A similarity between Cree syllabics and (Kamloops Wawa) Duployan shorthand

[Mike Cleven]

Klahawiam,
>
>Looking at the interactive East Cree grammar website-in-progress, I notice
>that the syllabic system used for writing East Cree bears at least two
>resemblances to the Duployan shorthand alphabet used by Father Le Jeune of
>_Kamloops Wawa_.

Isn't that a bit natural and predictable, given that the Cree (and, FWIR
Inuktitut) syllabaries are also based on Duployan (French) shorthand?  Maybe
it's northern/western Cree that I'm think of vis a vis Duployan, but I'm
pretty sure they're based on the same shorthand system; whether this is
because of Oblate influence in evangelization and education in those regions
as well I'm not sure.


>In East Cree syllabics, the symbol for the /h/ sound, sort of a
>perpendicular equals sign, is smaller than the other symbols, and does not
>participate in the formation of written syllables.  That is, /h/ is written
>separately from all syllable symbols.  ---In _Kamloops Wawa_, /h/ is a
>smaller letter than the others (it's a dot), and unlike almost all the
>others, cannot connect with a preceding or following letter.

The 'h' in KW Duployan has always had me suspicious, given the fact that 'h'
in French, especially in an initial position, is a glottal stop.  And it's a
famous speech mannerism of French Canadians (and French French) when
speaking English to add an 'h' to words that begin with a vowel.  So when we
see "aias" in KW Duployan it's plausible to consider Lejeune writing that
without the 'h' he's actually pronouncing it with; and vice-versa for words
where it _does_ appear.

Anyway, the French cultural origin of the Duployan, and those who brought it
to the Jargon, has to be considered when you're talking about a letter that
has different meanings in English or French sound systems; to 'h', or not to
'h'?  'at is de question.


>In East Cree syllabics, long vowels are indicated by the addition of a
>diacritic sign (a dot) above the syllable in which the long vowel is
>located.  ---In Father Le Jeune's later work on the St'at'imcets (Lillooet)
>Salish language, as evident in his 1897 "Lillooet Manual", there is a
>mark which looks like his letter /i ~ e/, a small curved line, which he
>seemingly uses there as a diacritic (an accent mark?).  I'm just beginning
>the analysis of this St'at'imcets material, but my first guess, as hinted
>in
>Henry Davis' and my paper "Fox and Cayooty", is that it indicates phonetic
>length.  I have found it used so far on the vowels /u/, /i ~ e/, and /a/.
>
>The similarities may be coincidental, but given the popularity of the idea
>of "rational" writing systems including shorthands in the 19th century,
>when
>missionaries were reducing northern North American indigenous languages to
>writing, I wonder whether Le Jeune may in fact have found inspiration in
>the
>syllabics.  Or vice versa.  Yet another reason to try to locate his papers
>for research use.


Talking to the head archivist at the provincial archives in Victoria when I
was over there, she commented that many of the early bench books, including
Begbie's, were written in shorthand and she wasn't sure exactly how much
might be in Jargon; but possibly a lot given the fact that the bulk of legal
proceedings in the early province and colony were against native Indians, or
at least included them as witnesses.  This goes for court proceedings as
well as bench books.  And as court secretaries (whatever they were called)
tended to always write what they heard (which is why shorthand rather than
longhand) any Chinook used in the courtroom would have been recorded as
such, as there'd have been no time to translate and render English during
testimony.  Whether judges (who wrote the bench books, from the way I
understand it, as notes during the proceedings) also wrote "by ear" or not
she didn't know, but assumed it would be so; interesting that many of the
bench book bits might be a Chinook phrase jotted down with the judge
supplying or attempting an English equivalent.

There's _lots_ of such bench books, by the way, so anyone looking for thesis
material might want to book a few months in Victoria sometime.  One caveat -
British shorthand was usually Gregg rather than Pitman (Duployan).  So it's
interesting to contemplate that the French/Catholic materials in the Jargon
(KW) is in the one shorthand, while what there might/probably be of
British/official materials in the Jargon is in the other......

Mike
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