Boas 1892: Many discoveries in a short article (Part 13: ‘fire is out’)
Today we find the first printed occurrence of Chinuk Wawa’s word chxə́p ‘extinguished, out’.
As spelled by Franz Boas with the 1892 iteration of his always-changing phonetic alphabet, this word for ‘fire is out’ is tcqup:
Don’t be fooled, he’s spelling exactly the same thing as the Grand Ronde 2012 dictionary’s chxə́p.
Regardless of the spelling, this is one of those Chinook Jargon words that come from Chinookan-language onomatopoeia, also known as “ideophone” particles.
So to Chinookan ears, it seems to have resembled the sound of a fire fizzling out, just as ɬq’úp sounded like slicing and yíx evoked dizziness.
Like most other Chinookan ideophones, this word is unknown in the northern dialect of Chinuk Wawa, the one that’s centred on British Columbia.
Bonus fact:
For more of the discoveries in Franz Boas’s marvelous little 1892 article, click here.
