerated use of "-um" and talk of spirits and the Happy Hunting Grounds are an affectation for the benefit of Mrs. Cake's customers. | |
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Sunset Riders Stage boss Dark Horse enters battle with the line "You in heap big trouble!" and then "Me in heap big trouble!" when defeated. However, he doesn't look particularly Native American despite the mannerisms and the game's Wild West theme. Chief Scalpemnote Wigwam, depending on the version, who is an obvious Native American, also speaks this way, saying "Me ready for Pow-wow," and "Me Pow-wowed out" before and after his boss fight, respectivelynote in the Super Nintendo port, his subtitles are reworked to "get ready for a pow-wow" and "I'm pow-wowed out", and his voice files are likewise edited to remove the "me" at the start. His sister, who appears after he's defeated to beg the main characters not to kill him, speaks perfect English. |
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Tumbleweeds: Bucolic Buffalo played this straight, adding "um" to his words. The other members of the Poohawk tribe though averted this trope. | |
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Inexplicably, the Sparra tribe, otherwise entirely based on English sparrows, speak this way in Redwall, with the additional use of the word "worm" to mean either "food", "anyone that's not a sparrow", or "anything the sparrow dislikes". Probably why they didn't show up again after Mattimeo, when it became less acceptable to use this trope. They are perfectly smart, though. | |
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In the Winnetou novels, Indians often use the word "howgh" and some other terms like "palefaces" and "firewater", but the Indian protagonist speaks pretty good English. | |
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In an episode of Jeeves and Wooster, Bertie Wooster (as part of a Zany Scheme) is persuaded to disguise himself in blackface as an African chief to retrieve a tribal artifact. He naturally assumes that as the "chief" he should speak in Tonto Talk. The poor dolt only succeeds in making everything think he's gone insane. Then to make matters even worse, the real chief shows up— speaking the Queen's English in a flawless Oxford accent due to his university education. | |
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Parodied in The Simpsons when a Native American casino owner is seen yelling over the phone, "Your people have broken many promises to us. Now laundry bill soars like eagle!" It overlaps with Elective Broken Language though, as he speaks normally once Bart shows up in his office. | |
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"Little Plum" from The Beano peppers his sentences with "um" so much that it becomes almost a self-parody. | |
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Averted in The Missing (2003), where all the Native tribes do speak realistically, though with accents. | |
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Running Board speaks this way in Go Go Gophers. | |
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Subverted in an animated segment in Sesame Street. Two boys play Cowboys and Indians, with the "Indian" speaking in this manner. A modern-day Indian boy shows up and explains that that's not how Native Americans actually speak. | |
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The Discworld of A.A. Pessimal builds on the canonical introduction of Red Indians. One seemingly submissive Indian employed as a scout by the local Expy of General George Armstrong Custer addresses him seemingly respectfully, as Kemo Sabie. Then, later on, he watches a bull bison depositing a large steaming heap of kemosabie onto the prairie. | |
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In World of Warcraft, the minotaur-like Tauren are thematically loosely based on Native Americans.note Many in-game races have that kind of loose connection—the Dwarves based on cliche highland Scots, the ursine Pandaren on Chinese, etc. They speak fluent English, but if you click on an NPC, one of the stock responses is "How... may I aid you?" | |
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Played with in The Indian in the Cupboard. Little Bear has fairly stunted English, but is shown to be intelligent otherwise, sometimes more intelligent than Omri, who's just a boy. Inversely, Boone, a white cowboy, has just as terrible English, and also is clever in his own way. | |
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Parodied in the New 52 version of Dial H, when Nelson becomes Chief Mighty Arrow (a character who appeared in the original series), he talks this way unless he concentrates on not doing so. Roxie refuses to let him leave the house because he's an offensive stereotype. | |
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It should be noted that since Peter And The Starcatchers was published by Disney's Hyperion Books division, this was likely intended as a parody of the Indians in the 1953 movie, who played this trope totally straight. | |
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The Woody Woodpecker version of The Barber of Seville has a Native American walk into the barber shop, speaking like this and wearing a headdress in the 1940's. | |
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Ompa-pa the Redskin: Ompa-pa and the other Indians speak this way. | |
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Humba Wumba in Banjo-Tooie speaks like this - but then again practically everyone (and everything) speaks in Hulk Speak anyway, so the only thing particularly unique about Humba is that she throws in the odd "heap big" every once in a while. | |
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Something*Positive: Aubrey's aborted attempt to make Native American-themed porn involves her obviously white friends dressing up in Braids, Beads and Buckskins and speaking like this, while using the stage names Princess Takes-It-Like-Doe and Chief Thrusting Bull. "Sweet Tonto! Your tomahawk is wampum big!" Jhim says that if it gets released none of them will ever be able to walk into a casino again. | |
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The Beatles visit an Indian village where the guide subverts this while Breaking the Fourth Wall. From the episode "Little Child." The two Native children in the episode avert this as they both speak clear paleface—er, English. |
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Invoked in Maverick where Joseph, the chief of the local tribe, is being paid by a wealthy Russian noble to give him a "real west" experience including Braids, Beads and Buckskins, war drums, and Tonto-speak - to the great disgust of Joseph, who is fully fluent not just in English but in French (which was pretty much the first language of Russian nobility at the time) besides. | |
