Practice Text #3 from _Kamloops Wawa_

[David D. Robertson]

PRACTICE TEXT #3 from _Kamloops Wawa_

(Page 91; volume & issue numbers and date not noted)
<Text in angled brackets is written in English in the original>


TEXT in Chinook Jargon:
1 <Stoves & Hardware.>
2 pus msaika tiki stov, kuk stov, wam stov;
3 pus msaika tiki stov paip, ilbos; pus msaika tiki
4 kitl, ti pot, aias pot, tanas pot; pus
5 msaika tiki nils, hamir, so, aks, kanawi ikta
6 tuls, msaika tlap kanawi ukuk kopa:
7 <McLennan & McFeely,>
8 <Cordova St. Vancouver.>


TRANSLATION into English:
2 …If you folks want stoves, cooking stoves, heating stoves;
3 if  you want stovepipes, elbows; if you want
4 kettles, teapots, big pots, little pots; if
5 you want nails, hammers, saws, axes, every kind of
6 tools, you’ll find all of these at: …


VOCABULARY:
aias big
aks axe(s)
hamir hammer(s)
ikta which / a kind of / sort / thing
ilbos elbows (bent pieces of stovepipe)
kah? where?
kakshit pound / hit
kanawi every / all
kanawi ikta every kind of
kansih? how many?
kitl kettle(s)
klaska they
kopa at
kuk cooking / to cook
maika you (talking to just one person)
makuk sell
makuk haws store
mitlait be located
msaika you folks = you (talking to more than one person)
nils nails
nsaika we
paip pipe(s)
pot pot(s)
pus if / in order to
so saw(s)
stov stove(s)
stov paip stovepipe(s)
tans little
ti tea
ti pot teapot(s)
tiki want / need
tlap find / get
tuls tools
ukuk this / these
wam heat / heating


NOTES:
2a: <Msaika> can only mean “you folks” (“you all”).  If you want to
talk to only one person in Chinook Jargon, you say <maika>.  Of course, in
normal English, we often just say “you” in both cases.  The translation you
see above uses “you folks” the first time <msaika> shows up, and then it
uses just plain everyday “you” for all the other times we see <msaika>.
How do you think the English translation would sound if we said “you folks”
every time <msaika> popped up?

2b: In Chinook Jargon, the word <stov> can mean either “stove”
or “stoves”.  In fact, any noun word can refer to just one, or else to
several, of a thing.  We can rely on context (looking at the situation a
word is used in) to figure out whether a word means many or one of a thing.
In the long list of things that McLennan & McFeeley sell, how can we tell
that most of these items should be translated with the Englsh “-s” on the
end, because the ad is talking about more than one of each thing named?

3: <Ilbos> here means “elbows”, and definitely *not* “one elbow”.  We
can easily see this, for two reasons.  One reason is the same as in Note
2b.  The other reason has to do with the language that <ilbos> comes from.
What is this second clue that tells us we’re talking about more than one
elbow here?  Big hint:  Look at the words <nils> and <tuls> in the text!
[By the way, all three of these words are somewhat peculiar, because they
only appear in the Chinook Jargon spoken in some regions…not everywhere.]

4: In a  version of this advertisement printed a few years earlier, I
think I recall the word <lipot> being used instead of <pot>.  Why do you
think the Chinook Jargon of _Kamloops Wawa_ would switch from using a
French word to using an English one for “pots”?

5: If <kanawi> means “all” or “every”, and <ikta> basically
means “which” or “what”, can you see how <kanawi ikta> means “every kind”
or “all sorts”?

6: We know from the vocabulary list that <msaika tlap> literally
means “you find”, but can you see why it’s best translated in English
as “you *will* find”, in this case?  This shows us that sometimes you don’t
have to use the word “will” <alki> to show the future tense in Chinook
Jargon.  If you did use the wording <alki msaika tlap> here, it would tend
to give the specific meaning of  “later on, you folks will find…”  Can you
see the difference?


QUESTIONS in Chinook Jargon:
1: Kansih ikta pot klaska makuk kopa McLennan & McFeeley?
2: Kah mitlait ukuk makuk haws kopa Vancouver?
3: Ikta tuls nsaika tiki pus kakshit nils?



DO YOU HAVE FURTHER QUESTIONS?:  Email me, Dave Robertson, at
<ddr11 at columbia.edu>.  I'll try to answer them quickly.