Phonological system of Mitchif ======>some CJ words

[janilta]

Mike,

Yes, indeed as your long and rich msg states, checking the various
origins of the 'French' words in CJ and Native languages of the West
would be very interesting... but rather difficult I guess.
It is in fact quite difficult to know how the French speakers throughout
the prairies spoke without written records about their pronounciations,
as they had probably many ways of speaking whether they were from France
(with regional accents), from various parts of Canada and the US, from
mixed ancestry (Metis)...
But it is perhaps worth a try I guess...

Why do you think 'mahsh' is a strange borrowing ? The first meaning 'to
walk' for 'marcher' also bears the sense 'march' as in 'en avant, marche
!' when you give the march order, thus 'leave'... No ? And then this
very 'movement' meaning evolved quite logically...

I am afraid the Mitchif for 'to run' won't help you much for 'cooley'!
As I said in a prior msg, the verbs in Mitchif are from Cree and not
from French, except a few exceptions (1%) as 'benir' (to bless) or
'temoigner' (to witness in court) eg 'li per kilibiniw li mund' (the
priest blessed the people) (Bakker 1997). But in a sentence as
'kaituhtehitin ite ewituhtejan' (I will take you where you want to go)
(Bakker 1997) you can look for any French element...

Regards, Yann.