[sic]-tə́mtəm
Working with large numbers of Chinuk Wawa documents, as I do, I often find myself adding “[sic]” as a comment on what I’m seeing…
…And I thought it might interest my readers to see what that “[sic]” implies.
For a source of examples, I’ll use my current project of transcribing and analyzing the 1902 “Chinook Book of Devotions throughout the Year”.
“[sic]” flags a number of details that demand some close reading:
- Alta tomtom kopa Sint [SIC] Shwakim pi Sint
An…Alta tomtom kopa msaika: msaika na
tlus kakwa Sin [SIC] Shwakim pi Sint An?
(‘Now think about Saint Joachim and Saint
Ann…Now think about yourselves: are you folks
good like Saint Joachim and Saint Ann?’)
Here I’m pointing out the variation between 2 pronunciations of “Saint” in Jargon. - …ukuk klaska mimlus= [SIC]
siahush, klaska nanich alta…
(‘…those who are
blind, they can see now…’)
In this case I’m noting that the writer is unusually placing a punctuation mark “=” in the middle of a compound; it’s normally used if a single word is interrupted by a line break. - Pus chako <8> son kimta, klaska chako
pus mamuk nim ukuk tanas, pi klaska
tiki mamuk nim iaka Sakari, kakwa iaka [SIC]
Pi iaka mama wawa: …
(‘When it got to be 8 days later, they came
to name that child, and they
wanted to name him Zachary, like his [father.]
And his mother said…’)
With this “[sic]”, I’m noting that a CW word papa has apparently been left out. - Chi iaka chako, Mari mamuk tlus
iaka kopa tanas pasisi iaka lolo, pi
pi [SIC] iaka mamuk iaka li dawn kopa musmus
haws…
(‘Once he was born, Mary fixed
him up with a little blanket that she’d brought, and
and she laid him down in a stable…’)
Here I’m pointing out an accidental repetition of a word. - Pus tolo nisaika [SIC] …
(‘To win us over…’)
What I’m highlighting here is a special “song pronunciation” of a word that’s otherwise spelled nsaika. - Ankati, ukuk tlus tilikom klaska
tlus nanich klaska shīp [SIC] wik saia kopa
Bitliim…
(‘Long ago, those good people who
were taking care of their sheep near
Bethlehem…’)
This note directs your attention to an unusual vowel symbol, apparently intended to prevent confusion with the Jargon word ship meaning ‘ship’. - Kata na msaika? Pi kata na msaika
tanas? Msaika na tomtom pus msaika
kakwa ShK kopa ukuk ilihi? Msaika na
tlus nanich pus klaska [SIC] wiht kakwa ShK
kopa ukuk ilihi?
(‘What are you folks like? And what are your
children like? Have you folks thought whether you’re
like Jesus on this earth? Have you folks
been careful that they [your kids] are also like Jesus
on this earth?’)
This “[sic]” is an assurance that the CW text indeed says klaska ‘they’, even though that pronoun’s referent (the kids) isn’t perfectly obvious. - Pus
iht man saliks msaika, pi iaka chako
olo, patlach makmak kopa iaka: wik mash [SIC]
masachi tolo msaika, tlus msaika
tolo masachi kopa tlus.
(‘If
some person is hostile to you folks, and they become
hungry, feed them: don’t leave [SIC]
evil things (to) win you folks over; you folks should
beat evil with good.’)
And here, “[sic]” spotlights an unusual word choice, mash, intended as ‘let, allow’ (more literally ‘leave; discard; reject; throw’), influenced by writer JMR Le Jeune’s native French laissez. It’s actually hard to come up with a CW word for ‘let’; speakers most often would make use of context + an imperative form like wik-tlus (pus)… (‘not-good (if)…’) to carry that sense.
Dave – I think you use “sic” pretty much how I do, and your examples are very informative, but I was hoping that you would make its meaning even more explicit. Something like: ‘this is unexpected, but I have taken care to verify that the author said or wrote this just as I have transcribed it.’ For me, “sic” is most useful when I’m transcribing spoken data that I might second-guess later. “Sic” tells future me, as well as others who might use my notes, that I have already double-checked the issue in question.
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Good points, Adam, and I recognize that in the further work I’ll be doing, I’ll have to consider using a variety of notations, something along the lines of a “diplomatic edition” where you carefully reflect exactly what’s on the original page. My “sic”, like yours, shows that I’ve already recognized an unexpected question and established that I’m seeing what I think I’m seeing; it leaves open the likelihood that I’ll flesh things out with explanations for other readers in future. (The stuff I’m showing in today’s post is only from my raw transliteration work, the first stage in a huge ongoing project.) Cheers, Dave
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