More humor: translating into Sechelt, or just playing cards?
I got a chuckle from the Chinook Jargon newspaper…
(A link to much more humor on my website…)
“Kamloops Wawa” of November 1896 (#146, page 236) has this neat story in Jargon, which I’ve translated for you:
And I found two Sechelt men, and we wrote the Sechelt language: we wrote all the prayers, all the hymns, and all the Catechism in the Sechelt language.
The previous day when we were on the steamer, several Sechelt young men were on the steamboat, and we wrote the Sechelt Catechism. We sat at a table, and all the Sechelt men were together, and the white people thought we must be playing cards at that table, but we told them, ‘No cards here,’ and we were very amused by them.
The writer goes on to describe the process of translating into She Sháshíshálhem (the Sechelt Salish language):
The two men who helped me with the Sechelt language are named Gaspard / Caspar and Timothy. We worked very hard on this.
In the morning we got up immediately, and after mass, at six o’clock, we met and wrote the Sechelt language until noon. Again after noon, after lunch, we worked more, until 7 o’clock, nearly evening. Again after the benediction, we came to work until 10 o’clock. That worthless steamboat made us lose four days, so now we had to work hard.
For four days we worked on the Sechelt language till we finished everything. We got 50 pages all together. This was in shorthand, which is why we found it possible to work so quickly. Using white people’s writing we couldn’t have managed it in two weeks.
The shorthand is excellent for getting down any language. Shorthand is wonderful for everything.
Now the Sechelt people see how excellent this shorthand is, and they love it.
We also wrote a little dictionary in the Sechelt language, so later other people can read all the Sechelt words.
[Dave again — I haven’t yet found that Shashishalhem dictionary in shorthand. I wonder if it’s keyed to French, or English, or the Jargon? The search continues!]
