slaves & how are you

[Tony Johnson]

Khanawi-Laksta,

Another quick note.  "LaXayEm" depending on emphasis, or speaker, can and does get stressed on all of its three syllables.  So, while we teach LaXa'yEm, in Grand Ronde both La'XayEm, and even La'XayE'm are perfectly acceptable in terms of stress.  This is a word which shows interesting variation in a number of ways.  

Its original form in Lower Chinookan is La'Xawyam.  This form is also typical in Chinuk Wawa.  I would be interested to know if anyone has seen anything but initial stress on the word in Chinookan.

Additionally, I learned this word at my home, with the meaning of "hello/goodbye," as LaXa'yyE / LaXa'wyE (sometimes the /X/ shifted to an /h/, but the /L/ was always that).  Clearly LaXa'wyE is very close to the more English Klah how ya.  

ALqi ntsa wawa--

Tony A. Johnson
Sawash-ili7i
Grand Ronde

>>> Linda Fink <linda at FINK.COM> 04/28/02 08:55AM >>>
Just as a point of information, in Grand Ronde the Hudson family, at least,
pronounced LaXayEm with the emphasis on the first syllable. That
pronunciation, Tony has told me, was only local but I've wondered if was
actually the original pronunciation which later turned into the one that
sounds like Clark, How are you? Tony teaches the latter, more universal,
pronunciation which is used by most all the elders recorded around the
Northwest.

As for slaves, in the book "The Witch Doctor's Son" by Evelyn Sibley
Lampman, the young protagonist was stolen from another tribe. However, it is
a fictionalized version of a true story told to the author by Eula's father,
John Hudson. Eula told me that in her father's version, the boy was sold
into slavery by his family, which was a common practice at the time
according to Hudson. But this doesn't answer anything about whether there
was a pidgin between tribes. There is much cj in this book, which takes
place at the time of the creation of the Grand Ronde reservation.

Linda Fink
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