1899: A trilingual Nsyilxcn – Chinook Jargon – English vocabulary

I’ve commented on how cool it is to learn how speakers of various languages have mentally translated Chinuk Wawa for their own uses.

Here’s a super-rare set of equivalences between “Okanagan” Salish (Nsyilxcn), Chinook Jargon, and English.

It’s in Kamloops Wawa #182 (November 1899), on page 127:

Short Vocabulary of the Okanagan Language

Chinook          Okanagan          English

alki                 aihaha                by and by
(aɬqi               ayxáxaʔ)

ankati            l krsápi                formerly
(ánqati           l_q̓sápi)

alta                řapná              now
(álta               ʕapnáʔ)

aiak               hushhushlih         fast
(áyáq             xʷsxʷústlx)

aias               shílhwa                big 
(háyásh         sílxʷaʔ ‘big [singular]’)

ayu              hwīt                       many
(háyú            xʷʔít)

chako         shhoih                    to come
(cháku        cxʷúyx ‘come!’)

chi             shich                       fresh, recent
(chxí           síc)

chikmin     skalaw                    money
(chíkʰəmin    sqláw̓)

chok         shyuhlkŭ                 water
(chə́qw~tsə́qw    síwɬkʷ)

drit          tiltalt                       straight
(dlét~drét    tɬtáɬt) 

ihi           r’ainshut*                 to laugh 
(híhi         ʕ́ʷyncút)

Another interesting thing in this page of Kamloops Wawa is the newly invented characters for Indigenous Salish sounds.

• The “Okanagan” word for ‘now’ uses a shorthand “r” with 2 tick marks on the side.
• The word for ‘many’ has a shorthand “wi” diphthong with a vowel-length bar inside it.
• And the word for ‘to laugh’ has a shorthand “r” with no less than 3 ticks on the side of it!