‘ABLE :: FAST’, an Indigenous metaphor
Sometimes you hear people say there’s a word in Chinook Jargon for ‘can’t’, but not for ‘can’…
Sometimes you hear people say there’s a word in Chinook Jargon for ‘can’t’, but not for ‘can’…
Some linguistic work I was doing recently brought my attention back to the Lower Chehalis Salish word támtamaʔ ‘clothing; belongings; what you own’.
I’m guessing it means “they speak like idiots”?
Chinuk Wawa’s southern dialect, as documented in the Grand Ronde Indian Reservation community, says láx̣w-sán (literally ~ ‘leaning-sun’) for ‘afternoon’.
Here’s quite an interesting parallel, I think.
Could kəním ‘canoe’ be etymologically related to kʰánumákwst ‘together’?
The early CW measure word íɬana ‘fathom; yard’ has been shown in the superb Grand Ronde dictionary to come from Chinookan…
I think I’ve just solved a mystery we’ve been examining, by turning up an Indigenous metaphor!
I’ve got two things on my nose, er, mind.
(I urge you to cross-reference this article with the one I did on Jargon traces in Alaskan Haida.) The freely available Sealaska Heritage Foundation dictionary of Tlingit is a goldmine.