Culture note: Why we don’t find a word for ‘hello’ in the Northern Dialect
In the Chinook Jargon dialect letters from the 1890s to about 1915 that I wrote my dissertation on, there’s no trace of a purely CJ word for ‘hello’*…
The same can be said of the related Kamloops Wawa newspaper.
So I want to share this from Kamloops Wawa editor JMR Le Jeune’s 1925 booklet “Studies on Shuswap”, a description of the Secwepemctsín language that’s local to Kamloops and area.
On page 32:
Salutation
The form of salutation is simply to shake hands. There is no “good morning” or “good day”. The following sentences may be exchanged:
kichnhkuh [i.e.] kitj-n-h-kwh: thou reachest us, or: kichintpkuh: you reach us.
La npushmin tishwikshin: I am happy to see you. [literally ‘my heart is good seeing you’]
Ihi ish wiktwawhshkuh: here we see each other.
When parting, to say “Good bye”: poot-ha, [i.e.] pút.ha be well, plural: pút.hwia..[.] shútlaha, have courage.
Of course, now all over, the salutations are made in English. The above goes only to show that there are no corresponding expressions in the native languages.
Extra notes from me:
- pút.ha and pút.hwia, spelled in a variety of ways by Indigenous Chinook writers back then, is constantly used at the ends of their letters.
- Due to the Indigenous nature of Chinuk Wawa, we can easily translate the above-mentioned Secwépemc greetings into culturally appropriate Jargon phrases:
- Maika k‘o’ kopa nesaika ‘you’ve reached us’,
Masaika k‘o’ kopa nesaika ‘you all have reached us’ - Tloosh naika tumtum nanich maika ‘my heart is good seeing you’
- Yakwa nesaika nanich kanamokwst ‘here we see each other’
- [I’m not sure of the parse or the literal meaning of “shutlaha“…]
- Maika k‘o’ kopa nesaika ‘you’ve reached us’,
- A greeting that we do find a lot in the Indigenous people’s letters that’s not strictly Chinook Jargon (therefore exactly as Father Le Jeune claimed!) is halo! from English ‘hello!’
