‘Berries’ and Salish, too?
Super briefly…
(Image credit: Pinterest)
I do not think this is “the” source of Chinuk Wawa úlali ‘berry, berries’, which has a very fine explanation as a Natítanui (Shoalwater & Clatsop) Lower Chinookan noun…
But it’s somewhat remarkable that nearby SW WA Salish languages have really similar-sounding words for a related concept:
Upper Chehalis ʔúlulax̣- ‘to pick berries slowly’, which is kind of just how you pick berries I’d say.
With no further suffixes this should be the 3rd person perfective form of the verb.
(This is a “slow-reduplication” of the root ʔúlax̣i- ‘pick, gather’.)
Could this Salish form have in any way helped entrench úlali in the early, southern-dialect CW?
