Saying ‘birds’ to mean general ‘animals’ may be traditional Indigenous stuff
Which is which? (Image credit: The Hall of Einar)
Kiksht Upper Chinookan is a language where you can call horses ‘birds’.
The above show a passage from pages 208-209 in “Wishram Texts” published by the phenomenal documenter of North American languages, Edward Sapir, in 1909, in “A Personal Narrative of the Paiute War”.
In more than one dialect of Chinook Jargon, we find kalakala (that’s the Northern Dialect spelling), literally meaning ‘bird(s)’, used as a generic term for any ‘animal’, including bugs.
For example, in the “Fox and Cayooty” story, the random White guy wonders about “that kalakala” lying pretend-dead in the road.
(I like to take this as a comment on how much common sense us White guys have, lol.)
(Alternatives, also in Northern spellings: mowich — literally ‘deer’ — also gets used as ‘animal’. In the North, only a rare literary usage brings us kotin, which only means ‘animal’, but nobody understands that word.)
Bonus fact:
Another dimension of specific-versus-generic contrast exists for the Kiksht word used above (the one with the footnote 4 marker on it): /it-c̓ínan-ks/ is {PLURAL-bird-ANIMATE.PLURAL}, unspecified birds, but the same root in a modified pronunciation gives us /i-č̓ínan/ {MASCULINE-bird/, precisely means ‘eagle‘!
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!
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