1913 Oregon ad: Kopet kultus klatawa
In the post-frontier era, you see, anything written in Chinuk Wawa caught the eye as an oddity.
Rainier, Oregon, circa 1911 (image credit: Columbia River Images)
Such as this advertisement in northwest Oregon:
Kopet Kultus Klatawa
Milite, Nika Tilicum,
Rainier, Oregon
HYAS KLOSE ILLAHEE
Which Means in Chinook:
“Cease your useless run-
ning around, and stop, my
friend, at RAINIER, OR.,
a mighty good place.”
It is a growing city, the
home of
RAINIER’S
LIVE GROCERY
STORE
Which Is Owned By
Geo. F. Moeck
— from the Portland (OR) Oregon Daily Journal of June 22, 1913, page 5, column 7
That’s reasonably good Chinook Jargon:
- Kopet Kultus Klatawa = kʰəpít kʰə́ltəs-łátwa = ‘stop wandering around!’
- Milite, Nika Tilicum, = míłayt, nayka tílixam = ‘stay, my friend(s),’
- Rainier, Oregon = (Ø) Rainier, Oregon = ‘at Rainier, Oregon’
- HYAS KLOSE ILLAHEE = hayas-łúsh ílihi = ‘which is a very good place’
I feel it’s mildly odd to interrupt the command ‘stay at Rainier, Oregon’ with the vocative ‘my friends’.
And the use of tilicum as ‘friend’ in the Southern Dialect is more typical of the settler-colonizers than of other people’s Jargon.
