Bob Nims’s 1891 Gill with German notes: Can you read them?
Crowd-sourcing challenge: Can you read these penciled notes?
This was such an extraordinary find that I want to highlight it again.
On January 12, 2024, Bob Nims shared this in the “Chinook Jargon” group over at Facebook. On January 8th, he’d shown an 1891 (13th) edition of JK Gill’s CJ dictionary, published in Portland, Oregon, that he found at an antique shop.
Now he showed several pages of it that contain notations handwritten in German.
I myself can’t easily read all of them, as they’re in a German handwriting style of that time that’s now sort of obscure.
But I can tell that the German-speaking owner made some fascinating choices in translating various Chinuk Wawa words…
I wonder if my readers can make out everything that’s handwritten here?
Post your Comments below, and I’ll put them into the body of this article!
At first I was thinking he was a bad speller or using dialect (maybe he is), but at least some of it is archaic spellings and probably words. Also, like some of our BC pipa friends, sometimes he writes letters on their side.
P45
markook – kauf, verkaufen
markook House – larder (I think this is English have only heard spiesenkamer for larder and kaufhaus would be a more appropriate German translation.)
Mahlē – vergessen
Mársh – first word is [mw]…fernen – I could be convinced it’s wegfernen but he’d have to be joining up letters even worse than his usual. Second word [me]aes?
Messee – danke
Maláh – steinwar (steinware)
Málleh – heirerten (heiraten)
Mámook – gebrauche
Man – Mann
Memaloose – sterben, thod (tot)
Mesáche – schecht (schlecht)
Mesíka – min (I found some references to this being dialect for mein, which could be a false cognant)
Míka – dein
Mit’lite – bleiben
Mit-wit – standen
P44
Lekléh – schlüsel (schlüssel)
Lekoó – hals [this is not the only place he writes h like f, but he doesn’t always]
Lekye – geflekt (not current Hochdeutsch but I’ve heard this, maybe specifically a horse marking or used for horse markings, could be Bayrish or retained later in US)
Lemáh – hand
Lemáh klōshe – rechte
Lemólo – wild
Lepeeā – füß (füße pl. or fuß sing.)
Lesep’ – ei
Leseézo – Schere
Lesoōk – Zücker (Zücker)
Letŏh’ – Zähne
Lice – Reis
Likpĕhu – elter schwester
Líplip – Kochen wasser
lólo – tragen
Lowúllo – ründ
P. 43
Lepélle – Braden (braten)
Lepóme – apfel
Lepōol – hühn
Lapooshét – gavel
Lapōte – thür [pre 1901 spelling of tür]
Laséll – Sattel
Lashandél – licht
Lashāse – stühl
L’asssettt’ – teller (rewritten in neater handwriting )
Lasóy – seide
Latahb – tisch
Latāte – kopf
Latlah – spittagel [no idea also the sp could be something else]
Lawest’ – veste
Lazy – faul
Ledoó – finger
P42
Kwinnum – funf
Kwish – ninmals
Kwéukwéu – kreis
Kwólon – ärenn [ear of corn] ? orënn
Kwónesum – immer
Kwult’h – gehossen (geschossen)
Kwunnum – zählen
Kwutl – drückt [crossed out], drücken
Kywa – schief
Labotai – flasche
Lacasset – koffer
Lach – unfallen
Lagleése – fet
Laláh – betrüken
Lalang’ – zünge
Laméstin – Medizin
Lámmei – Alte fraü
Lamónta – Berg
Lapeép – Pfeife
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Great reading, thank you.
I tried to make sense of it myself and was wondering about “larder” (only an English word to me, but maybe this was just part of that person’s vocab as a German immigrant in the US), and I was particularly surprised by “betrüken” – which always has a g and not a k in contemporary High German. I don’t know which dialect of German that person was using. Even if he was writing down words the way he heard them at home or remembered them, “Fuß”, “Zucker”, “rund”, “Stuhl”, and “Zunge” should have the non-umlaut forms. That is probably just hard to tell apart in the individual’s handwriting. Even in my youth, in the 1980s and ’90s, it was sometimes a habit to put a brief “hook” or “bar” over the cursive u to distinguish it from the cursive n. Teachers sometimes told us not to it because it was perceived as sloppy and made the u look too similar to ü. The plural of Fuß is Füße, and correspondingly, the plural of Stuhl is Stühle. However, I am almost certain the person was writing down the singular form in the dictionary. “Zucker” and “Zunge” never get a form with an umlaut ü. I had previously tried to find out something about “spittagel”, which I had never heard or seen spelled out. My only guess was that it’s a forgotten dialect word for “Spektakel”, literally a “spectacle” in the sense of a commotion or a hubbub. And “Kwish – ninmals” only makes sense if the writer intended “niemals” – “never” in that line.
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That’s an interesting thought that he was using the dash over letters to differentiate them, as well as as an umlaut. I think it would be interesting to look up some of these words in an old dictionary but my brain refuses to recognize Fraktur as letters/words. I have heard some of those words spoken as if they had umlaut from heritage speakers in the US though.
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Thanks for your reply. Yes, it’s entirely possible that there are accents by heritage speakers where u and ü became hard to differentiate or may in fact come out homophonous. There are accents and dialects that I never even heard (I live in southern Germany). I’m not good with Fraktur writing but will try to learn it eventually, just out of general interest. Coincidentally, when I try to do a search for “spittagel”, Google literally goes blank on me. A totally unknown spelling, apparently. “Spektakel” is the only translation that fits in my mind.
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