Alsea translation

[Dave Robertson]

tlus pulakli,

Good reading, Linda.  It's not possible to know from the minimal background
information given just whether he was fluently speaking Chinuk-wawa (which
would make your reading the more likely), or was talking a more pidgin
variety, into which we would have to read a great deal from context.  XawqElh
nayka kEmtEks.  Alaxti mayka tiki wawa Ila pus chaku-kEmtEks ikta yaka
tEmtEm??

By the way, folks, I made one of my fatigue-induced errors a few messages
ago, and wrote "ixt chxEp" (literally, an extinction!) instead of "ixt ch'uX"
(a chip, a little piece)...pi dret sik nayka tEmtEm pus ukuk.

Dave

Linda Fink <linda at FINK.COM> wrote:
>
> >He said in the Chinook Jargon, 'Nika mam'ook ill'ahee.
> Nika muck'a muck nika.'"  Lottie Evanoff, who heard the story from her
> father, Daloose, commented that it sounded as if he said (in translation),
> 'I'm going to eat my land.'  But what he really meant, she explained, was
> that he would put a fish dam at his place and eat salmon, not imposing on
> the whites.
>
> Or, "I'll work the land. I'll feed myself."  ??
>
> Linda Fink   linda at fink.com
> http://www.fink.com/linda/goatlane/   http://www.fink.com/farm/5.html
>