Shaping a Jargon future

[Mike Cleven]

Was searching for a paper at linguistlist.org and came across your
request for a Chinook Jargon translation; I don't know if any of the
other on-line CHINOOK members have communicated back to you about this;
there are lots of us, and we have a fairly busy list.  I'm the
proprietor of one of the main Jargon websites -
http://members.home.net/skookum/

Your request is fairly easy in Chinook, although context is everything
and as always with the Jargon the words can mean several things,
depending on how they're read......but as with the infamous Chief
Seattle speech, English ideoms often don't have counterparts in Chinook,
although the lexiconographers really went at it trying to come up with
ways to say things in the Jargon.

"Shaping a Northern Destiny"

Lit.: "Mamook hyas alki kopa cole illahee".  [make/do]
[great/big/important] [future] [prep.] [cold] [country/land].  The
problem here is that "cole illahee" (cold earth) refers to the Winter.
I think "hyas alki" is pretty good for "destiny"; if you tried to use
"mamook kloshe alki" [make a good future] you get the problem that
"mamook kloshe" means "to fix, to fix up, or to repair, to tidy, to
clean, to mend, to [cause to] heal".  I guess in a way all those variant
meanings are quite apt, so the phrase winds up being a clever pun.  I
think a lot of the Jargon worked that way, anyway; the shiftability of
meanings was often very convenient, especially given the penchant of
Jargon speakers for pithy laconicisms......

Speaking of which, even if it's right "mamook hyas alki kopa cole
illahee" is kind of a mouthful; if you were looking for a motto then
Jargon lends itself to brevity and pithiness; "Mamook Hyas Alki" - to
build a great future, to build destiny - is probably just about as good
as you're going to get; straightforward and to the point; or "Mamook
Kloshe Alki" - to build the Future well, to "make good" the future, to
make a good future, etc.  I don't think it's as relevant to include the
English Canadian ideom "northern" in the sense you mean it; the concept
of "A North" in the regional sense is really not in the Jargon.  There
is another term for the cardinal direction north than "cole illahee",
which is "stowbelow", which sounds rather nautical to me; but "stowbelow
illahee" would theoretically mean "North"; "Northern" in the same sense
would be "kopa stowbelow illahee".  It's a question of what and where
you mean by "North" and "Northern".  Stowbelow is given in A.C.
Anderson's guide to the Jargon as used in the Fraser Canyon in the
1840s; how much the Jargon was used up your way (Prince George, right?)
is up to debate.  If you're a historian or into linguistics at all, the
general issue of the Jargon north of the Cariboo, or even in the
Cariboo, is mostly unknown by our group; you'd think that given the HBC
stronghold in the New Caledonia region that they might have introduced
the Jargon northwards into that country, but maybe it just didn't have
the usefulness it did farther south.......maybe because nearly all the
HBC customers up that way were all Athapaskans, not the multilingual
hodgepodge of more southerly territories....

Anyway, my gut feeling tells me that "Mamook Hyas Alki" is the most
inspiring; "Mamook Kloshe Alki" is a bit weaker but maybe also a bit
less vainglorious.  And finally "Mamook skookum alki" -
[build]][strong/capable][future]; this carries the double meaning
because "skookum" compounded with another verb takes on the meaning "to
be able", "to be capable", even with the word-order reversal, so this
would mean "To Build a strong future" or "Able to build the future" or
even "to strongly build the future".

All rich choices; take your pick