Suttles, “Musqueam Reference Grammar”, Part 6

Naika wawa masi kopa Paisley pi Mokwst Alex, for reminding me of a great book by a great anthropological linguist!

Typically I’ll rake through a dictionary of a Pacific NW Indigenous language, and report to you here on the patterns of Chinook Jargon to be found there.

Image credit: chinookjargon.com 🙂

Wayne Suttles’ “Musqueam Reference Grammar“, however, isn’t a dictionary, and I don’t know of one that’s available to me for this particular variety of what some folks have called a single, wide-ranging “Halkomelem” Salish language.

So instead, I’ll snoop through the aforementioned grammar, and…

I’m going to give you a reaction video. 🤩

Just kidding, what I’m gonna do is write my reactions to everything Wayne said about Chinuk Wawa. He had more experience than any living linguist with the Jargon, for a good stretch of years. (Then he taught Henry Zenk, and wow, look what we’ve learned!)

• Page 277:

…In (a), AC used a term for ‘wagon’ borrowed from English, while in (b), JP used one from Chinook Jargon. … lilútàł ‘go by train’ (JP) (> lilút > ‘railroad’) 

Wayne is noticing something happening here, to which I can add: both t̓θíkt̓θək and wékən are good Northern Chinook Jargon words.

So is báysikl, as is lilút.

The latter word is found in a number of Indigenous languages of the coast more or less near Musqueam.

ikta mayka chaku-kəmtəks?
Ikta maika chako-kumtuks?
What have you learned?
And, can you say it in Jargon?