AF Chamberlain’s field notes of Chinuk Wawa from SE British Columbia (Part 6: The rumours are true!)

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Still more wonderful stuff from an eyewitness observer & speaker in BC!

(A link to all installments in this mini-series!)

A small reminder — Chamberlain’s < c > is the phonetic symbol of his time for the “sh” sound, a.k.a. /š/.

Not infrequently, Chamberlain’s marking of stress surprises us. Sometimes he’s got 2 accent marks on a word. Sometimes he places main stress on a different syllable than we’re used to. All of this needs to get compared with Father Le Jeune of Kamloops Wawa, whose 1924 “Chinook Rudiments” book (also of the northern dialect as spoken in BC) shows similar tendencies. Maybe it can be proved that Northern Chinuk Wawa has unique traits in this regard?

In today’s chunk of data, there’s nothing that’s a new discovery — But there’s plenty that backs up what I’ve been reporting for over a decade, about the consistent difference between Northern Dialect and Southern Dialect CW.

AF Chamberlain CW Kootenays 8

  • [KEmtEks continued:] ‘ability, skill, power, understanding, wisdom, etc.’
  • kÉnamókst ‘Both, together.’
  • kÉnamókst klä́tawā ‘To go away with or together; to accompany.’
    [I.e. together going.]
  • Kickic ‘To drive, horses, cattle, etc.’
  • Kikwílī ‘Low, below; down, under, beneath.’
  • Kílapái ‘To return, to come back; to overturn, to upset.’
    [I.e. to turn over/capsize.]
    Mamak [sic] kilapai, ‘to send back, to cause to upset.’
    [I.e. ‘to make return’ / ‘to make (over)turn’. The first meaning accurately matches what I see Native people writing in their BC Chinook Jargon letters, where they don’t use the Southern-dialect expression *mamuk-t’sə́m-k’ilapay*. In other words, northern CJ speakers don’t show much sign of using k’ilapay like English ‘back’.]
  • Kílapái käním ‘To upset a boat or canoe.’
    [Literally!]
  • Kimtā ‘Behind, after, following.’
  • Kindjấtc (E.) ‘Canadian, a Canadian; English, Englishman.’
  • Kindjấtc ílahī ‘Canada; England.’
    [Literally ‘English country.’]
  • Kindjấtc mán ‘Canadian; Englishman.’
  • Klāháuyā ‘How do you do? Good day! Good bye!’
  • Klai (E.) ‘To cry, to weep, to shed tears.’
    Mamuk klai, ‘to cause to weep.’
    [Literally ‘make cry.’]
  • Klä́tawā ‘To go, to walk, etc.’
    Haiä́k klä́tawā ‘to run away, to go off fast.’
    [Literally ‘quickly go,’ this expression parallels the known Northern-Dialect preference for including the word for ‘fast’ with a verb of motion when you mean to say ‘run’.]
  • Klimínhwit ‘To lie; falsehood, lie.’
  • Klōnä́s ‘If, perhaps; it is not certain.’
  • Klōn ‘Three.’
  • Klōc ‘Good, well.’
    Haias kloc, ‘excellent, noble, [literally] very good;’
    wik klōc, ‘bad.’
    [Matching up with my findings that wik, ‘not’, is rather rare in the Northern Dialect, occurring only as a “bound” prefix in this expression and a couple of others.] 

ikta mayka chaku-kəmtəks?
What have you learned?

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