Why did _Kamloops Wawa_ go unresearched for so long? (fwd)

[David Robertson]

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---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Thu, 2 Mar 2000 18:54:25 -0800 (PST)
From: Henry Zenk <psu18009 at pdx.edu>
To: David Robertson <drobert at TINCAN.TINCAN.ORG>
Cc: CHINOOK at LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG
Subject: Re: Why did _Kamloops Wawa_ go unresearched for so long?

David,

Jay Powell of UBC did look at Kamloops Wawa, in addition to doing some CJ
fieldwork of his own.  What all he has and/or has done I've never been
clear on.  Not aware of any publications.  Is anyone else?  I would
suggest that a major reason why no one much has looked at that material is
that it's mostly in that horrendous shorthand.  Plus, there is the fact
that not very many linguistic specialists in NW languages have been that
interested in Jargon.  Indeed, some of our linguists seem to be only
dimly aware that Jargon even existed (example:  the new Lushootseed
dictionary, which lists patently CJ loans into Lushootseed like lum
'whiskey' as from English instead).  How many linguists have looked
seriously at all the OTHER extant material in/on Jargon, for that
matter?  There's a ton of it!  Henry

On Sat, 27 Feb 1999, David Robertson wrote:

> LhaXayEm.  Qhata mEsayka, khanawi-lhaksta?
>
> A seemingly simple question:
>
> Why did _Kamloops Wawa_ go largely unresearched for such a long time?
>
> The first person I know of to look into it very much is Zvjezdana Vrzic,
> circa 1998.
>
> The question is interesting because apparently _Kamloops Wawa_ is by far
> the largest corpus of CJ.
>
> My thoughts, briefly:
>
> *Because _KW_ was written down by a White man, it's "not authentic" CJ.
>
> *_KW_ is perceived as having had religious, not scientific purposes.  Thus
> it's unfit material for rigorous study.
>
> Any thoughts?
>
> Dave
>
>
>  *VISIT the archives of the CHINOOK jargon and the SALISHAN & neighboring*
> 		    <=== languages lists, on the Web! ===>
> 	   http://listserv.linguistlist.org/archives/salishan.html
> 	   http://listserv.linguistlist.org/archives/chinook.html
>