Boas 1892: Many discoveries in a short article (Part 18: ‘robin’ redbreast)
This common bird was a new discovery in 1892!
Female American robin, Turdus migratorius (image credit: Washington Nature Mapping Program)
(Click here for the previous installments in this series.)
Today’s word from a tiny scholarly piece that’s of outsized importance, Franz Boas’s 1892 one-pager, “The Chinook Jargon“:
‘robin’, < pil k’oatē′n > ( = red-belly)
Convert this to a modern Grand Ronde way of spelling, and you have pʰíl k’wətʰín.
I’m wondering whether this particular Chinuk Wawa expression owes its existence to non-Indigenous input.
- Just for reference, Standard European French calls a robin a rouge-gorge ‘red-throat’ or merle, which just means ‘robin’. This kind of French didn’t have much to do with the Jargon, though.
- French-Cree Michif of the Métis people, who played such a big role in the history of Chinook Jargon, uses the first of these terms, as well as la griiv.
- English has called this bird Robin redbreast since the 15th century, “Robin” being a nickname for Robert!
Meanwhile, in the SW Washington Salish and other tribal languages, I haven’t found any words for ‘robin’ that remotely resemble anything meaning ‘red belly’ or ‘red throat’. I’ll spare you the boring details.
Keeping my idea short & to the point — I suspect that this particular lower Columbia River expression lacks ancient Indigenous roots.
It’s therefore more likely to trace to the early-creolized Métis population associated with our region’s historical fur trade.
I always am amazed about all the new discoveries you are still making about the Jargon… keep it up!
Haiyoo naika wawa masi kopa maika wawa kakwa,
Thanks very much for saying so!
Dave Robertson