"Kleck"

[Ross Clark (FOA LING)]

I think this is actually the Tlingit word for "No". It's given as "tlek" in
Davydov's vocabulary (Two Voyages to Russian America, 1802-1807), and as
"kle:k" in Krause, Die Tlinkit-Indianer (1881). Perhaps the same word is
hiding behind "Flext" glossed as "nada" in a record from the Malaspina
expedition in the 1790s. (Sorry I haven't got the complete notes, this may
be from Tomas de Suria.) Something like /Lek/ could account for all these.
Unfortunately I don't have a modern description in which to check this.

Ross Clark

-----Original Message-----
From: Dave Robertson
To: CHINOOK at LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG
Sent: 22/01/2002 6:10 p.m.
Subject: "Kleck"

Hi,

Jim Holton wrote:

>my guess is that it is "Laqw" (barred-L, a, q-w) from GR spelling
or "klak" from Shaw's spelling.<

That seems likely to me.  I've been debating with myself over whether
it's /LaX/ "come [or go?] out/off; emerge" or /Laqw/ "removed; off"
that's the more sensible reading in Jargon.  It's sort of hard to
determine from Mrs. Fitzgerald's self-described non-Chinookophone
spelling.

The vowel "e" here, I read as similar to that in English "deck".  It
might be worth noting that Chinook Jargon as recorded in the coastal
Northwest, from about Puget Sound northward, shows quite a lot of use of
this same pronunciation for the [a] sound found elsewhere in CJ.  Sound
recordings of Vancouver Island Indians, as well as my recollection of a
Coast Salish speaker's CJ in "Thomas Paul's Sametl", provide plenty of
examples.  So it's conceivable that say Grand Ronde /LaX/ = Sitka /LeX/.

Here's what really strikes me, though:  "kleck" is being used in a way
that's novel to me.  That is, I don't recall having seen the word used
like this (apparently translatable as "Off with you, then!") elsewhere.
Perhaps an innovation characteristic of Southeast Alaska?

The possibility remains, though, that this is a Tlingit word, or from
another indigenous language.  I'm certainly at a loss for any sensible
Russian original for it!

Dave
--
"Asking a linguist how many languages she knows is like asking a doctor
how many diseases he has!" -- anonymous



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