stop me if you've heard this one: maLini

[David Robertson]

adi!  Gotcha!

wek wEXt ixt chInuk kaltash-hihi ukuk -- Nope, this isn't another Chinook
joke.  (Those of you who missed the Lu7lu in Grand Rounde also missed a
nice round of joke-telling in Chinook.  Masi khapa Emmett!)

chxi alta I was reading Edward Sapir yaXka paper "Nootka Baby Words" khapa
the _International Journal of American Linguistics_, volume 5, number 1,
pages 118-119.  --You follow?

He mentions the word /lO:lO:/ "white man" '(often used to scare a child,
like our "boogie man"; this word is said to imitate a white man's talk,
and note that /l/ is not a normal Nootka sound [he said "Nootka Sound"
:-)], though often used in songs for /n/); normal word for "white man" is
/mamaL7nI(/ "dwelling while in motion on the water."'

The /O/ above is 'backward-c', that is 'more open mid-back rounded vowel'.
The /:/ marks vowel length.
The /(/ is the Nootka 'pharyngeal' sound -- don't make me explain!

The upshot here is, chInUk wawa <mahtlinnie>, /maLIni/, is apparently from
Nootka.  Sources I'd read previously had indicated this as an Old Chinook
word, not that they're necessarily authoritative.  I reckon this is
another example of Nootka sounds having been simplified before such a word
got adopted into Chinook Jargon?  (Still haven't read Sturtevant's or
?Samarin's articles on "Nootka Jargon".)

LaXayEm!
Dave



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