French in Gibbs' Tsinuk Wawa list

[David Robertson]

Bonjour,

Thank you for the remarks on French words in Chinook Jargon; you've
illuminated several points that weren't entirely clear to me before.

It's helpful to hear from someone who is acquainted with North American
French.  Your notes about "bec" and "maringouin" are very interesting.

About the seemingly unpredictable forms of the definite article, when
French phrases became adopted into Chinook Jargon -- There seems to have
been, understandably, no (or extremely little) awareness among the non-
Francophone speakers of CJ with regard to the gender signification of "le"
versus "la".  The two appear to have merged, in general CJ pronunciation,
with accompanying nouns, and tended to be pronounced "le", that is, /lE/.
A similar process happened with "les".

I base this perception mainly on Grand Ronde CJ as I've heard it.  I'm
reluctant to judge on the basis of the old written records of the Jargon,
as they are mostly the work of Anglophone nonlinguists.

It's highly notable that CJ did not evidently adopt *any* French
*indefinite* articles.  Compare with the example of the Michif language (a
mixture of Cree and French), which has as I recall forms like /li narbr/
for "tree" < "le un arbre", alongside say /li arbr/ and /li zarbr/ (with
the same meaning!).  French creoles, like that of Louisiana, also
routinely show indefinite-article merging; I recall the example from that
language of "un latable" meaning "a table"!)...

CJ /kapu/ "coat":  The word was borrowed in this form without final <t> in
numerous Northwest languages, for example as /lkepu/ in Spokane.  Maybe
it's an obsolete form "capot" for current (smaller?) "capote"?

Let me repeat, beware of the spellings of Chinook Jargon words in the old
sources!  :-)  They are attempts to represent how the words sounded as
pronounced by Indians and other people here, and usually do not adhere to
a French standard.  Even in the "Chinook Rudiments" (1924) of Father Le
Jeune, a native Frenchman, the CJ words which came from French are very
frequently spelt as they sound, rather than in standard French.  The same
is true for Demers/Blanchet/St. Onge; their prime concern seems to have
been to show how the indigenous speakers of CJ pronounced the French
loanwords, including the plentiful religious terms introduced probably by
these missionaries themselves!

About "polallie" ~ /pulEli/:  A term from Chinookan, no?

About "le kye":  From "le caille", "the piebald one", a Canadianism
according to my Cassell's French dictionary.  Compare "le gley", from "le
gris".  I feel "le kye" may have been a technical term, meaning a
particular kind of horse.  Perhaps Nez Perce influence led to the presence
of a number of horse terms in CJ?

Lhush san,
Dave




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On Sat, 18 Dec 1999, janilta wrote:

> Hello !
> Here are some comments on the French words of the Gibbs Jargon list.
> I hope all these remarks have not already been discussed on the list
> many times... ;-)
>
>
> 1) General remarks
>
> Be-be : the word 'baby' (French 'bebe') comes to mind at once but the
> sound is close to French 'baiser' and even closer to Quebec French 'bec'
> which is 'kiss'... and perhaps the sound of the kiss itself !
>
> Bur-dach/berdache is really a mysterious word for a French speaker...
> (we discussed it Jeffrey !) and its French counterpart 'bardache'
> disappeared a long time ago...
>
> Capo' : the French word is 'capote' WITH an 'e', whereas French 'merci'
> for 'mah-sie' has NO 'e'...
> For 'la-ca-set', French 'la cassette' has TWO 's'...
>
> De-lett for French 'droite' : the 'oi' sound now pronounced as 'wa' used
> to be pronounced as 'way' for many words in the 17th century and it is
> still the case for some words in spoken Quebec French.
> Same remarks for 'la-sway' (la soie), 'la-wen' (l'avoine).
>
> Di-aub/Yaub for French 'diable' has a strong North American French
> flavour !... as 'pchih' for 'petit'...
>
> La-gwin may come from French 'la scie egoine' or more simply 'l'egoine'
> which stands for handsaw.
>
> La-sanjel comes probably from French 'la sangle' (saddle girth) not 'la
> cingle'...
>
> Mel-a-kwa for 'maringouin' is the typical example for a common word in
> Quebec French for 'mosquito' whereas in France it is completely unkown
> and replaced by 'moustique'...
>
> Tanse can either be French 'danse' as English 'dance'...;-)
>
> No idea for 'huy-huy'. Yes, perhaps 'oui-oui'...??? No idea for
> 'pollalie', 'la-pellah', 'le-kye'...
>
>
> 2) The le/la (the) riddle
>
> Many words entered Tsinuk Wawa with a 'wrong' French article... which is
> quite strange since no French speaker usually makes such mistakes... The
> list is thus :
> It should be LA mule (or perhaps LE mulet), LE piege (downwards accent),
> LA balle, LA creme (but here apparently LE creme for a horse as the
> other colour nouns), LA clef, LE mouton (why not in singular ?), LES
> ciseaux (here always a plural form), LA dent.
> I think the explanation is that these words entered the language as
> PLURAL form not singular, so that we have LES mules, LES balles, LES
> clefs, LES dents... which is quite obvious for these words which were
> often quite logically more than one !
> But a riddle remains : why LA-piege ???
>
> Hope it may be useful for some of you. Cheers, Yann.
>