Could this be an overlooked Métis/Canadian French word in Chinook Jargon?
Additions to our knowledge of Métis/Canadian French input to Chinuk Wawa keep showing up.
“Antique French Métis textile” (image credit: etsy)
Here’s one: < bā′-lee > ‘striped’ in the JK Gill 1909 dictionary.
This is from French barré(e) ‘barred’, as in ‘striped’.
Now, John Gill had a tendency to lump lots of words into his Chinook Jargon dictionary, for instance a lot of Chinookan items that we’re not very sure were used in actual Jargon.
Many such additions came from personally communicated information supplied by Reverend WC Chattin. (Here’s another link, for previous discussions of Chattin in my website.)
Many of the Chattin-sourced Gill items seem like stuff that the preacher may have learned by asking elders what their language’s word is for a certain concept. This often resulted in words from Indigenous languages, including Lower Chehalis Salish, which we don’t know from other sources.
But this one, < bā′-lee > ‘striped’, almost certainly indeed came out of a Chinuk Wawa background. I reckon Chattin actually heard this one being used in Jargon.
At any rate: we’d be safe adding this word, in a modern spelling bali, to our Central- and Southern-dialect Chinook Jargon dictionaries.
(In the Northern dialect, we don’t have so many French words.)
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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