1911: Klo-mass, Ni, Ka, Klat-ta-wa
This merits a brief post —
A letter to the editor by “Thos. H.B.” in a southwest Oregon newspaper uses a unique parting salutation in Chinuk Wawa:
Klo-mass Ni, Ka, Klat-ta-wa.
t’łúnas nayka łátwa
perhaps I go
‘I reckon I’ll be going (now)’.
— from “Some Reminiscences of Populistic Days in the County of Jackson”, in the Medford (OR) Mail Tribune of February 5, 1911, Second Section, page 6, columns 1 & 2
The fact that nobody translated this into English indicates, as usual, that it was assumed local people understood it anyway.
Even when it was spelled so creatively 🙂
