Domestic stuff

[Mike Cleven]

Nadja Adolf wrote:
>
> Spose wawa halo chaku memaloose yaka munk klap wa kopa chee iktas.
> If the trade language is not to die, it must find words for new things.
>
> Halo naika kumtux hyas kopa wawa, keschi naika tikki yaka halo chaku
> memaloose.
>
> I don't know a lot about the trade language, but I don't want it to die.
>
> Hyiu wawa kopa ahnkuttie iktas; wake hyiu kopa alta pe alki iktas.
>
> There are many words for old things, but few for modern and future things.
>
> Naika tEmtEm peshak wawa yaka chaku kahkwa alta kopa ikt kopet klipswalla wa
> kopa Boston WaWa pe Dutchman wawas.
>
> I think it is bad if the trade language becomes modern only by stealing
> words from American English and other European languages.

I didn't mean that it should; but don't forget that the historic Jargon
included many English and French words from early on, thereby part of
its inherent character.  What I mean by suggesting certain loanwords is
that the follow the pattern of the previous loanwords; obviously to
borrow willy-nilly doesn't make any sense, but when it takes more than a
couple of bona fide Jargon words to describe something that might best
be a loanword ("gallon", for instance) it makes sense.  "Imported"
cultural concepts like gallons, dollars, etc. are perfectly natural to
employ in the Modern Jargon IMHO; like your use of "cast" in reference
to metalwork.  I'm all for coining new Jargonisms; but I think the rule
should that if something is useful and "feels" like the Jargon, then
it's legitimate.  I think if you purge the Jargon of its English and
French components it won't quite be the Jargon anymore; it'll be more
like Old Chinook, true, and indubitably more Indian; but I don't think
you should out of hand reject the English and French lexicons within the
Jargon, nor the possible introduction of newer words adapted from those
languages.  I've used "piahtzum lacaset" for computer sometimes, for
instance, but that has _two_ "European" words in it (piah and lacaset);
so why not use something like "putah" or "puter" for brevity and
clarity's sake?

I've always been fond of the mock Norwegian Jargon that I think is
posted on Jeff's page somewhere; the cadence of Norwegian and the Jargon
are remarkably similar in my experience, and whoever came up with that
distortion used a few words that seem eminently borrowable.  e.g. "to
forget" - glemme(r) - or the adoption of "det" as an objective usage
(only) for "that", which is conceivably as much of an English borrowing
as it _might_ have been a Norwegian one.  The Scandinavians (who most
"Dutchman" were until about 1850-60) and Kanakas mixed freely with the
native peoples (much more than did the Kingchauch and Boston), and
although we don't have recorded examples of the way they used the
Jargon, no doubt it was a pastiche that included words from their own
languages (as we do know about the Kanakas, although no one wrote down
their Jargon speech).  The Jargon was created from the fusion of native
and non-native cultures; I think this should be embraced as a concept.
A Jargon that is "purely Indian" rejects its own history, as well as the
modern social reality of the Northwest.  I'm all for new native-language
borrowings when they can be made or are necessary; but I don't think
that a phrase or word should be rejected for consideration as Chee Wawa
simply because it's not of native origin.......

Mike
http://members.home.net/skookum/