Didactic dialogues in CW dictionaries, Part 4J (Gibbs 1863 ex phrases/sentences)
Today it’s Chinook Jargon à-go-go!
Image credit: Art-Mate
(All installments in this mini-series.)
The common thread among the following examples from the Jargon’s colorful youth (per George Gibbs 1863) should be obvious. Think of it as a theme & variations, or a fugue…
See how many things we can learn just by focusing on the word for ‘go’!
- Howkwutl nika klatawa? ‘How could I go?’
(x̣áwqaɬ nayka ɬátwa? ‘Can’t I go?’)
I think there’s a good chance that Gibbs meant to punctuate this sentence with a period, making it mean literally ‘I can’t go.’ Either way, the point here is that the grammar being used is fluent Chinuk Wawa, and it means something different from Gibbs’s English translation. (He may have wrongly suspected < howkwutl > comes from ‘how could’!) But it can be used to the same effect, of exclaiming in frustration about not being able to leave. - Ikt nika klatawa kopa yakka house. ‘I have been once to his house.’
(íxt nayka ɬátwa kʰupa yaka háws. ‘On(c)e I went to his house.’)
This is a very nice example of how the Jargon word for ‘one’ is also used for ‘once; one time’. I just want to specify that this ‘once’ is the ‘once’ that means ‘a single occurrence’. It doesn’t mean ‘once (upon a time)’, for which we’d instead say ánqati ‘long ago; some time in the past’. - Klonass nika klatawa. ‘Perhaps I shall go.’
(t’ɬúnás nayka ɬátwa. ‘Maybe I’ll go.’)
What’s worth pointing out here is that t’ɬúnás has the sense of ‘I don’t know for sure’. It’s the only word for ‘maybe’ in the northern dialect, but if you’re a southern-dialect speaker (Grand Ronde style), you might say áláxti if you mean ‘maybe — I think so’. - Klaska konaway klatawa. ‘They have all gone.’
(ɬaska kʰánawi ɬátwa. ‘They went all.’)
You have options here. Other fine word orders for this same simple sentence would be kʰánawi ɬaska ɬátwa (‘all of them went’), or ɬaska ɬátwa kʰánawi (‘they went, all of them’). - Kunsih mika klatawa? ‘When do you go?’
(qʰə́nchi(x̣) mayka ɬátwa? ‘When are you going?’)
This is straight southern dialect. Want to know a weird thing? We aren’t sure how to ask ‘when’ in the northern dialect! What we know is that northern speakers historically said qʰá-sán (literally, ‘where-day’) to refer to ‘when’ something happens — but we are still researching to find out how to ask ‘when?’ - Mika na klatawa okook sun? ‘Do you go to-day?’
(mayka na ɬátwa úkuk sán? ‘Are you going today?’)
So, the na question particle gives this away as older-fashioned southern dialect. This little bitty almost-a-word typically followed some other word, and very often folks made it be the second item in a sentence. Like you see here. In the modern southern dialect of Grand Ronde etc., nobody uses this na to make Yes/No questions — it’s all done by tone of voice, similar to the modern English that you, my reader, speak. - Kah nesika klatawa? ‘Where shall we go?’ Answer Mika tumtum. ‘Wherever you please; as you will.’
(qʰá nsayka ɬátwa? — mayka tə́mtəm. ‘Where are we going? ‘Your feeling.’)
The question part of #7 holds no surprises or mysteries. But the answer is fairly remarkable to us. It strikes me as extremely old-school, I suspect reflecting an Indigenous way of talking in the older, tribal languages. I’ve never seen this “mayka təmtəm” used like this by anyone else, but I have few doubts about Geo. Gibbs’s accuracy. So this feels like a nice way to honor Jargon-speaking ancestors. I reckon it’ll come most effortlessly out of my mouth in the form, “qʰa mayka təmtəm” (where you feel like). Yes, a reminder is in order, təmtəm doesn’t only refer to ‘thoughts’ but also to ‘feelings’.
I think we’ve all learned something very useful today!
