Lempfrit’s legendary, long-lost linguistic legacy (Part 10)
Here’s the tenth pair of page images from Father Honoré-Timothée Lempfrit’s copy off of the presumable Modeste Demers original Chinuk Wawa vocabulary made at Fort Vancouver circa 1838-1839.
Again we have a few little discoveries!
Material that is underlined is stuff that’s not present in the other known copy, “Anonymous 1849” (Pinart 1849/RV Grant 1946).
I’ll also compare as needed with the published version of Demers’ lexicon, i.e. with Demers, Blanchet & St Onge 1871.
- Lapoush, bouche(,) embouchure
‘mouth, mouthpiece’ - Tanas éléhé, – ile
‘island’
Literally ‘little land’. - takta, Docteur
‘doctor’ - Lékou – cou
‘neck’ - Kwoïo, Kwoïo, bague
‘ring’ - ouklah̃ } nerf
Kaouawé
Seemingly neither word shows up in Demers, Blanchet & St Onge 1871, nor in other Jargon dictionaries. Both look Indigenous-sourced, the first probably Chinookan. I haven’t found these in any dictionaries of the local Native languages.
‘nerve’ - Toto – sas, van
‘sieve, winnowing mill’ - tshanal, bretelle,
‘strap’
Seems not to be in Demers, Blanchet & St Onge 1871, nor other Jargon dictionaries. This word looks Indigenous-sourced, perhaps Salish. But I haven’t found it in any dictionaries.
Noms de nombre
‘Nouns of number’
- hihkt – 1
- makoust – 2
This spelling accurately reflects the CW pronunciation mákwst. - tloum [sic] – 3
- Laket – 4
- Kwannom – 5
This spelling reflects the early CW pronunciation qwə́nəm. - tatram – 6
- Sinnimakoust – 7
- Stokitiken [sic] – 8
- quoiist – 9
- Tatlélam – 10
- talélam pi hihkt – 11
Literally ‘ten and one’ - tatlelom pi makoust – 12
Literally ‘ten and two’ - tatlélom pi tloum – 13
Literally ‘ten and three’
- makoust tatlelom – 20
Literally ‘two tens’ - makoust tatlelom pi hihkt – 21
Literally ‘two tens and one’ - Tloum tatlelam – 30
Literally ‘three tens’