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The French Ludwig Von 88 made a whole song named Mon coeur s'envole phrased in that manner. This is meant as a joke. | |
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In the Seinfeld episode "The Cigar Store Indian," Jerry gives Elaine the title object as a gift with a note that reads, "Let's bury the hatchet. We smoke um peace pipe." Unluckily, Elaine's attractive friend Winona is a Native American, and Jerry spends the rest of the episode trying unsuccessfully to convince Winona he's not a racist. | |
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On One Life to Live, a woman tries to endear herself to the son of the man she's dating by talking like this when she sees his Halloween costume—he's dressed as a Native American boy. Unfortunately, the boy's already upset by her presence in the first place—his beloved stepmother died only two months earlier and his Jerkass father is refusing to deal with either his or his own grief—and her act makes him blow up at her. | |
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In the Wacky Races episode "Why Oh Why Wyoming", Dick Dastardly enlists the aid of an Indian, Chief Crazy Buffalo, who talks like this. | |
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Our Miss Brooks: Chief and Mrs. Thundercloud in the episode Bartering With Chief Thundercloud. | |
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Lucky Luke used this with the occasional subversion, with most of the humor stemming from just how odd this talk sounds when translated very literally into French. | |
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A variant of this was still used, of all places, in My Heart Is On The Ground, a 1999 children's book in the "Dear America" series. Native reviewers called the style "Early Jawbreaker". | |
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Subverted in The Outlaw Josey Wales. The Comanche chief Ten Bears note played by Will Sampson, also known for One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and Poltergeist II: The Other Side does tend towards whimsical turns of phrase, and his English is a bit stilted, but he sounds like someone who has learned a second language as an adult rather than a caricature. He even manages to get one over on Josey: | |
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In the Philip Marlowe novel Farewell, My Lovely, a Mook named Second Planting shows up and engages in this. Marlowe doesn't buy it for a minute, finally telling him to "Skip the pig Latin". The mook's English improves, indicating he was faking most of it, but it's still a little broken. | |
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Press Your Luck had a Whammy Indian rowing in a canoe chanting "Ai-yi-yi-yi money money" before his canoe springs a leak and sinks. | |
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Averted in Red Dead Redemption, where the Native American Nastas speaks fluent English and justifies it as having been schooled while growing up; however, supposed anthropologist MacDougal treats him as though this trope applies. | |
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In the original stage version of Peter Pan, the Indians that live in Neverland speak like this. | |
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Played with in a short story in Fear Itself: The Home Front, in which a bunch of white racists try and stir up American Eagle's neighbors by posing as Native American spirits in the wake of the murder of a white local sheriff. The fact that they resort to using Tonto Talk is part of how Eagle figures out that they're full of shit. | |
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Tonto Talk | |
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When the Archie Comics gang takes a trip out west, they stop at a Native American village. Reggie walks up to an Indian man and says something like: | |
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Tonto Talk / int_9b530c26 | |
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Tonto Talk | |
| Tonto Talk / int_9f1766e4 | comment |
On The Brady Bunch three-part episode where they went to the Grand Canyon, at one point Bobby and Cindy get lost in the canyon. When they encounter a Native American boy about their age, Bobby opens with Tonto-like "How!" while putting his hand up. The Indian boy is only confused by that and replies "How, what?" with an American accent. Bobby quickly says, "How are you?" The boy's grandfather shows up to take him home, played by Jay Silverheels (Tonto) himself! | |
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Tonto Talk | |
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The Martians in Futurama, who are based around stereotyped Indians, speak this way. "Oh no! Martians kidnap Amy! I know it them 'cause they no use good grammar!" remark Amy's parents. | |
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Tonto Talk / int_a183d57f | |
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Tonto Talk | |
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Saturday Night Live had multiple recurring sketch characters (including a Tonto expy and Frankenstein's Monster using this instead of the more traditional Hulk Speak). Several even appeared together in a sketch called "Succinctly Speaking". | |
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Tonto Talk / int_b0fc9724 | |
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Tonto Talk | |
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On Modern Family, Cam and Mitchell try to apply Lily to a classy kindergarten that is very keen on finding Token Minorities, and figured Lily is bound to be admitted as a Twofer Token Minority (being both Asian and the daughter of two gay fathers). Upon realising their competition for the only available slot was an interracial lesbian couple, one of whom was in a wheelchair, Cam resorts to bringing up being 1/16 Native American, and talking like this in the interview as a final Hail Mary. | |
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Tonto Talk | |
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Big Chief Tiny Head in Moshi Monsters is the only character to speak specifically with the "um" and "heap" and consistently so. He is not leading anyone, wears attire that does not add up and was introduced as a man of great wisdom to soon be revealed as working for an an Evil Organisation and simply faking it all. | |
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Tonto Talk / int_b6b6098 | |
