Flipping a 180°: máɬx̣wəli ‘from fire’
Among the words from the Lower Chinookan language that we know in Chinuk Wawa is the adverb máɬx̣wəli ‘away; over away; placed elsewhere; on the other side; inland; over in’.
That’s the CW spelling and meanings.
The word was scarcely remembered by the Grand Ronde elders whose Jargon speech is the basis of the spectacularly good 2012 dictionary. Thus, we haven’t had much in the way of examples of usage from them about how to employ this word.
But I noticed in the 1894 “Chinook Texts” told by Q’lti (Charles Cultee) that the word, spelled mā′Lxolē, often gets another translation:
‘from fire’ (page 115)
From the couple of occurrences I could find, this appears to mean ‘facing away from the fire’ (the firepit in your traditional house).
If this is traditional usage of the word in Lower Chinookan, rather than being a byproduct of Q’lti’s having had to explain everything to note-taker Franz Boas via Jargon, it’s useful evidence.
máɬx̣wəli would give us a way in Jargon to say ‘away’ (see what I did there!), in the specific sense of ‘(turning) in the opposite direction, (turning) 180° behind’.
I’ve been accustomed to only being able to use sáyá for ‘away’. And because that adverb also means ‘distant from, far from’, you see, sáyá tends to be limited to going or being in a 0° direction, in a straight line in front of oneself.
And the only adverb we’ve previously known for ‘behind’ has been kimt’á, which tends to be conceptually arranged as if it means being located 180° behind oneself.
There’s also k’ilapay, which is a verb, and it has the added baggage of meaning ‘turn; turn around; come back; go back; return; in response’, so it too has issues of imprecision.
So it seems to me, in our modern life, we could put this revised understanding of máɬxwəli to plenty of use. We often engage with giving, and describing, fairly precise directions nowadays, so máɬx̣wəli may be what enables us to express common things like ‘I flipped a 180° on Main Street’.
(Supply your own folksier, less polite synonyms for ‘a 180°’!)
It follows that this meaning can get extended to teaching geometry in Chinook Jargon. There are folks who do such things.
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…
Contact me for the Zoom link.
