Respected elder Dr Louis Miranda tells you what Northern Chinook Jargon is like (Part 1: tl’ap)
From the Youtube video “Louis Miranda: Squamish elder teaches Chinook Jargon“.
Image credit: North Shore News
On June 18, 1973, Chief, and Doctor, Miranda of the Skwxwú7mesh people recorded this absolutely precious document of super-fluent Northern Chinook Jargon.
In this mini-series, I honor his knowledge by examining what “Uncle Louie” teaches us, word by word.
I’ll show words in their “BC Learners Alphabet” spellings, and I’ll make any comments I feel to be appropriate.
Click on the Jargon word to hear Dr Miranda himself telling about it!
TODAY’S WORD:
tl’ap
‘get’
He pronounces this word at first the same way folks do at Grand Ronde, [t’ɬáp]. After that, however, he says it in a more Northern Dialect (especially coastal) accent: [t’ɬǽp].
He goes on to give a nice example sentence: Spoos maika heilo tloosh-nanich, atlki maika tl’ap sik-tumtum. ‘If you don’t be careful, you will be sorry.’
You should listen to his pronunciation of that whole sentence! It’s a sample of perfect Northern Dialect grammar, including:
- the variant spoos (he almost says spoosh) for poos ‘if’;
- the pronunciation nǽniich for nanich;
- the negator heilo (in Southern Dialect they say wik);
- the pronunciation tloos for tloosh;
- and the ‘wind up that way by accident’ word tl’ap, right before the main idea sik-tumtum ‘be sorry’.
Dleit haiyoo wuht atlki chako! Lots more to come!