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Tonto Talk | |
| Tonto Talk / int_bcb32dc6 | comment |
In a short story set in the Shadowrun Verse, a mercenary company is led by an ork and his Native American second-in-command. Joking around, these long-time friends speak to each other in their respective minstrel-show-dialect equivalents: the Native saying they'll "make-um heap hot for paleface", and the ork replying "smash 'em good, ook ook!" | |
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Tonto Talk | |
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Parodied in (of course) Blazing Saddles with the chief played by Mel Brooks chanting in Yiddish. | |
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Tonto Talk | |
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In an episode of Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids the kids go to see an old cowboys-and-Indians movie and come out thinking that that's how real Indians act. When an Indian boy moves into the neighborhood, they don't believe he's a real Indian because he doesn't talk/act like they did in the movie. | |
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Tonto Talk | |
| Tonto Talk / int_bfdf84ee | comment |
The Girl of the Golden West has Billy Jackrabbit and Wowkle speak somewhat like this. The interjection "Ugh!" is a bit overused. | |
| Tonto Talk / int_bfdf84ee | featureApplicability |
1.0 | |
| Tonto Talk / int_bfdf84ee | featureConfidence |
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Tonto Talk / int_bfdf84ee | |
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Tonto Talk | |
| Tonto Talk / int_c511c682 | comment |
Asterix plays with this trope: the Native American characters in Asterix and the Great Crossing speak a language consisting entirely of "how", "ugh" and "ole" (the last word being introduced to them by the Gauls, who believe the Indians to be Spanish). The loose film adaptation, Asterix Conquers America, averts this trope by giving the Indians a new language comprised of American place names. | |
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Tonto Talk / int_c511c682 | |
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Tonto Talk | |
| Tonto Talk / int_c52a430a | comment |
Played with in Dudley Do-Right. In one scene, Nel Fenwick returns to town and Dudley reintroduces her to the Chief of the South Brooklyn Indians. Subverted further in that the person Nel was addressing was probably not even a real Native American. Later in the movie, Standing Room Only (one of the tribe members) sarcastically remarks, "Oh, yeah, like we're really Indians," implying that they're not. |
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Tonto Talk | |
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Subverted in Peter and the Starcatchers: When the heroes meet Fighting Prawn, chief of the Mollusk tribe, they assume this trope and greet him with "How", to which Fighting Prawn replies "Can we start the conversation along, old chap? I'm getting frightfully tired of 'How'." It should be noted that since Peter And The Starcatchers was published by Disney's Hyperion Books division, this was likely intended as a parody of the Indians in the 1953 movie, who played this trope totally straight. |
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Tonto Talk / int_c8847d6 | |
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Tonto Talk | |
| Tonto Talk / int_e4ed33fb | comment |
Tonto from The Lone Ranger is the Trope Namer and possibly the trope codifier. Language aside, he was portrayed as highly intelligent (actor John Todd's "Hmmm..." could speak volumes), often coming across as smarter than the Lone Ranger. Jay Silverheels in interviews and comedy skits used to make fun of the "him say" stuff and used the term "Tonto talk." Modern versions, such as the 1981 film and the Dynamite comic series, did away with this, due to the creators wanting to portray Tonto more respectfully. The 2013 film, however, brought it back. | |
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Tonto Talk / int_e4ed33fb | |
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Tonto Talk | |
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Some of The Three Stooges shorts featured Native Americans speaking this way, such as the 1940 short "Rockin' Thru the Rockies". | |
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Tonto Talk | |
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Completely averted in Blood Meridian. No native characters speak in English; either they have no dialogue, their conversation is in their native language but not recorded in the text, or they speak in reasonably fluent Spanish, as is the case with the Yuma chief Caballo en Pelo. | |
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In a Family Guy episode, Peter and Lois decide to enter a community talent show by reviving their old folk act from the '60s (or whatever) called "Handful of Peter". They flash back to the longhaired duo playing a song lamenting the plight of Native Americans, which used various speech stereotypes, such as the "woo-woo-woo" soundnote the tremolo, which Anglos think is made by vibrating the hand against the mouth — it's actually made with the tongue, there are really many different varieties, and in many tribes it's the women who make that sound and at the end Peter speaking the lyric, "How could this have happened... HOW" (speaking the last word like the stereotypical Native American greeting, with his hand held palm out). Although it turns out that they were very high for this performance and this was merely their own interpretation of how it went. What actually happened was them wailing on their instruments randomly while screaming like lunatics. | |
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Tonto Talk | |
| Tonto Talk / int_eb3f769d | comment |
Subverted in Patrick O'Brian's The Fortune of War : Stephen Maturin habitually greets the Native American hospital porter with 'Ugh' in the genuine belief that it is a civil greeting in his language, until the man politely asks for an explanation. | |
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Tonto Talk | |
| Tonto Talk / int_f4345923 | comment |
Parodied in a 1949 Bob & Ray skit featuring Pronto, sidekick to the Lone Agent: | |
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Tonto Talk / int_f4345923 | |
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Tonto Talk | |
| Tonto Talk / int_febf1ff3 | comment |
On one occasion, Pepper Ann found out she had some Native American heritage and found some of that tribe, who were your typical modern people, and kept trying to talk to them like she'd heard Indians talk in westerns. | |
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