How is your thinking?
(Image credit: StrategyLab.ca)
How is your thinking? Let’s see…
We have an expression from one of the Lower Chehalis Salish speakers recorded in a linguist’s notebook, without a translation:
tʔín ʔask̓ʷíʔxʷənwət
Other data show that tʔín is one of the interesting, typically Salish interrogative verbs, meaning ‘how(.doing)’.
The remainder is totally transparent. I can roughly sketch it for you:
ʔa-s-k̓ʷíʔxʷ-ənwət
your-Nominalizer-think-inside
‘your thinking’
The phrase should mean “What do you think?”
It’s exactly parallel to how Chinuk Wawa says it:
qʰáta máyka tə́mtəm?
how (is) your thinking?
how (is) your thinking?
Once again, historically shared Indian metaphors played an important role in forming the Chinook Jargon pidgin-creole.
Great to see!
