1906, Olympia, WA: Mika quanisum potlum!
It was 16 years into the post-frontier era. Did the local newspaper translate the Chinook Jargon it was quoting?
Yes, yes it did.
Image credit: Christianity.com
Folks in the Puget Sound region could no longer be expected to do that interpreting for themselves…
But I bet they recognized the authenticity of a situation where English cussin’ and Chinuk Wawa coexisted.
THE EXPRESSIVE WORD “KULTUS.”
The P.-I. is authority for a testi-
monial to the expressiveness of the
good old Jargon dialect that was so
plentifully interlarded with the polite
English, in pioneer times, and says it
has not yet lost its degree of use-
fulness. It relates that the wife of
a Yakima chief, who speaks excel-
lent English, became so disgusted
with her liege lord that after using
several expressive English cuss words
she relapsed into the ancient patois
and exclaimed, “Mika hyas kultus;
mika quanisum potlum!” (You are
utterly worthless; you are always
drunk!) There is no equivalent in
either English or the native aboriginal
tongue for the word “Kultus,” it
means everything that is bad, mean or
low.
— from the Olympia (WA) Washington Standard of March 30, 1906, page 2, column 3
