Another vocative formation in Northern Chinook Jargon
To catch someone’s attention using their name, all dialects of Chinuk Wawa allow just hollering “Tony!” or “Paisley!” or whatever.
And in the Central Dialect, real old-school Jargon, you could set that up by exclaiming ná! first, so Na Tony! or Na Paisley! would be “Hey Tony!” or “Hey Paisley!”
Or even substitute another term of address for their name, e.g. Na siks! “Hey friend!”
Fact-checked (image credit: Instagram)
The Northern Dialect has an extra vocative all its own, thus proving that it has a unique grammar lol 😁 (Messing with RMW Dixon there, who soundly enough reasons that “vocative” is not a grammatical “case”.)
This Northern-only thing shows up as solid evidence in Indigenous-written letters of the 1890s and such: it’s maika + proper name. That’s saying “you [NAME]!”
Because a lot of those letters are addressed to one certain person, we see a lot of Maika Per Lejunn, “You Father Le Jeune!”
From one of the earliest Chinook-Peipa letters, by Frank McKay of Spuzzum on March 20, 1892:
Maika Per Lejunn,
“Father Le Jeune,”naika mitlait kopa Spuzzum.
“I’m here at Spuzzum.”
And:
Tlahowyum, tilihum, maika
“Goodbye, friend,”Per Lejunn.
“Pere Le Jeune.”
Did anyone also say “Ná maika!”? Do we know?
BONUS FUN:
Which personality is renowned for starting sentences in English with the equivalent of “Haiyoo tilihum tlaska wawa, ná taiyi…!”?
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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