Kampala Wawa

[gregory robison]

Kampala, 10 May 1999

I am attempting to send this to the CJ List, Jefferey Kopp and Peter Grauer
(who may not be on the list).  I apologize in advance if, due to inadvertent
technological maladdress, the message is simultaneously posted to the 'sushi
& geophysics' list.

I am very interested in the Kamloops-Wawa/Duployan-Shorthand thread, and
would be happy to be included in conversations on this (that is, if they do
not take place on the List, which I receive as a matter of course). Jim
Holton of this List very kindly sent me recently a couple of several pages
of KW at my request, and I have enjoyed reading this quirky, effervescent,
unlikely witness to CJ.  Although I had not looked at CJ in Duployan for
fifteen years or so, I found that after a short time I could sight read the
articles.

In particular:

1. If David is willing to make me a copy of the Lillian Zeh article in
Pacific Monthly that he mentioned, I would be grateful to receive a copy;

2. I would be very happy to know of other authors of CJ in Duployan.  So
far, I think I detect the fine italic hand of the R. P. LeJeune in the
entire corpus of KW I have seen to date (not just what Jim sent me).
Supposedly there were hundreds (possibly thousands) of people who could read
KW in Chinook (and therefore Duployan).  Did any of them write anything,
either as authors of pieces in KW or elsewhere?  Has any of it survived?  It
would be especially interesting to see samples written by native speakers of
languages other than English or French.

3. Particularly intriguing (to me) is a notice in KW soliciting
contributions relating creation myths, in anticipation of a brief visit by
Franz Boaz, who was collecting the stuff and might not have time to visit
all the outlying areas... I've lost the reference in KW.  I also recall
having read that it was once possible to mail a letter in BC addressed in
Duployan, and it would be delivered. (Where did I read this?  Not in KW, I
think...)  If this were true, it's a remarkable footnote on the extent of
acceptance of CJ in that area -- as well as of shorthand...  Peter: you may
know of this reference?  (To list members, excuse me for mentioning this
again several months after having done so once before; this part was for Peter.)

4. Jeffrey Kopp mentions the use of Duployan in a CJ workshop last fall and
the development of a computer font... Who is behind this, and what ever
became of this effort?

A personal note: after having had to learn Duployan to read KW in connection
with an undergraduate linguistics paper I was writing at Yale, I remained
intrigued by Duployan shorthand, and found later that it continued to evolve
and be used in France.  In 1982 I toured the French Senate with a friend of
mine who had become the chief stenographer for that institution.  She
managed a whole battery of stenographers using Duployan -- but a third
generation of the system that was quite distinct from what I had learned and
what LeJeune used.

Gregory Robison
American Embassy Kampala
U. S. Department of State
Washington, D. C. 20521-2190