HIRE A LINGUIST! What this atrocious housing development name tells us about the need for good Chinook Jargon dictionaries

Can you say HIRE A LINGUIST! in Chinook Jargon?

The credit here goes to Luke Etxeberria for sharing the news of this joint over at the Facebook “Chinook Jargon” group.

And for noticing that it’s atrocious, unintentionally (and unfortunately) funny Chinuk Wawa.

Naika wawa masi, Luke.

Allow me to enlighten you:

Image from the article in question

“Hundreds of New Homes and Shelter Spaces Opening in Vancouver“, British Columbia, says the headline at Journal of Commerce. 

Here we go with an excerpt…

VANCOUVER — Nearly 250 new homes and shelter spaces are opening for people in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside as part of an Indigenous-focused development.

Named Ho’-kee-melh Kloshe Lum, meaning “To Gather, Good Spirits” in the Chinook Jargon, the 16-storey development will prioritize Indigenous residents and will incorporate design elements to foster culture and community.

This includes larger family-oriented homes, gathering and ceremonial areas and space for Indigenous artwork and installations, explains a release.

Two social-enterprise spaces are being planned and will feature the Hyiu Hiloima Tea Café and Klatawa Bike Shop, operated by the Vancouver Aboriginal Friendship Centre Society.

It’s kind of hard to tell which old-school dictionary these old-school spellings were gotten from, as the two really unique ones (ho’-kee-melh and hiloima) aren’t present in any sources known to an expert such as me.

The remaining words use the de facto standardized spellings long current among English-language writers.

In any case, the name of the building is awful: it means “to gather good alcohol”!

The non-speaker of Jargon who came up with the name saw “spirits” in some old dictionary and mistook it for a more, um, elevated meaning, I’m sad to report.

Another problem with it is: it blends 2 dialects of Chinook Jargon that mix like oil & water. Ho-kee-melh (x̣úqʰuməɬ) is Southern Chinuk Wawa for ‘gather’, and in 30 years of research I’ve never once found it in the North. We don’t understand it in BC. Klosh lum (tloosh lum) is valid Northern Chinook Jargon, but as I noted, it only refers to booze, not to anything abstract or positive.

The other two names cited are also things an actual Chinook speaker would be very unlikely to use as names of places. I’ve never found a fluent speaker bestowing a name like Hyiu hiloima (haiyoo huloima). Its meaning is “lots of different things”, only the second word strongly flavours the phrase into “lots of different, as in weird, things”!

And, being a verb, Klatawa doesn’t fit any known patterns of name usage in fluent Chinook. Only non-Indigenous Settlers, under the powerful influence of their English first language, used a word like this for naming, e.g. for their racehorse (here too), or for a woman in their town, “Klatawa Kate”.

Apparently the place is to be located at 1015 East Hastings.

There’s still time to hire a linguist who’s a world expert in Chinook Jargon; I’m one, for example.

𛰅𛱁‌𛰃𛱂 𛰙𛱁𛱆‌𛰅𛱁 𛰃𛱄𛰙‌𛰃𛱄𛰙? qʰáta mayka tə́mtəm?
kata maika tumtum? Qu’en penses-tu?
What do you think?
And can you say it in Chinuk Wawa?

Hey! Teach Yourself northern-dialect Chinook Jargon!

And join free Zoom sessions…currently Sundays @ 9AM!

Contact me for the Zoom link.