Mystery: “sorts” in Kamloops Chinuk Wawa
I’m putting this up in hopes one of you will jar my brain with a clue:
Where does the word “sorts” in Kamloops Chinuk Wawa come from?
Discovering it in the Kamloops Wawa newspaper (#116 ‘bis’ [b], page 91), I immediately know its meaning, “drawing lots”.
But somehow I’m not finding it in dictionaries yet.
It vaguely sounds British-influenced to my ears.
But where’s the evidence?
Here is the occurrence of it that I found: the Apostles are drawing lots to name a replacement 12th Man…
Klaska iskom mokst man:
iht iaka nim Shosip Barsabas
pi Matias…
Klaska mamuk sorc
klaska nim ukuk mokst man,
pi Matias iaka nim shako
klahani kakwa iaka shako
lisapotr kanamokst ukuk
hlwima <11> lisapotr.“They picked two men:
one named Joseph Barsabbas,
and Matthias…
they made sorts
[with] both these men’s names,
and Matthias’s name came
out, so he became
an apostle along with those
other 11 apostles.”
The reason it’s interesting to know the source of this loanword is, that will give us some information on what kinds of speech were influencing Kamloops Chinuk Wawa:
Was this a common word on the street for “drawing lots”?
Was it a more bookish form that Father Le Jeune used because he was at a loss for any other way to express the idea?
Or was it something else I haven’t considered yet?
Let me know if you have leads on this…
I think it is a French word. “Tirer au sort” is ‘to draw lots’ to decide who is going to do or receive something, so that the decision will be made without prejudice, by chance. In this case it looks like the apostles wrote the names on two small objects, perhaps hid them under something so they could not be seen, mixed them up, and had someone pick one of those things at random.
I only know the meaning of “le sort” as ‘fate’ or ‘curse’ (if “thrown” on someone by a witch, for instance), but here it seems to refer to the object used, perhaps the lucky (or unlucky) one. “Tirer au sort” could then mean literally ‘to draw (a person’s fate) by means of a ‘sort’.”
I think that there was a “game of sorts” played in England in older times. I vaguely remember seeing the phrase in some 19th C novel(s).
I tend to the influence of French “tirer au sort” on these French speakers, but the OED has a reference to “to sort by lots”, which is what we do when we sort things, like pieces of clothing. Drawing lot, sorting by lots, there’s lots of possible cross-overs here.
Hi Dave: I basically agree with Marie-Lucie and George Lang. The form /sorts/ excludes a direct French loanword, whose form ought to be /sor/. I am inclined to see it as an English word whose meaning was gallicized: I could all too easily imagine a French-English bilingual rendering “tirer au sort” as “(to make) sorts”, yielding Chinook Jargon “Mamuk sorc”. Do bear in mind that “Tirer au sort”, in spoken French, is ambiguous, i.e. “au sort” and “aux sorts” are homophonous (in Modern Standard as well as in all varieties of French ever spoken in Canada), so for the English noun to be plural does not run counter to the intuitions of a French speaker.
Excellent observations, you guys. Thank you! I had thought I knew an English expression approximately “draw sorts” or “cast sorts”, but I’ve not tracked it down in a dictionary yet. Here is an example of its use in a work of fiction: https://goo.gl/DxeluX