Chinuk Wawa in the news: The death of Tokitae
Did you notice Chinook Jargon in the national news the last few days?
A captive orca (she used to be called a killer whale), who is known as Tokitae (formerly Lolita), passed away in Florida.
Tokitae is an unusual spelling for southern-dialect Chinuk Wawa’s t’úkti ‘beautiful’.
I expect Tokitae was a misguided attempt to “phonetically” render the common old English-oriented spelling toketie!
(That’s reminiscent of the CPR train stop in British Columbia, Toketic, a name that comes from someone misreading toketie.)
The news coverage of Tokitae‘s death out here in the Pacific Northwest has extra depth, with tribal nations and other people mourning her as a relative.
Thus, this well-known whale has another name: Sk’aliCh’elh’tenaut, in Lummi Salish.
