An effectively identical sentence in Jewitt and in Lewis + Clark
For early Chinook Jargon history, it’s enormously significant to find virtually the same sentence spoken at about the same time, but 300 miles apart and by different ethnic groups.
Image credit: Tradesmart Safety
In John R. Jewitt (1967), his narrative of being taken prisoner on Vancouver Island in 1803-1805, valuable information about Nootka Jargon’s syntax is quoted in two complete clauses in pidgin Nuučaan’uɬ: Jewitt made Chief Maquina II a
Kootsuk or mantle, a fathom square, made entirely of European vest patterns of the gayest colours…Nothing could exceed the pride of Maquina when he first put on this royal robe, decorated like the coat of Joseph, with all the colours of the rainbow, and glittering with the buttons, which as he strode about made a tinkling, while he repeatedly exclaimed in a transport of exultation, <Klew shish Katsuck — wick kum atack Nootka>. A fine garment — Nootka cant make him. (Page 90.)
A more exact translation of this, based on our knowledge of these Nuučaan̓uɬ-etymology words in Chinook Jargon, might be ‘It’s a good (type of) robe — Nuuchahnulths aren’t familiar with it.’
Remarkably, the syntax and the wording are nearly identical to the earliest known recognizable CJ sentence, <Clouch musket, wake, com ma-tax Musket> ‘nice gun, (I) don’t know (that kind of) gun’, documented contemporaneously from a Clatsop Lower Chinookan man about 300 miles away (Lewis, Clark, et al. 2002, entry for December 10, 1805.)
The words are all Nuuchahnulth except for ‘musket’. Here are the correspondences:
- Klew shish = Clouch ‘good’
- wick = wake ‘not’
- kum atack = com ma-tax ‘know’
The existence of such similar sentences at that time, in such distinct locations, suggests a maritime fur-trading pidgin language crystallizing into a generally accepted grammatical form.
Yes, interesting. The two examples, however, represent two distinct languages: (1) Nootka Sound Nuučaan̓uł (NCN) and (2) proto-Chinook Wawa.
(1) Jewitt’s “Klew shish Katsuck — wick kum atack Nootka” is Nuučaan̓uł, including the newly coined ethnonym “Nootka”: _ƛułʔiiš k̓acḥaq. Wik kamatak Nuutkaa._ “It’s a good blanket. Nootka doesn’t/don’t know it.” Both short sentences are inflected correctly. _ƛuł_ (“good, nice”) _=ʔiiš_ (3s “it/he/she is”, Strong [i.e. declarative, real] mood). _Wik kamatak_ “doesn’t know it” is also grammatically correct: _wik_ as the first syntactic component receives the inflectional affixes but “3s subject Neutral mood” is Ø (zero), so: _wik =Ø_. (“Neutral mood” is used to continue a discourse for which a mood is already set.) Plural marking on 3rd person predicates is optional. Jewitt’s quote is recognizable and acceptable NCN, but not eloquent.
(2) “Clouch musket, wake, com ma-tax Musket,” is proto-Chinook Wawa with “knowing” derived from NCN _kamataks_ “I know it”, an originally inflected verb borrowed in this frozen form into CW. The closest NCN equivalent to “I don’t know” would be _wik=s kamatak_ (the =s “1s clitic Neutral mood” attaches to _wik_, not _kamatak_), whereas the CW sentence does not even show an overt subject.
(3) When I first saw Jewitt’s “Klew shish Katsuck — wick kum atack Nootka” it immediatly reminded me of the L&C journals, and I have a strong suspicion that the latter inspired the former. Why? Jewitt had published his original “A Journal Kept at Nootka Sound” in 1807 – a dull read and a rather dry, repetitive listing of events (and to our disappointment: besides names, it only contains two lexical items in NCN). Lewis & Clark’s official journals appeared in 1814 and were a great success. Jewitt, obviously with the help of a ghostwriter, published his “Narrative of the Adventures and Sufferings” one year later, in 1815. This time it was a vivid account, with a 100+ NCN words and full sentences, including a song. It became a bestseller. Jewitt had spent over two years at Nootka Sound and must have remembered enough to back-transpose L&C’s pidgin phrase into a proper NCN (he had to replace “musket” with another fascinating trade item because his master Maquinna already had guns and needed Jewitt as a blacksmith). Jewitt’s NCN qualifies as not so eloquent because NCN has separate roots for negative cognitive verbs (“knowing” _kamatak_, “not knowing” _hayumḥi_ or _wimatak_), so “I don’t know (a fact, an item)” should have better be said as _wimatak=s_ or _hayumḥi=s_. Saying _wik=s kamatak_ can be used for a certain emphasis but may sound clumsy. But then, Jewitt was a slave, and like all slaves, a foreigner. If there was indeed a thing like “Nootka Jargon”, its source would have been the simplified sociolect used with and among slaves. ƛuš nanič.
This comment, like yours on “A Better Understanding of Where kəmtəks / kumtuks / komtax Comes From”, is a massive addition to our insights on “Nootka Jargon” and the earliest Chinook Jargon.
I’m fascinated with your thought that Jewitt was basing himself on Lewis & Clark. This needs to be taken account of.
I propose a workshop, say a week of Southern Wakashanists and Chinook Jargonists (and others interested) to once & for all lay down what the earliest documents of Nuučaan̓uɬ say. This would validly be, or be half of, one of our yearly CJ gatherings.
Ideally, to happen in Muwachaht lands 🙂
Dave Robertson