[Fwd: Re: We're seeing a key problem: Lack of explicit connectionbetween        "ahnkuttie" and Grand Ronde materials]

[Mike Cleven]

>
>If running is what's doing it, keep it up.  Lots of interesting issues are
>coming up lately.
>
>About which I'll pick only one for now:  the present form (or presently
>projected form) of the dictionary.  When we started, we had indeed intended
>to include etymologies.  We had also intended to include examples of usage
>(some may recall the tentative sample with several entries + examples we
>handed out at last year's lu7lu).  What happened more recently is that I
>became aware, oh around the beginning of the summer, that at the rate we
>were
>going there would be a Chinuk Wawa dictionary in about 10 years, if we
>worked
>hard enough. The idea behind the present form of the dictionary was to
>strip
>it down to just the basics:  words and phrasal words/idioms.  Once we have
>those compiled into a list (that is, once the sample we handed out at this
>year's lu7lu has been expanded into its logically complete form), we will
>at
>least have something useful for reference purposes.  With that as a base,
>we
>can begin building into the future:  the next stage, as I see it, will be a
>dictionary with usage examples that could serve as the basis of a
>pedagogical
>grammar.

Um, "curriculum"?  Or is there a _practical_ difference to such terms?

 As for those pronunciation issues, I perhaps have a somewhat
>different perspective than others on the list.  From the beginning, Tony
>(director of the language program) has been firmly committed to teaching an
>Indian-pronounced form of Chinuk Wawa.  

That makes perfect and righteous sense within Grand Ronde and other Lower
Columbia communities, but doesn't hold up much for utility outside of there
IMHO.  As far as any repopularization of the Wawa throughout its former
territory, even the concept of what you call an "Indian-pronounced for of
[the] Chinuk Wawa" is problematic, as a quick reference to the sound samples
Barbara Harris provided will show.  A curriculum or "pedagogical grammar"
for use reaching interested potential speakers or (at best) grade-school
culture/history course sections would have far more practicality if it
focussed on using and conversing in Jargon, rather than turning off the more
phonologically-challenged with a whole new set of often-difficult sounds.
The whole idea, to me, is to get people using the Wawa again, and to make it
accessible; having them have to learn the IPA or GR's adaption of it is just
an obstacle to this - IMHO.  Which is why I (at least) don't think that the
GR curriculum has much utility as a base to present for school units or
teach-yourself programs outside of GR/Lower Columbia.

Now, the sound systems of the local
>indigenous languages are complex, and include a number of sounds difficult
>for English speakers to learn.

See above.

 At the same time, those difficult sounds are
>more-or-less the same in all of the local indigenous languages.

That's a stretch, Henry; it's like saying that Nuu-chah-nulth, Haida,
Chinook and Tsh'ilqotin all sound alike and have the same sounds; or, for
that matter, that German, English and Polish all have the same sounds.  They
don't, and they don't.

Your statement also gives the (wrong) impression that the Wawa's "Indian"
prononciations were all the same; yet the comments from Bernice (an elder
from Warm Springs who attended the Lu'lu, for those of you who weren't
there) gave clear demonstration of this not being the case; with the simple
example of BastEn and Poshton as two _different_ INDIAN prononciations -
from the same region, no less - suggest that it's not quite as simple as the
statement you just made.  My point here is that it's NOT the phonology that
counts; it's the ability to express oneself in a Jargon whose entire purpose
was to _level_ the phonological differences between languages, rather than
work on "refining" them into some kind of "pure" or "proper" form.  Again,
Tony's work in retrenching the Grand Ronde community's prononciation is
worthwhile and valid; but presupposing that this should be used as a
standard for the entire Pacific Northwest is just plain wrong, whether it's
for native or non-native use.  As it happens, BTW, most non-Lower Columbia
native language programs (at least up my way) seem quite hostile to the
reintroduction/restoration of the Wawa; so the need to find/define and
promote an "Indian prononciation" seems a little redundant.....

 Once you
>start catching on to those sounds, the picture becomes much clearer and
>simpler--and (hopefully) so does our spelling system.

You're a linguist with linguistics training; most people aren't.  And that
especially includes grade-school kids; as well as elders (native and
otherwise) with some near-lost familiarity with the Wawa.

 With respect to
>pronunciation, Grand Ronde Chinuk Wawa is very similar to other
>Indian-pronounced regional forms of CW.  Mud and confusion enter mainly
>because people get stuck somewhere in between English and "Indian".

