Learning from the Lane learners (Part 8: “tastes like”)
Today I want to share how to talk about “tasting” in Jargon…
I was inspired by the article about camas, “uk tatis munk chaku-pchix̣ uk iliʔi” by Brooklyn Hurd (pages 20-22 of “Chinuk-Wawa buk 2”).
I might translate that title as ‘The Flowers Turn the Land Blue’.
(Download / print it for free from this link.)
On page 20, we find:
…kakwa-pʰæ əbə kakwa-pʰəmpkʰin kʰapa lalang uk kʰuk-lakamas.
‘…the cooked camas tastes like pears or pumpkins.’
(literally, ‘…it’s like pears or like pumpkins to the tongue, the cooked camas.’)
And elsewhere, we find ɬush kʰapa lapush (literally ‘good to/in the mouth’), for ‘good tasting’.
So the idea is, to express flavors, you give some description of the taste, and relate it ‘to the tongue’ or ‘to the mouth’.
Really a useful trick!
An excellent CW strategy to express “taste” adjectives, pretty much. I’d never thought of it so far. It is much like using “…to the eyes” or “to look at” (pus-nanich) for looks. I also have to remember the “turn something blue” expression in CW. Thank you.
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