Ikta Dale McCreery yaka t’ɬap (Part 7: a Boas misunderstanding)
Our BC friend Dale shared this one about 7 years ago, in the Facebook “Chinook Jargon” group.
I reckon Professor Boas could have used some tlap tips! (Image credit: tlap.com.au)
I think he’s onto something here. See what you think:
January 28, 2016:
So – evidence that [anthropologist Franz] Boas worked in Chinook – looking at a sentence in Nuxalk from his 1886 work, he writes (in modern transcription) –
tl’ap-s-kw-ts’ wa sta-7apsulh ska kw’namskwts’ uulh ts, (and so on)
The translation is –
- reportedly (kw) now (ts’) he (s) goes (tl’ap)
- the village (wa sta-apsulh)
- to take (ska kw’nam)
- from there (uulh ts).
Boas translates tl’ap-skwts‘ as “he found it” – definitely a miscommunication! He translated it correctly several other times.
Dave again here — Dale is pointing out that Boas took this Nuxalk (“Bella Coola” Salish) root tl’ap ‘go’ to be the identical Chinuk Wawa verb ‘find’! His Nuxalk expert must’ve had some difficulty making the European guy understand the idea here.
An added layer of irony is, tl’ap in Jargon can also be a motion verb, ‘to get there; to reach (a place)’…Maybe Boas was aware of that nuance.
