Targeting Indian syntax & phonology ... was ... Re: WPA Historical Records Benton Co. Oregon

[David D. Robertson]

On Sat, 13 Jul 2002 21:13:55 -0700, hzenk at PDX.EDU wrote:

>what would have been really great are some samples
>(preferably sound recordings) to give us an idea of what these old
settlers'
>Chinuk Wawa was really like.

[Dave adds] --with which I heartily agree.  A fascinating aspect of the
Jargon's career among scholars is that they, like those who used CJ as a
matter of course in their lives, made it a utilitarian vehicle, getting
what they could from it for their own purposes.  Anthropologists and
linguists for much of the 20th century tended to pay attention to the
Jargon only to the extent that it could further their own efforts at
documenting supposedly vanishing Indian cultures.  The White and other non-
indigenous speakers of Jargon did go largely unstudied.  Dan Macey's visit
to the Chinuk Lu7lu a couple of years ago was a rewarding glimpse into the
latter subset of CJ speakers.]

A reminiscence like Elizabeth King Wells:
>
>>They would get up and tell me in Chinook, "wa wa" how far they had
>> come and how tired they were and how hungry. I learned to talk their
>> language, could talk it as well as the English. A Klickitat named Alpia
>> married a Salt-Chuck wife. He would make yearly visits to her people out
on
>> the coast. When he came past my house he would walk right in and insist
on
>> shaking hands with every one, saying "All my tillicums", meaning friends.
>>
>
>sure makes it sound like she learned her Chinuk Wawa from the Indians.
What
>I've never been able to get clear on is the extent to which settlers
actually
>had an Indian target phonology, as Thomason's argument might lead one to
>predict.

[Dave again:]  I'd also like to know the extent of settlers' targeting of
Indian *syntax*.  It seems clear that various non-Indians indeed tried to
replicate the Indian sounds in CJ, and had varying skills in producing
those sounds, viz. Father Le Jeune at Kamloops (whose alphabet for the
Jargon included a voiceless lateral fricative and a voiceless velar/uvular
ejective stop, although he didn't list these symbols in his instructional
charts for his shorthand).  As has been remarked upon in this discussion
group several times, though, some folks also appear to have spoken a Jargon
that was grammatically and idiomatically closer to that of (some) Indians.
Presumably this is a strong sign that they were targeting the latter, since
without a Native model it would be bizarre for, say, an English-speaker to
spontaneously construct a 'good Jargon' phrase like

"Kloshe mika" (literally "good you")

for "You're good," rather than non-standard Jargon (guidelines for which
are to be found in any and all of the numerous popular books on the
language)

"Mika kloshe" or "Mika mitlite kloshe" (lit. "you exist/be-located good"),
which follow native English word-order more closely.

Of course, as Henry points out, literacy may have had a unique effect on
non-Indians' learning of Jargon.  The existence of a quasi-standardized
English-targeted spelling system, and of numerous published popular guides
to CJ, make us consider this factor.  Not all people will have learned
Jargon from the same sources, so we'll have to bear many possibilities in
mind simultaneously.

--Dave R.