Note on "Note on the Chinook Jargon"

[David D. Robertson]

Hi, Colin,

--Qhanchi-hayu shanti uk Franz Boas yaka mamuk-t'sEm?
--Lhun-talhlam pi stuxtkin (38) shanti.

You can ask your library to get you a copy of his article, "Chinook
Songs," from the Journal of American Folk-Lore volume 1, pages 220-26
(1888).  They may have to interlibrary-loan it, so it could take several
days.

I've pulled out my own copy of this original article, and it appears to me
that Boas actually did revise the songs and their translations a bit for
the later article I mentioned.

--Dave R.


On Mon, 8 Dec 2003 09:53:10 -0800, Bruce, Colin
<Colin.Bruce at FRASERHEALTH.CA> wrote:

>How many songs did Boas record?
>
> -----Original Message-----
>From:  David D. Robertson [mailto:ddr11 at COLUMBIA.EDU]
>Sent: Thursday, December 04, 2003 8:22 PM
>To: CHINOOK at LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG
>Subject: Note on "Note on the Chinook Jargon"
>
>In another free moment today I got to go back over Franz Boas' 1933 "Note
>on the Chinook Jargon" (published in Language 9:208-213).
>
>When Boas presents selected Jargon songs in this article, the Jargon is
>good but in some cases I wonder about the English translations he gives.
>For example,
>
>/Cultus kopa nika
>     Spose mika mahsh nika.
>Hiyu "puti boys" cooley kopa town;
>     Alki weght nika iskum.
>Wake kull kopa nika./
>
>(Boas translates this:
>
>'I don't care
>     If you desert me.
>Many pretty boys walk in town;
>     Soon (one will) take me again.
>It is not hard on me.')
>
>It's not for me to question Boas' notably gifted ear, but I would have
>translated this as:
>
>"I don't care
>     If you leave me.
>There are lots of pretty boys around town;
>     I'll get another one.
>It's easy for me!"
>
>I also note Boas translates klonass as 'I don't know,' while I understand
>the word more as a rhetorical "who knows / God knows."  He also gives
>tumtum a double translation 'heart' and 'feel' in the same phrase, but
>read this line:
>
>/Klonass kahta nika tumtum/
>
>('I don't know how my heart feels')
>
>I might read this more like "God knows how (bad) I feel."
>
>A last quick point -- when Boas finds wawa klahowya in a song, he
>translates it with 'say goodbye':
>
>1: /Kwanisum nika tikegh nanich mika;
>Alki nika wawa klahowya/
>
>('Always I wish to see you;
>Soon I say good-bye')
>
>2: /Hyas klahowya
>Konamokst nika oleman
>Kopa Biktoli;
>Halo klaksta
>Wawa klahowya nesika
>Kopa Biktoli/
>
>('Very unhappy (I was)
>With my wife
>In Victoria;
>Nobody
>Said good-bye to us
>In Victoria.')
>
>For these two bits, I might have given
>
>1: "I always want to see you;
>Then I'll say hello to you."
>
>and
>
>2: "How miserable
>My husband (!) and I are
>In Victoria;
>Nobody
>Says hello to us
>In Victoria."
>
>If I remember correctly from Boas' earlier article on the same bunch of
>songs, they were recorded *from women* while Boas was *in Victoria*.
>
>A separate note on the Tsimshian CJ story that Boas includes in his
>article:  It's interesting to see the narrator pronouncing kakwa 'so'
>as /kaka/, and yakwa 'here' as /yaka/, the same as he pronounced
yaka 'he'.
>
>--Dave R.