Boas 1892: Many discoveries in a short article (Part 20: ‘soup’)
Here’s another word that was a new discovery for Chinuk Wawa scholars in 1892.
Like some other previously un-documented words, this one came from Métis/Canadian French.
(Click here for the previous installments in this series.)
Image credit: AbeBooks
soup, bō′yō (French)
In Franz Boas’s extremely short 1892 article in Science, he reported this word for ‘soup’, which clearly corresponds with the 2012 Grand Ronde Tribes dictionary spelling puyu.
It’s from French bouillon ‘broth’.
Specifically it’s from the Métis/Canadian pronunciation [buyũ].
And even more specifically, it shows the normal Chinuk Wawa de-nasalization of French nasal vowels: [buyu].
As in several other Métis/Canadian French-sourced words in CW, an originally voiced stop consonant here has become unvoiced (and remained un-aspirated) — [b] => [p].
Once again, this 1892 piece by Boas is the first known report of a word that turned out to be important in the “re-creolized” Grand Ronde dialect.
Bonus fact:
After I published this post, linguist Anthony Grant commented (and I want to incorporate it into this article) — “I heard ‘haps boyo’ for ‘beer’ in Siletz in 1993.”
That’s a nice expression, háps-púyu, literally ‘hops broth’!
I heard ‘haps boyo’ for ‘beer’ in Siletz in 1993.
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‘Hops broth’ 🙂 Masi, Anthony. Dleit tloosh poos kumtuks okok!
On a slight tangent, I’m reminded of Jeff Bridges’ character in “Crazy Heart” referring to beer as “barley pop”.
Dave Robertson
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