WPA Historical Records Benton Co. Oregon

[hzenk at PDX.EDU]

Dave,

Good observations.  Your suggested translation makes sense.  The sentence was
given as an example of remembered Jargon actually spoken by Mr. Attwell's
father (who was born at the Cascades in 1855).  It may be that the Jargon
stayed "straighter" in memory than the translation, although the general sense
of Dave's reconstruction (which I think is correct) is certainly apparent.  I
can't be sure at this point how well I caught all the phonetics.  I never got
to make sound recordings with this man, and I scribbled this example into my
notebook while sitting in his living room.  I was there, by the way, to follow
up on questions Dell Hymes had about Native-language words appearing in some of
Mr. Attwell's locally published accounts of Indian lore:  the
English-orthography spellings seemed to suggest some sense of indigenous
phonetics.  Unfortunately, he proved very reticent on the subject (I got only
the tiniest smattering of Jargon from him as well), and the "mission" was not a
notable success.  Mr. Attwell unfortunately is no longer with us, but the books
are still there, and it would make an interesting exercise for someone to check
those words (e.g. as to whether the spellings appear to be original, suggesting
authentic family tradition).

On the matter of "Indian-targettedness" in settler Chinuk Wawa pronunciation, I
did get one very good example (which for some reason had slipped my mind as I
wrote my previous message).  This is another example of Jargon as remembered
from a parent.  The late Henrietta Failing, descendant of one of Portland's
founding families (they arrived in the 1850s; the old Failing School is now the
Northwest Naturopathic College, and as far as I know the Failing Building still
stands downtown), remembers her father saying to her (now I'm doing this from
memory, so it may not be 100% accurate--just accurate enough to make the
point):

klatawa saya (mayka)! 'go away (you)!'

The significant thing here is that "kl" in [klatawa] was spoken with an
unaspirated "k", contrary to ordinary English pronunciation habit (compare
"clock", "clean", etc.).  I am quite sure of this (even though I did not get
this on tape either), as I had to make her repeat several times to make sure it
wasn't a real "barred-l"!  In rapid speech, [kl] can sound acoustically pretty
close.  Henry


> >
> >khEnchi lili mayka guli klUchmEn, given as meaning 'how long has it been
> since
> >you dated a woman?'
>
>
> [Dave here--]  Signs of possible Indian-targetedness that I see in this
> sample are:
>
> (1) "lili" instead of *"laly",
> (2) "guli" perhaps with Chinookan k~g alternation instead of *"cooley",
> (3) "guli klUchmEn" (literally 'run women') with zero preposition rather
> than *"guli kopa klUchmEn".
>
> So, two points for Indian-targeted phonology and one for syntax,
> potentially.  If we can read the sample sentence as "How long have you been
> running after women [with no success]?" then this case is strongest.
>
> -- Dave
>