Divers [fwd from M. Cleven]

[Dave Robertson]

[D. Robertson wrote:]
> /lolwa/, with stress on final syllable, for "bead, beads".  Any idea if

[M. Cleven responds:]
Any idea if these were HBC beads?  The nice blue kind known on the coast
as camosack?  Or of other materials/origin?  If the latter, might the
name have something to do with the composition or appearance from
another root?

[...and goes on to muse...]
I didn't find lowullo/lo'lo in what I have of the Kamloops Wawa documents; is it elsewhere in the KW?  There was a Chief Lolo in the Kamloops/Savona area in the 19th Century; can't remember if he was Nicola or Shuswap; Mount
Lolo, which is the peak just northeast of Kamloops, is named for him.

[...to which D. Robertson responds:]
<lolo> does occur in _Kamloops Wawa_ as a not uncommon verb "to carry".

Incidentally, there's of course a town, a hot springs, and a pass by the name of Lolo in the Montana Salish territory, too!  I strongly doubt any Jargon connection there.  The name might be a Salishanized "Laurence" from French, though; who knows?  Compare in much of Interior Salish country the proper name "Eneas" and variants, from French "Ignace", cf. the town of St. Ignatius, Montana, also in Salish territory.

[M. Cleven also asks:]
In reference to /leputen//lEbEtay/-labotai/le bouteille, is there any indication of the HBC staff in the area and/or when this word came into Flathead and from, say, francophone CJ speakers or other CJ speakers (native or otherwise)?  French loanwords do seem some of the most widely penetrated (geographically) of CJ words, especially in the outlying regions from the CJ core such as the Omineca-Cariboo-Coast-Chilcotin (where Nuxalk is, plus Carrier) or up around the Flathead and Nez Perce and Ktunaxa.

[D. Robertson affirms:]
Stimulating point, there, Mike.  Certainly not the case with Tlingit & Eyak loans from Jargon, among whose small number I recall spotting few ultimately French items.  But--in the BC areas you list, perhaps true.  Perhaps equally likely is that, as in Montana, francophone fur trade employees were the bearers of French words, having perhaps reached those outlying (in CJ terms only!) areas before CJ itself had extended so far.  One recalls that the fur trade had at least scouted virtually every region of North America well before 1800.

[D. Robertson wrote:]
> There may be in these words and others of Fl-Ka-Sp many clues to the
> variety or varieties of French spoken in NW Montana, N Idaho, and NE
> Washington in former times.  A definite study has yet to be done.

[M. Cleven elaborates the idea:]
Maybe linguistic-composition studies of HBC/NWC personnel would be a
place to start; i.e. which forts and routes had more French on-staff
relative to other employees, i.e. where transmission from French was
identifiably Metis vs courieurs du bois and the gens du pays and other
more-French categories also present in the company.  I've always
believed that the most of the French ecclesiastical terms (except the
most basic like lacloa or lejaub, which do sound resolutely _canadien_
to me, esp. lejaub, which is downright saguenard) come from the French
of the Oblates (not all of them Belgians of course, but most of them
weren't they?); especially the more religious ones like lapetkot (the
Pentecost).  Was there as much French-Catholic activity up that way as
on the Coast and at Kamloops/Williams Lake/etc etc?  To me most French
loanwords, esp. trade words, came into the Jargon (or any other language
such as Flathead) from canadiens rather than belges; except for
religious terms as noted.

[D. Robertson responds to the latter point:]
By definition, I feel, the technical terms of Christianity were introduced into Chinook Jargon by the missionaries.  The adaptation of such arcane words as <ekstlemoksio> [this one in the Astoria region, by Demers, Blanchet, et al.] from French varieties to native sound patterns, instead of using paraphrases in order to elucidate the points of dogma in question, is evidence of this.  In other words, I doubt Natives transmitted such tongue-twisting nonsense words in CJ amongst themselves.

{M. Cleven concludes with a PS:]
As an aside, something I've wondered lately is if there's a difference
in CJ prononciation on either side of the border between Kinchauch Wawa
"house" and Boston Wawa "house"?

[...and D. Robertson answers:]
Well, there is the phonological rule commonly called "Canadian Raising".  It's the reason why outsiders stereotype Canucks as saying "oot" and "aboot", though the mischaracterized King Georges are really pronouncing these more like /Ewt/ and /EbEwt/ (with /E/=schwa).

Cheers.


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