Baird, Dennis W. (ed.) "faithful to their Tribe & friends: Samuel Black's 1829 Fort Nez Perces Report"

[Dave Robertson]

(Moscow:  University of Idaho Library, 2000)

No, the title does not have initial capitalization.

Page 83:  "The Waylet or Cayouse have altogeather a different Language, but there appears many Words borrowed from the other language (Willa Walla &c) or the Willa Walla &c from them; creeping into their Dialects imperceptibly; by the by I have to remark that we are not sure of having the real Cayouse Language, they perhaps have _Patois_, they communicate, besides what we do, pickup is often from underlings about their Camps, not wishing to trouble themselves too much...from the Dalls to the Sea its Chinook they Talk."

The 'Chinook' mentioned here would seem to mean the Chinookan languages, and not Jargon; the geographical and linguistic description stands at the end of a pretty complete cataloging of peoples, territories and languages of the Inland NW as well as the 'Shasty' or 'Streaked Faces' on the Klamath River.  [All spellings sic.]

The note on a possible non-native-directed (not 'real') variety of the Cayuse language reflects real astuteness on the part of this British observer, who mentions in the same passage his acquaintance with both Cree [Algonquian] and 'Chipewean' [Athabaskan], and includes in his report a quite extensive trilingual vocabulary, of 'Willa Walla' and 'Nez Perces' [both Sahaptian] and 'Cayouse', the latter affiliated perhaps with Molale--has this question or the larger Penutian family idea been worked out satisfactorily?

Aren't there other mentions in early records of the Cayuse people's reluctance to make their language known to outsiders?  What, I wonder, is known or surmised of the variety that was recorded at that time?  Might it have been a contact variety?

Here's more material you can view on the web:
http://www.umatilla.nsn.us/aoki.html

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



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