Poor eyesight: How “ulchey” mistakenly got into CJ dictionaries as ‘moose’

No later than the 14th edition (1902) of his partially plagiarized popular Chinook Jargon dictionary, John K Gill of Portland, Oregon was saying with a straight face that < ulchey > means ‘moose’ in this language. 

Um, nope.

I have previously written about the actual lack of words for ‘moose’ in Chinuk Wawa, which was due to the animal’s range having been limited to areas northward till recently.

 

It’s moose that famously have bad vision (image credit: CartoonStock)

Simple explanation here: Alexander Ross (1849:347) reported the very early Chinook Jargon word for  ‘moon’ as < ul-chey >.

See what happened, Mr. Magoo? JK Gill needed glasses.

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?

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HIRE A LINGUIST! (me)