<html>
<body>
<font size=3>At 10:22 PM 5/12/2003, David D. Robertson wrote:<br><br>
<blockquote type=cite class=cite cite>This consonant /b/ really does
puzzle me in the Canadian Japanese word.</blockquote><br>
I personally doubt it was a pun or a joke. Remember we can only
readily discern sounds we heard during our own early childhoods
(language-development years), which is why we have accents. Our knowledge
of how the Jargon sounded to Bostons or English sounds to the Japanese
probably isn't much help in determining how Native languages (or even
French) sounded to them.<br><br>
(My son is practicing his college French by Internet telephony with a
girl in Toronto, and therefore discovering the differences between
contemporary Canadian French and what he's been taught in school here.
But anyone not a Canadian historian or linguist can only try to imagine
what it would have been like a century years ago.)<br><br>
There is also of course the wide variance in orthography, so there's
considerable chance of error there. As the dictionaries were relied upon
by later arrivals, a transcription error could well have found its way
into usage. Bear in mind the number of Americans who pronounce the silent
"t" in "often."<br><br>
I dunno any Japanese Canadians; they might be a hard-to-find minority.
Someone in a university up there might be in the best position to meet
one and ask. (Barbara? George?)<br><br>
<blockquote type=cite class=cite cite>LhaXayam. What's hard to
understand is Father LeJeune's rationale for<br>
assigning a given page number to a given page! I think
Pilling's<br>
bibliography mentions the seemingly haphazard numbering, not
noticeably<br>
consistent from issue to issue of "Kamloops
Wawa".</blockquote><br>
I suspect LeJeune had several works in progress simultaneously, reaching
completion at different times (some probably remained unfinished),
resulting in apparently haphazard numbering. Or he might have set aside
blocks of numbers for various projects. There was also something kind of
frantic about his voluminous output, so it's also possible he was just
confused. (He might even have "inflated" his page numbers to
make his output appear bigger than it was; he was very gung on his pet
invention of the KW, making nearly incredible claims for its prevalence
and popularity.)<br><br>
(He impresses me as quite a character. If one had use of a time machine
for only a few hours, I'd be tempted to spend some of it meeting the
guy.)<br><br>
Jeff<br><br>
P.S. Has anybody any clues to the "mystery dictionary"? (I
haven't heard a word yet.) I have a few more pages (including one of
dialog) I could post. The author cites Eels for one section, but for the
most part, it appears based on personal knowledge of Puget Sound usage;
the orthography is unique, bearing no relation to the other works I have
on hand. I suspect it might have been an ad-hoc. unpublished internal
government handbook. (The thrust of the Q&A examples suggest its
being a court and/or policeman's reference.)<br><br>
J.</font></body>
</html>