Henry's followup: Early linguists using CJ w/native people?(fwd)

[David Robertson]

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---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Wed, 08 Mar 2000 23:32:25 -0800
From: Mike Cleven <ironmtn at bigfoot.com>
To: CHINOOK at LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG
Subject: Re: Henry's followup:  Early linguists using CJ w/native people?(fwd)




>
>  *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
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> Date: Wed, 8 Mar 2000 21:08:20 -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: Henry's followup:  Early linguists using CJ w/native people?
>
> Hi Dave,
>
> Regarding linguists who used CJ, I suspect Boas may have been more like
> the last than the first.  Both Gatschet and Dorsey, who were in Oregon in
> the 1870s and 1880s, were able to get by with English:  they simply
> located Indians who could use English well enough, and depended on
> them.  Neither learned to speak Jargon, but that is hardly surprising,
> really, because both were here only for relatively brief periods--a matter
> of months, not of the visits extending over years that Boas
> undertook.  Perhaps Boas picked it up just because he spent a lot more
> time around NW Indians, which gave him both more  opportunity to learn it,
> and more occasions for it to be useful (he could talk to more people that
> way, not just the ones who could speak English).  Interestingly, among the
> Dorsey and Gatschet mss, there are Powell vocabulary outlines with Jargon
> equivalents entered for printed English words:  in both cases, I suspect
> these were prepared for use in the field, that is, as prompt sheets for
> working with non-English speaking Indians.  But, it is clear that neither
> man learned to speak.  Nor did Jacobs, years later.  I remember a poignant
> notation in one of his Molala field notebooks:  the informant, Kate
> Chantelle, had limited English, and Jacobs observes he probably could have
> gotten more information if he were able to speak Jargon.
>
> By the way, I took a look at the OHS reprint of the 1853 S.J. McCormick
> dictionary after writing my last message.  There are certainly some pretty
> clear indications there of a French-speaking compiler:  French spellings
> of French-derived Jargon words; silent "h"; and "r" used to represent the
> velar and uvular fricatives of Indian pronunciations.  So, Blanchet indeed
> could have been involved.  Perhaps there is even some documentation
> somewhere in his correspondence preserved at the dioescesan archives in
> Portland.  Anyone who is interested should realize that it is mostly in
> French.  Henry

Was Pe're Blanchet part of that diocese, not one of the Oblates?  Don't
know the history so exactly.  I'd tried contacting the Oblates about any
Jargon-era records and whatnot a couple of times; the one response I got
was from a fairly friendly and somewhat interested priest in Alaska who
referred me to the Mother House back East; no answer.

Could you reproduce some of the 'h' and 'r' words you're talking about,
please?  Interesting to see.

Mike C.

PS I gather the French document is only in the archive you mention.  I
can read the French; it's the old handwriting that's scary ;-)  Don't
suppose it's digitized and sendable?  Natch, of course not.