Lempfrit’s legendary, long-lost linguistic legacy (Part 14)
Complete with at least one exciting new discovery, here’s the 14th pair of pages in our overlooked document from circa 1849.
Where you see me underlining stuff here, it’s material that was added by the manuscript’s writer HT Lempfrit, from his good personal knowledge of the Jargon.
“[SIC]” shows that someone mis-wrote a word. It wasn’t necessarily Lempfrit, since he was copying from someone else’s manuscript, Modeste Demers’ now-lost original to be exact.
So, where I’m showing differences between Lempfrit & somebody else, it’s Alphonse Pinart’s “Anonymous 1849” copy that I’ve been able to compare with.
Where you see [le]tters in square brackets, they’re not visible on the page copy that I’m working from, but we infer that they really are there!
There aren’t so many new discoveries in today’s installment, but this material does show us nice evidence that complex expressions already existed in early-creolized (southern-dialect) Chinuk Wawa by 1849.
See if you recognize words in these unusual spellings!
4~ Espèce de mots
‘4th sample of words’Verbes
‘Verbs’Wawa – parler, demander, dire, interroger, prier, répondre, commander, recommander, appeler
(‘to speak, ask, say, question, pray, reply, order, recommend, call’)Mamouk – faire, travailler, former, agir
(‘to do, work, form, act’)___ Kish-kish {i.e. mamouk kish-kish}- chasser devant soi
(‘to drive {something} before oneself’, literally ‘make herding’)___ Tanas {i.e. mamouk tanas}, enfanter, mettre au monde
(‘to give birth, bring into the world’, literally ‘make child’)___ Lashash {i.e. mamouk lashash} – chasser
(‘to hunt’, literally ‘to make hunting’; lashash seems to be a new discovery for us, not in any dictionaries! Compare Turtle Mountain Michif la saes ‘hunting’, because guess which folks did a whole lot of the hunting for the fur-trade brigades… It may be significant that both lashash and la saes show typical Métis French “sibilant harmony”; compare their source in older French, la chasse /lašas/.)___ Sahali {i.e. mamouk sahali}, lever, mettre en haut
(‘to lift, put up’, literally ‘make high’)___ Wam {i.e. mamouk wam}, chauffer
(‘to heat’, literally ‘make warm’)___ Tlosh {i.e. mamouk tlosh}, arranger
(‘to fix up’, literally ‘to make good/better’)___ Tlatoa {i.e. mamouk tlatoa}, envoyer, faire partir
(‘to send, cause to leave’, literally ‘to make go’)___ Tlatoa kikoulé {i.e. mamouk tlatoa kikoulé}, baisser, abaisser, faire descendre
(‘to lower, lower, cause to go down’, literally ‘to go down’)___ Ekita? {i.e. ekita mamouk, I think} – pourquoi faire?
(‘why do (it)?’ — Apparently one of the earliest known occurrences of this expression for ‘why?’, which became less known in the south but the norm in the northern dialect. Note, this expression is not in Demers/Blanchet/St Onge 1871, but they translate the question word ekita / ikta all by itself as either ‘things’ or ‘what is the matter’, somewhat parallel to Grand Ronde qʰata ‘how; all messed up’.)___ Pepa {i.e. mamouk pepa}, écrire
(‘to write’, literally ‘make writing’)___ Tchako {i.e. mamouk tchako}, faire venir, faire apporter
(‘to bring, cause to bring’, literally ‘make come’)
Nanitch – voir, regarder, prendre garde, examiner, attendre* (Pinart: atteindre, also apercevoir, chercher)
(‘to see, look, beware, examine, wait*’) (Pinart ‘reach, notice, seek’)___ Tlosh {i.e. tlosh nanitch}, avoir soin
(‘to take care’, literally ‘to watch well’; compare Cowlitz Salish ƛ̓aqʷ-séx̣n {which like the Chinuk Wawa phrase is literally ‘well-watch’} ‘take care of, watch for, guard, protect, pay attention, herd; be alarmed, be alerted, look out for, risk’)___ Pépa {i.e. nanitch pépa}, lire (regarder le papier)
(‘to read [i.e. literally,] (look at paper’. This is such an old expression in Jargon that it also got loan-translated into SW Washington Salish languages, e.g. as ʔax̣ét-pipa in Cowlitz.)Komtax – Savoir, connaitre, comprendre, écouter, entendre, penser, imaginer
(‘to know (how), be familiar with, understand, listen, hear, think, imagine’)___ Kopet {i.e. kopet komtax} – oublier
(‘to forget’, literally ‘to stop knowing’)Tkeh̃ – aimer, désirer, vouloir, avoir envie
(‘to love, desire, want, feel like’)h̃alakl – ouvrir, déboucher
(‘to open, unclog’)(Pinart: also eh̃poih – fermer, boucher
(‘to close, stop up’))Metlaït – mettre, placer, être, se trouver, avoir, être assis, s’asseoir, être retardé par, vivre, exister, parier, semer, veiller (Pinart: vieillir)
(‘to put, place, be, be located, have, be seated, sit down, be slowed down by, to live, exist, bet(?), plant seeds, keep watch’ (Pinart: ‘to grow old’!) — Some of these meanings require mamouk before them.)___ Ston Kioutan {i.e. metlaït ston kioutan} – cheval entier
(‘intact [uncastrated] horse’, literally ‘a having-testicles horse’.
This {Verb+Noun}+Noun structure is an unusual compound for traditional Chinuk Wawa — both the southern and northern dialects –, which heavily prefers Noun+Noun formations.
More in line with CW grammar would be the alternatives kioutan metlaït ston ‘a horse that has testicles’ or ston kioutan ‘testicles horse’.
As a matter of fact, the published Demers-Blanchet-St. Onge 1871 dictionary seems to correct the present entry, showing just the grammatical adjective phrases ston mitlaït ‘non castratus’ (literally ‘testicles are present’) and helo stone ‘castratus’ (literally ‘there are no testicles/without testicles’).)
