the 'questionable' items in my Alaska English / CJ message (fwd)

[David Robertson]

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---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Tue, 25 May 1999 11:46:10 -0700 (PDT)
From: David Robertson <drobert at tincan.org>
To: Henry Kammler <henry.kammler at stadt-frankfurt.de>
Cc: CHINOOK at LINGUIST.LDC.UPENN.EDU
Subject: the 'questionable' items in my Alaska English / CJ message

aa, sl'Xl'aXt,

Since Henry has outlined the etymology of 'hooch / hoochinoo', I'm moved
to add a short note about the words I've marked as questionably derived
from Chinook Jargon.

'hooch' is in a class by itself in my list, because it's transparently
from Tlingit.  However, the reason I include it with some confidence is
that the Tlingit people spoke some pretty good Chinook Jargon, apparently
as well as the Tsimshian folks.  'xucnuwu lEm' [hoochinoo lum] is
imaginable as a CJ vector for the entry of the term into Alaskan whites'
lives.

'woodsman, woodswoman, brushman, Brush Indian, stickman, bushman':  These
are identified in Tabbert's dictionary as naming 'an Athabaskan personage
believed to live a wild existence beyond the bounds of society and to
harass people and steal children'.  The parallel with the pan-Northwestern
'stick Indian' is clear, and the fact that 'stickman' is a synonym
suggests a role for CJ here.

'mush' is marked by me as questionable only because it's routinely
explained as 'a corruption of the French marche' in books about the Yukon
and Alaska.  That's not a bad explanation, but the fact remains that it
may be the Chinook Jargon word mash [mahsh], which has the same source.
What ought to be determined is whether the word entered the English of
the Northlands directly from French, Canadian presumably, or from the
widespread CJ-influenced Klondike lingo.

Henry, your words about the 'potlatch' are perceptive.  The Athapaskans up
North may well have transformed this foreign term to make it more
accurately reflect their practices.  Interestingly one doesn't frequently
hear (am I wrong about this?) of such a distinction of types of potlatches
in say British Columbia English / CJ.


Cheers,
Dave




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