Politeness/rudeness and “Active/Stative” are reflected in commands

I’ve spoken many times about the various forms commands (imperatives) in Chinook Jargon take.

Not Chinuk Wawa (Image credit: Sakura Speak)

It’s time to tie that in with my steady stream of lessons about how this is an Active/Stative language.

In the Northern dialect, it’s more common to start them with #1, the words Tloosh maika… This is saying literally “It’s good that…”, thus treating the desired outcome as a fact! You’re really gonna do what I ask!

You can also normally say #2, Tloosh poos maika…, which feels slightly gentler, because the poos makes the whole thing into a hypothetical scene. Maybe it’ll happen, maybe not! It’s like there’s a scale of bluntness in Jargon imperatives.

There are further details in this picture.

Because there are commands, and there are wishes.

In all dialects of Chinuk Wawa, you can sometimes leave out the “Tloosh maika…” or “Tloosh poos maika…” Then, you’re just saying the verb all alone. Super blunt!

But you can mainly do this with Active verbs: things that the subject {the poor soul who you’re ordering around so bluntly} has some ability to consciously control. That kind of predicate can always function fine all by its lonesome:

Thus: Tlatawa! “Go! / Get outta here! / Go away! / Take off eh!”
is the blunter version of Tloosh maika tlatawa!

And: Nanich! “Look!” (but not so much “See!”, see?)
is the blunter version of Tloosh maika nanich!.

Pi! (“And/but!”)

You can’t leave out the Tloosh (poos) maika… with Stative verbs. An easy way to grasp this is: that’s when you’re commanding someone with a predicate that’s like “be…” in English. Statives are typically things you don’t have true control over; you just happen to “be” that way. So, crossing out the unacceptable ways to talk Jargon here:*

Tloosh (poos) maika mitlait Kamloops yawaa!
“Be in Kamloops then!”,
but not Mitlait Kamloops yawaa!

And Tloosh (poos) naika sweet-haat maika!
“Be my sweetheart!”,
but not Naika sweet-haat maika!

* (A new rule that all linguistic journals need to adopt so we don’t confuse
*reconstructed forms with
*unacceptable forms.)

Thinking the thread thru then, this means you can’t bluntly order someone to “be” this-or-that, in this language. You’re limited to the least blunt kind of command, in effect, a wish. — Unlike English, whose speech culture delights in commanding somebody to “be my baby” but “don’t be in my way”!

I just wanted to make sure you folks know that this whole Active/Stative thing in Chinook Jargon is fundamentally important. It really governs the form of Stative imperatives, which are thus only wishes made by the would-be commander.

(In this context, I find the phrasing “would-be commander” just hilarious.) 

When you understand these super-simple points, you’re able to make smart choices in talking Chinook, like “How little politeness do I want to show?” and “Am I even able to be that rude, with a BE-verb?”

Bonus fact:

You’ve probably beaten me to thinking of this, so let’s talk about: NEGATIVE commands.

Long story short, the full, more polite “don’t” word order is (more Northern:) Tloosh (poos) heilo maika… + Verb / (more Southern:) Tloosh (poos) weik maika… + Verb. (Literally: “It’s good that (or, it’d be good if) you don’t…”)

Medium-blunt: Heilo/Weik maika… + Verb. (Like in the Makah love song in Jargon, Heilo maika kakwa! “Don’t be like that!”) Did you notice? — This medium level is identical to a statement, “You’re not like that.”

Bluntest: Heilo/Weik… + Verb.

All CJ dialects favor the medium & politest negative imperatives.

And, again, the bluntest way, with its lack of a subject pronoun maika, just isn’t available for Stative verbs!:

Heilo mitlait Kamloops yawaa!
cannot mean “Don’t be at Kamloops then!“;
these words can only mean “It wasn’t/won’t be at Kamloops then.”

Heilo naika sweet-haat!
cannot mean “Don’t be my sweetheart!“;
these words can only mean “It‘s not my sweetheart.”

Reason? The lack of a subject pronoun “sounds the same” to our fluent Chinuk Wawa ears as the “silent IT” pronoun!

Bonus bonus fact:

Of course you can also command multiple (plural) people. Just substitute masaika “you folks” for maika in the above cases. The wrinkle here being, it’s pretty rare to use the bluntest form — i.e. just the verb alone — in talking to “y’all”. It’s as if rudeness is “the weak force” in Chinook Jargon grammar, so it’s hard to focus enough of it on more than a single person.

By corollary: politeness is the superpower of CJ 😁👌

Other folks you can try commanding include yourself (“lemme Verb!”), yourselves “let’s Verb!”), and her/him/them (who “should/oughta” Verb, like Vive la France, you know). In a nutshell, you can’t be rude to yourself/yourselves or to folks outside of the conversation… Think about that.

Bonus bonus bonus fact:

One of the most Stative verbs in the Jargon is “to think” — tumtum. So:

𛰃𛰆𛱛𛰜 𛰂𛱛͏͏͏𛰜 𛰙𛱁𛱆‌𛰅𛱁 𛰃𛱄𛰙‌𛰃𛱄𛰙 𛰅𛱄‌𛰂𛱁 𛱛‌𛰅𛱛𛰅⸼ ɬúsh pus mayka tə́mtəm kʰapa úkuk. Tloosh poos maika tumtum kopa okok. Réfléchis-y!  Think about it!
And say it in Chinuk Wawa!