1888: A sermon by Myron Eells (part 6 of 6)
Finishing up our deep look into Reverend Myron Eells’ quite fluent late-frontier Christian sermon addressed to a Native audience…
One of Myron Eells’s inspirations, his missionary dad Cushing (image credit: Wikipedia)
…As in the previous installments, the first line is Eells’s spelling of the Chinuk Wawa text, the second is his word-for-word gloss, the third will be me showing you Grand Rondes-style pronunciations, and the last line is Eells’s own fluent English version of what he’s trying to say.
…kumtux wake siyah kopa Walla Walla mitlite alta tahtlum
…kə́mtəks wík-sáyá kʰupa wálawala* míɬayt álta táɬlam
know not far {near) to Walla Walla reside now ten
‘…know that not far from Walla Walla there are now ten’siwash leplet, pe taghum tukamonuk Christian.
sáwásh liplét, pi táx̣am-ták’umunaq krístian*.
Indian missionaries and six hundred Christians.
‘Indian missionaries and seven hundred Christians.’Kwinnum tahtlum cole ahnkuttie, leplet mamook
qwínəm-táɬlam kʰúl ánqati, liplét mámuk
Five ten winters ago, missionaries did
‘Fifty years ago missionaries did’kahkwa Jesus yaka wawa, pe lolo Bible kopa siwash,
kákwa djísəs* yaka wáwa, pi lúlu báybəl* kʰupa sáwásh,
as Jesus he said, and carried Bible to Indians,
‘according to the word of Jesus, and bore the Gospel to the Indians,’kahkwa kloshe seed, pe alta yaka chaco hias. Kahkwa
kákwa ɬúsh síd*, pi álta yaka chaku-háyás. kákwa
like good seed, and now this becomes great. So
‘like good seed; and now it has become great. Thus’nesika kumtux Jesus yaka wawa hias kloshe wawa. Jesus
nsayka kə́mtəks djísəs yaka wáwa hayas-ɬúsh wáwa. djísəs
we know Jesus his speech very good speech. Jesus
‘we know that the teaching of Jesus is very good teaching. Jesus’yaka tikegh mesika mamook kahkwa. Kloshe mesika
yaka tíki msayka mámuk kákwa. ɬúsh msayka
he wishes you to do likewise. Good {that) you
‘wishes you to do the same. It is good that you should’help huloima tillikums chaco Christian.
hélp x̣lúyma tílixam-s chaku-krístian.
help other people become Christians.
‘help other people to become Christians.” ‘
The asterisked words there are ones whose CW pronunciation we don’t know a lot.
Most are recent (in 1890) loans from English, and interestingly, the Christianity-related ones tend to have lots of synonyms depending on who was doing the translating.
‘Seed’, however, is a pretty fundamental word, and I think it’s one of those English borrowings that were purposely left out of the old-time “Chinook” dictionaries, since they needed no explanation for the intended White audience. I’ve found it used in various Jargon dialects.
The six installments in this mini-series have shown you some pretty solid reading material in Jargon. You’ll learn a lot by reading through them all.
