tyee / tia

[Alan H. Hartley]

Tom,

> If we assume that "tia" was an attempt to spell a word pronounced
> something like [taye:], then this probably was a Chinookan pronunciation
> of tayi.  In Lower Chinook (and also in other varieties of Chinookan? I
> forget) the phoneme /i/ often tended to get lowered and lengthened to
> [e:] when it was stressed. The accute accent over the a in tia makes
> this seem even more likely.

Thanks! That seems a very plausible explanation. I think your assumption
of [taye:] is correct: Lewis spells the word as "tia" consistently (at
least 3 times.)

Alan