Kamloops + other residential schools, as reported to Native people in Chinook (Part 14: playing music)
It’s kind of fun to learn how to talk about playing music in Chinook…
(A link to all instalments in this mini-series.)
You may learn a new word here…Look at my comments after this reading selection…
from “Kamloops Wawa” of April 1898, #163, page 53:
Tanas man kopa Kamlups skul alta
‘The boys at the Kamloops school are now’chako komtaks pli band. Klaska mitlait
‘learning to play music. They have’aias tlus huhulitin.
‘very nice instruments.’—————————
Kamlups tilikom wiht tiki iskom huhuli=
‘The Kamloops people also want to get hold of instru-‘tin, pi klaska kwash mash chikmin kopa ukuk
‘ments, but they’re afraid of spending money for that;’klaska wawa: ilo nsaika chikmin.
‘they say, We have no money.’Pi chi alta, iht tanas man iaka
‘And just recently, a certain young man’mash < 100 > tala kopa skukum haws, iaka
‘wasted $100 on the jail; he’kwanisim tlap skukum haws pus iaka makmak
‘keeps winding up jailed when he drinks’wiski, pi iaka piii ayu chikmin pus chako
‘whiskey, and he pays lots of money to get’klahani [Ø] skukum haws, pi ilo kansih son
‘out of jail, and it’s not (even) several days’wiht pi iaka kilapai kopa skukum haws.
‘again until he goes back to jail.’Klas[ka] mash ilip ayu chikmin kopa skukum haws,
‘Folks spend too much money on jail,’pi wik kata klaska tlap chikmin kopa band.
‘but they can’t find money for a band.’
Pli band = ‘play music’, a newish Northern Dialect borrowing from local English words (but in non-English syntax!) in the 1890s.
Huhulitin = ‘musical instrument(s)’, a word from locally spoken Secwepemc Salish.
Mash chikamin = ‘to spend money’, literally ‘to send / throw (away) / waste money’.
Tlap skukum haws = ‘to wind up jailed’, where tlap is the frequent Northern Dialect prefix for ‘entering into a situation without having chosen to do so’, and skukum haws is a verb, yes a verb, that means ‘to be in prison’.
Chako klahani [Ø] skukum haws = ‘to get out of jail’. You might expect klatwa klahani, literally ‘to out of…’ But chako works extremely well here, due to its carrying 2 senses at once — (1) ‘to come from there (out of the jail) and (2) ‘to become’ (un-imprisoned)!
Klaska mash ilip ayu chikamin is literally ‘They spend more/the most money’, but the very clear connotation of this Northern Dialect expression is ‘People spend too much money’. It’s a normal way to talk this dialect.
