“Hapi” in BC
First things first — go download the Chinuk Pipa font!
I used it to write the above word in BC Chinuk Wawa: hapi.
Meaning ‘happy’.
Most folks having any familiarity with Chinook Jargon will know that this isn’t the usual way to express ‘happy’.
Far more usual is the definition of hapi that’s given in the following passage:
ST mash man kopa ukuk ilihi pus iaka chako hapi “patl tlus tomtom[”]
sáx̣ali-táyí másh mán kʰupa úkuk ílihi pus yaka chaku-hápi (páɬ ɬúsh tə́mtəm)
sky-chief send man to this earth so.that he become-happy (full good heart)
‘God put people on this earth so they’d become happy (full of good heart).’
— Kamloops Wawa #065, February 12, 1893, page 28
‘Good heart’ is the normal CJ expression.
But it’s interesting to realize that BC Jargon speakers, having relatively greater exposure to English than the earlier southern speakers had had, were somewhat familiar with the word hapi.
A recurring expression in the Kamloops Wawa newspaper was:
Hapi Nyu Iiir ‘Happy New Year’, from 1893 to 1904.
I’m so happy you were able to get the font working.
I think “hapi” is generally written all together, not syllabified, isn’t it? If you’re using my keyboard page, you can disable autosyllabification for a single word by prefixing the word with a semicolon, as in “;hapi nyu iir”.
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You’re right, like a lot of words Le Jeune perceived as foreign (including personal names), this one is usually written as a single cursively joined word in Kamloops Wawa. Funny to realize, or at least suspect, that Le Jeune disfavored the syllable “ha”. I think when possible he found alternative ways to represent that sequence, e.g. in “kla.haw.iam”. Thanks as always for your excellent work, David!
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