Didactic dialogues in CW dictionaries, Part 4L (Gibbs 1863 ex phrases/sentences)

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Now we’re up to Part 4-“L”, as in “Let’s talk about me!”😁

lets talk about me

Image credit: thefutur

(All installments in this mini-series.)

So let’s gather a variety of George Gibbs’s 1863 examples of nayka, ‘I, me, my/mine’, for a quick lesson in how to use Chinuk Wawa pronouns.

Gibbs’s information is especially valuable to us, as it’s from the Fort Vancouver world, coming from someone whose high fluency was widely recognized.

Here are 4 functions of personal pronouns in this language…

Possessor, placed before the thing that is possessed:

  • Konaway nika itlwillie sick. ‘All my flesh is sore.’
    (kʰánawi nayka íɬwəli sík.
    Literally, ‘All my flesh is.sick.’)
  • Kahkwa nika tumtum. ‘So I think (literally, Such [is] my heart).’
    (kákwa nayka tə́mtəm.
    LIterally, ‘It’s like that, my heart.’)
  • Mokst nika tenas. ‘I have two children.’
    (mákwst nayka tənás.
    Literally, ‘They’re two, my kids.’ Again, quantity expressions come first in sentences.)

Subject:

1. Stative (intransitive) subject, which prototypically comes after the verb (remember, in the Jargon, stuff that English thinks are nouns or adjectives can be verbs):

  • kahkwa hyas nika ‘as large as I’
    (…kákwa háyás(h) nayka…
    Literally, ‘like that big, I am’; ‘I’m that big’)
  • Hyas klahowyum nika. ‘I am very poor.’
    (hayas-ɬax̣á(w)yam nayka.
    Literally, ‘Very-poor am I.’)
  • Hyas till nika. ‘I am very tired.’
    (hayas-tʰíl nayka.
    Literally, ‘Very tired am I.’)
  • Moxt tumtum nika. ‘I am undecided, i.e., I have two wills.’
    (mákwst tə́mtəm nayka.
    Literally, ‘Two-hearted am I.’)

Same, but topicalized by moving it to the front for contrast etc.:

  • nika elip, pe yakka kimtah ‘I first, and he afterwards.’
    (…nayka íləp, pi yaka kimt’á…
    Literally, ‘I first, and (s)he after’)
  • pe nika weght ‘and I too’
    (…pi nayka wə́x̣t…) 

2. Active subject, which we put prototypically before the verb:

A. Intransitive:

  • Pee nika wauwau wake. ‘But I say no.’
    (pi nayka wáwa wík.)
    (I reckon you can argue that this is transitive; your mileage may vary.)

B. Transitive:

  • kimtah nika nannitsh mika ‘since I saw you’
    (…kimt’á nayka nánich mayka…
    Literally, ‘after I saw you’)
  • Nika klemahun salmon. ‘I spear salmon.’
    (nayka t’ɬə́mxən sámən.)

C. (Direct) object of an active (transitive) verb. This comes prototypically after the verb.
(I haven’t found an instance of this in Gibbs, but here’s one from the 2012 Grand Ronde Tribes dictionary):

  • nanch nayka! ‘Look at me!’

D. Object of preposition, standing after the preposition:

  • Yakka mahsh tum-tum kopa nika. ‘He has given me his orders, or told me his wishes.’
    (yaka másh tə́mtəm kʰupa nayka.
    Literally, ‘He put his heart on me.’)

Well,

qʰata mayka təmtəm?
What do you think?

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