Grand Ronde spellings and others for CJ

[Liland Brajant ROS']

Jeff,

In your interlinear dual-orthography version of Dave's recent note to Robin,
did you by chance invert the orthographies in the last sentence?  "Nika"
looks old-fashioned to me, and "Naika" looks phonetic, or at least not
English-based, but in all the preceding lines your phonetic version
precedes the traditional.

>>What say you, friend?
>>Qhata ma-temtem, sixs?
>kahta mamook tumtum, sihks?
>
>>Warm regards from Dave
>>Nika wawa klahowya.  Dave
>Naika wawa klahowya.  Dave

Coupla my own pet peeves:
1) I think what's needed is more of a phonemic than a phonetic
orthography, and I'm not clear on what exactly is the phonemic inventory
of the Jargon.  Certainly it seems to me that since most of the languages
of the region have four or five vowels, it's highly unlikely that anybody
would really have used the fine vowel distinctions the "modern"
orthography makes.

2) Seems to me that if capitalization is going to be phonemically
distinctive, we ought to get away from the habit of capitalizing the
first letters of sentences and proper nouns.

One last note:
I haven't seen mention in this list of the Seattle cabbie lingo use of
"Alki" (pronounced with the vowels of "pal" and "eye").  When I drove for
Yellow (10 years ago), "Alki" was the universal response to a "bell"; it
meant "Roger".  I'd be interested to know how "authentic" it was.  It had
nothing to do with the "Alki" of Seattle geography (which is also usually
mispronounced that way).  With Yellow's descent into computerized
dispatching, I think this "Alki" has gone out of use (though it's
possible some of the other, uncomputerized companies are still using it).

Pardon my English!

Leland

--
Liland Brajant Ros' * UEA-D, Seatlo Usono * FD Baptismo, AA, US-lit-ro
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