In his peculiar way, he has indicated that he is oriented to his location, but not oriented to the time or to his situation. His highly formalized locution, entirely characteristic of his tribe, may seem quaint, but it is exaggerated just enough to suggest that he is compensating for a language deficit that he is aware of but seems indifferent to. He knows that he has a benign tumor in his pancreas that poses less of a threat than the meningioma in his brain. The brain tumor will not kill him anytime soon, but it will continue to diminish his powers of thought.