Again your claim that "Grand Ronde Chinuk Wawa is very similar to other
Indian pronounced regional forms of CW" doesn't stand up under closer
examination, whether we're talking about Kamloops Wawa, Warm Springs, or
Nanaimo (as in Barbara's recordings from Wayne Suttles' work).  And again,
what the hell is wrong with people getting "stuck somewhere in between
English and "Indian"".  I don't suppose it's occurred to you that "getting
stuck between English and Indian" is EXACTLY what the Jargon and its history
and culture are all about.  Again, the Jargon was an attempt to avoid the
phonological subtleties and difficulties of the native phonologies, not just
so non-natives could speak to natives but so that natives could speak to
each other.  A good example here is the word which Tony and his people
pronounce "gumduks" and which I know in the Georgia Strait was "kumtuks" and
which I've heard up in Lillooet as something like "khEmtkhws" or
"khEmtklhsh".  The point in the Wawa is THE WORD - _not_ THE SOUND......

Of course I'll eat this if my interpretation of what I heard in Lillooet is
shown wrong after one you professional linguist types can talk the St'at'imc
Language Authority into releasing its collection of Lillooet-area Jargon
recordings for study, which I've been unable to.  Apparently at least _one_
of you has close connections to that office.  I think any claims about
native pronouncations of the Wawa being all the same requires documentary
backup; and from the smidgin we have in the List (barbara's tapes) so far
that just doesn't hold up under closer examination.  Getting all the various
sound collections out of mothballs from the various language programs
currently holding them would go a long way to establishing exactly what kind
of commonality there is in "native pronounced" Jargon; what you might find
is not a comprehensively-similar phonology but rather a general tend towards
creolization in the 20th Century and an overall removal of native forms from
the shared native/non-native Jargon of the last century; but each one to a
_different_ native-pronounced form, albeit theoretically still mutually
intelligible _despite_ the different phonologies.

I continue to hold that considering a native form of the Jargon to be better
than a non-native version is more than a bit prejudicial, and that
non-native Jargon deserves respect and a little less of the condescension
I've heard directed towards it by some, whether deliberately or not.  I can
understand the 20th Century trend to make the Jargon more and more Indian
and for it to become a badge of nativeness in certain communities; but to
forget that _all_ communities used it is to greatly diminish its historical
and collective importance.  And as noted by somewhere back in the firestorms
of the spring, a lot of the interested parties in this minor revival
underway are, in fact, not native, or only part-native; "pure" natives
(outside of GR) being again somewhat hostile towards the Jargon, for
whatever reason or misperception of its role.  In GR we know that the more
phonologically solid form of the Jargon that's been passed down to Henry was
formed as the native community entrenched the Jargon as a dividing line
_from_ whites, rather than the medium of intercourse and trade _with_
whites; culturally there is obviously a very big difference/ and it appears
there's also a very big difference linguistlcally, as well; not just in
phonology but in the regard that linguists and language programs have
towards the Hiyu Tillikums Wawa (the Jargon of Many Peoples) as opposed to
the Sawash Wawa (native Wawa) which apparently emerged as natives and
non-natives became more and more segregated from each other......
>
>During odd moments Tony and I muse about bigger dictionaries covering
>bigger
>chunks of the Northwest.  A logical place for us to start, it seems to me,
>would be to expand the regional focus to the whole lower Columbia River.

Which - at least as a place to start - bypasses the very large corpus of
potentially-available materials concerning Puget Sound, Georgia Strait and
Fraser/Thompson Canyon Jargon(s).  Regions in which, I might add, the Jargon
was apparently spoken by many more people for very much longer than
apparently it was in Grand Ronde.  "Expanding the regional focus to the
whole lower Columbia" doesn't seem like much of an expansion in this
context; all you're going to do is find more material similar to what you've
already chosen to limit yourself to, rather than reaching out to get a real
handle on the fuller regional scope of the Jargon, which of course MUST
include the Stowbelow Jargon forms in the areas just cited.  Also, I'm not
sure whether you consider Warm Springs to be "lower Columbia" or not (I
don't know Oregon geography that well) but if it is, then correcting or
bypassing the available knowledge in Warm Springs has a time-limit on
it.....

> There is some very good material out there:  Harrington's meticulous
>recordings from Bay Center and elsewhere; The Demers catechism and
>dictionary, which "underdifferentiated" as it is points definitely to an
>Indian-pronounced, lower Columbia variety.  (The syntax of the Demers
>catechism, by the way, I find wonderfully clear and intelligible to my
>Grand
>Ronde attuned ears; too bad about the content.)

There is an oddness to the anti-clerical opinion here; I've noticed too, up
my way, that younger natives are hostile to the Church; their elders (at
least the previous generation of elders than many today) were on the other
hand very devout converts.  Plus ca change....

My travelling partner's hungry (I'm in Prague) so I've got to sign off.....

Mike
_________________________________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com.

Share information about yourself, create your own public profile at
http://profiles.msn.com.