“They speak like birds”: An Indigenous metaphor, as reflected in CW
I’m guessing it means “they speak like idiots”?
I’m guessing it means “they speak like idiots”?
Chinuk Wawa tə́qsin ‘follow; pursue’ in the 2012 Grand Ronde Tribes dictionary: “Of obscure origin. Possibly from a local Salishan form with the transitive suffix -n.”
Be a good citizen, read “Voices of the Pacific Northwest“.
A great quotation from the old CHINOOK Listserv…
A reasonably clear record of míməlust-íliʔi (‘dead.people-place’) for ‘graveyard; cemetery’ turns up in a half-translated form.
Hugh Lenox Scott (1853-1934) was seen as an authority on Plains Indian Sign Language…
The Chinuk Wawa noun təmstiyu ‘arrowwood’ has stuck in my mind for quite a while, as have many others that “feel” Salish to me.
Another in my sporadic series of gems from the old CHINOOK listserv that deserve more attention:
LATE-FRONTIER OREGON PAPER SKIPS TRANSLATING. —