Another ‘yesterday’ in northern Chinuk Wawa
In the Northern Dialect of Chinook Jargon, we find lots of examples of tanki son (as it’s written in the old Kamloops Wawa newspaper) to express ‘yesterday’…
Image credit: Baby Sign Language
…But I think it’s kind of significant that we also find iistirdi (straight from locally spoken English) in the KW:
Palmasiyus wawa:
‘Palmatius said:’= Wik naika tliminuit. Iistirdi naika lolo
‘ “I’m not lying. Yesterday I brought’solshirs kopa styuil haws, pi klaska chako
‘the soldiers to the church, and they went’blain: ST mamuk blain klaska.
‘blind: God blinded them.’
— Kamloops Wawa #167 (August 1898), page 119
Since there was a long-existing expression tumala from English for ‘tomorrow’, that might have influenced folks to also say iistirdi.
