St Onge’s handwritten dictionary fills in some missing Métis/Canadian French pieces
A number of the French-sourced words, or variant forms thereof, in Louis-Napoléon St Onge’s manuscript are known to have been preserved in other Pacific NW languages, but have not previously turned up in Chinuk Wawa.
That’s been a bit of a puzzle. I’ve written a great deal on this website about it, particularly under the heading “So Many Métis Words…”
A WW1 soldiers’ newspaper, “Le Mouchoir” (Image credit: Joseph Lesage)
Why would certain French words, usually nouns, have been borrowed everywhere else but the Lower Columbia River?
It seems that the impression of that happening may have been a mere sampling error!
St Onge indeed reports forms we would’ve expected in the lower Columbia River region.
I thought I’d show off a few of those words here, that we’ve found preserved in other Indigenous languages and therefore could’ve expected to finally track down in Chinook Jargon:
- lekosho ‘hog, pig’ as opposed to the common kushu, both from Métis/Canadian French (le) cochon.
- lemushwe ‘handkerchief’, from M/CFr le mouchoir (compare Michif aen moushway)
- letosho ‘rag’ from M/CFr le torchon (cp. Michif aen torshoon ‘towel’)
- lesal ‘nun’ from M/CFr les soeurs ‘the sisters’ (cp. Michif en seur)
- lepēt ‘holiday, festival’ apparently from M/CFr plural les fêtes (cp. Michif singular la feet)
- lemitas ‘legging’ from M/CFr les mitasses
- latas ‘tankard’ from M/CFr la tasse (cp. Michif enn taas ‘mug’)
- lakalapin ‘rifle’ as opposed to the common karapin/kalapin, both from M/CFr (la) carabine (cp. Michif en karabin)
All of these words are Indigenized in exactly the same ways other French words were as they became part of Chinuk Wawa.
