"kapo" in Quileute, another CJ loan becoming an affix

[David Robertson]

Here is a neat parallel to some Salish languages' borrowing from Jargon.  
There (in Lillooet and Thompson), CJ compounds ending in "man" inspired the 
formation of a suffix with the meaning "person who habitually does the 
action."  

Now, for an unrelated language.  I've read in Manuel Andrade's "Quileute" 
(Columbia University, 1933) that one of the "nominal postpositives" or what 
we often now call lexical suffixes is "kapo" meaning "coat."  Andrade notes 
this is a loan from Chinook Jargon.  

Lexical suffixes are bound morphemes, that is, they're not words by 
themselves.  So it's fascinating to see a CJ word losing its free-standing 
status, getting tightly integrated into another language's morphology.  It 
may be worth pointing out, some linguists would view the CJ loan "man" 
mentioned above as being a lexical suffix too, in Salish.  I recall van 
Eijk treating it this way in his grammar of Lillooet.  

I assume the intensity of contact between Jargon and Quileute must have 
been pretty high, for such a thing to occur.  Just as I know beyond doubt 
that the contact between Jargon and Lillooet/Thompson was intense.  (I've 
read many letters written in Jargon by native speakers of those languages.  
And the "Kamloops Wawa" newspaper was largely directed toward them.)  

It would be interesting to know whether English ever, like CJ, inspired the 
addition of new morphology to any Northwest languages.  No examples come 
right to mind, outside of learners' versions of those languages in recent 
times, when those learners had English as their first language.  

If it turned out that English had generally been kept more separate from 
the people's first languages than Jargon was, I'd suspect this fit a 
pattern of Jargon being viewed by all speakers as more Indigenous than non-
Indigenous.  

--Dave R

To respond to the CHINOOK list, click 'REPLY ALL'.  To respond privately to the sender of a message, click 'REPLY'.  Hayu masi!