French-Chinook list

[Mike Cleven]

janilta wrote:
> Hello,
>
> Hmm, no idea for this 'empouillé' (=> enpooy) (perhaps actually
> 'epouiller' ie 'to take away the lice' ??), nor for (la main =>
> leh'ma/la mes-tir; la médecine => la-met-sin /) 'la-mes-tir'...
> ab-ba =>"eh bien"; quite likely, in the usual Fr. pronunciation, the 'i'
> is mute thus more like 'e-ben'.

Hmmmm.  There's at least a consonantal congruity (to coin a term)
between enpooy and inapoo, which is indeed the word for louse/lice;
sopena inapoo (jumping "louse") is a flea.  The page I got this from
didn't say which region of the Skookum Illahee this list of usages came
from, but ya hafta wonder if there's any connection between enpooy and
inapoo given the related context.

What _could_ "la mes-tir" come from; divorcing it from "hand" and
"medicine" altogether, is there any French word you can think of that's
similar.  Has "la mestir" hasn't shown up in any other wordlist - ??

> I think we discussed already the following (double origin) :
> mousquet => mooskeh (usually "musket");

On the subject of guns I've begun to wonder about the usual assignment
of kalapeen/carabine to French origin.  Part of the reason is I was
talking to some of the young Russian pizza delivery guys who hang out at
my regular morning Starbucks yesterday, and sure enough "karabin" is a
Russian word; the other part of the reason is that Russian rifles were
already in evidence in the BC Interior at the time of Simon Fraser's
trip down the river that came to bear his name, as well as of course
along the coast.  The Boston prononciation/parallel word here is
"carbine" - I'm not sure about Kingchauch; point is the French (and
French goods) weren't involved in the coastal trade (which was how the
BC Interior got their rifles; from trade with the coast).  Just a
speculation overall, but we automatically assign this word to French
without considering the possible Russian option.  Of course "carabine"
probably came to Russian _from_ French, but that's a slightly different
story.  Anyone have any idea as to which area/year it first appeared in?


  (je) suppose => se-spoze (spose)
> ('suppose/supposons que' may begin a sentence, 'je' is useless here).

Maybe a Canadianism/voyageurism to retain the 'je', perhaps; sounds
kinda familiar......

>
> Regards, Yann
>
>
>



--
Mike Cleven
http://www.cayoosh.net (Bridge River Lillooet history)
http://www.hiyu.net (Chinook Jargon phrasebook/history)