Note on "Note on the Chinook Jargon"

[David D. Robertson]

In another free moment today I got to go back over Franz Boas' 1933 "Note
on the Chinook Jargon" (published in Language 9:208-213).

When Boas presents selected Jargon songs in this article, the Jargon is
good but in some cases I wonder about the English translations he gives.
For example,

/Cultus kopa nika
     Spose mika mahsh nika.
Hiyu "puti boys" cooley kopa town;
     Alki weght nika iskum.
Wake kull kopa nika./

(Boas translates this:

'I don't care
     If you desert me.
Many pretty boys walk in town;
     Soon (one will) take me again.
It is not hard on me.')

It's not for me to question Boas' notably gifted ear, but I would have
translated this as:

"I don't care
     If you leave me.
There are lots of pretty boys around town;
     I'll get another one.
It's easy for me!"

I also note Boas translates klonass as 'I don't know,' while I understand
the word more as a rhetorical "who knows / God knows."  He also gives
tumtum a double translation 'heart' and 'feel' in the same phrase, but
read this line:

/Klonass kahta nika tumtum/

('I don't know how my heart feels')

I might read this more like "God knows how (bad) I feel."

A last quick point -- when Boas finds wawa klahowya in a song, he
translates it with 'say goodbye':

1: /Kwanisum nika tikegh nanich mika;
Alki nika wawa klahowya/

('Always I wish to see you;
Soon I say good-bye')

2: /Hyas klahowya
Konamokst nika oleman
Kopa Biktoli;
Halo klaksta
Wawa klahowya nesika
Kopa Biktoli/

('Very unhappy (I was)
With my wife
In Victoria;
Nobody
Said good-bye to us
In Victoria.')

For these two bits, I might have given

1: "I always want to see you;
Then I'll say hello to you."

and

2: "How miserable
My husband (!) and I are
In Victoria;
Nobody
Says hello to us
In Victoria."

If I remember correctly from Boas' earlier article on the same bunch of
songs, they were recorded *from women* while Boas was *in Victoria*.

A separate note on the Tsimshian CJ story that Boas includes in his
article:  It's interesting to see the narrator pronouncing kakwa 'so'
as /kaka/, and yakwa 'here' as /yaka/, the same as he pronounced yaka 'he'.

--Dave R.