Tsimshian <==> Chinookan (fwd from D. Hymes)

[David D. Robertson]

Subject:    Re: Tsimshian <==> Chinookan (fwd from C. Bruce/C. Roth)
  Date:    Mon, 12 May 2003 15:01 EST
  From:    Dell Hymes <dhymes at adelphia.net>
  To:    "David D. Robertson" <ddr11 at columbia.edu>
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A few years ago a linguist in Canada investigated the relationship of
Tsimshian
and Chinookan, expecting to show that there was no merit to the claim.
She later told me that to her surprise she find merit indeed.
I'm sorry that I can't bring her name forward at the moment.
She is a member of the faculty of one of the colleges in eastern Canada

If some one has an address for Daythal Kendall, who wrote a dissertation on
Takelma, but is not now at a university, he would be able to connect
someone with her.


>Subject:    Re: Simalgyax
>   Date:    Mon, 12 May 2003 7:35 EST
>   From:    cbruce at smartline.com.au
>   To:    "David D. Robertson" <ddr11 at columbia.edu>
>  « Previous  |  Next »
>
>
>
>
>
>Just a bit more on my Simalgyax question.  Dr. Roth of the Tsimshian list
>had a similar take some of
>the comments on the chinook list. I just thought I'd forward them on as
>they contain extra detail.
>
>Christopher Roth <cfroth at EARTHLINK.NET>@LIST.UNM.EDU> on 12-05-2003
19:59:55
>
>Please respond to Tsimshian language discussion list <TSIMSHIAN_LANGUAGE-
>L at LIST.UNM.EDU>
>
>Sent by:  Tsimshian language discussion list <TSIMSHIAN_LANGUAGE-
>L at LIST.UNM.EDU>
>
>As for the idea that Tsimshian and Chinookan are related -- presumably the
>old idea that Tsimshian is Penutian -- I'm not skeptical so much because
>I've really pursued the question but because I am generally wary of ancient
>genetic relationships postulated on the basis of vocabulary items in
>contemporary languages.  This is the trap that Joseph Greenberg fell into
in
>"Languages of the Americas."  What is needed instead is the careful
>reconstruction of proto-languages of established families such as
Sahaptian,
>Tsimshianic, etc.  Edward Sapir long ago suggested Tsimshian might be
>Penutian, and that assumption was later undermined, but Marie-Lucie
Tarpent,
>who works on Nisga'a and Southern Tsimshian, has lately come around to
>agreeing with Sapir again.  Meanwhile, Michael Silverstein, who has worked
>on Chinookan for some decades now, feels that Sapir's intuition was
>incorrect (this is what he told me last time we discussed it) and that
>similarities between Tsimshianic and Chinookan were due to similarities
that
>arise wherever there is split ergativity, which both languages have.  So,
>it's a hot debate, but, wherever you come down on it, we should not be
>comparing Chinookan and Tsimshian -- let alone Tsimshian and Chinook
Jargon!
>-- but instead should be comparing proto-Tsimshianic to proto-Chinookan,
>proto-Sahaptian, proto-Penutian, etc.  That is a long painstaking process
>and one which has not been undertaken completely.  I believe that Tarpent's
>work on this is mostly not published, but I do refer anyone to her article
>"Tsimshianic and Penutian: Problems, Methods, Results, and Implications,"
>International Journal of American Linguistics 63(1) (1997):65-112.
>
>CJ is one of the worst ways to get at Chinookan proper, since CJ's lexical
>sources are so diffuse and since Chinookan itself has been so well
>documented by Jacobs, Boas, Sapir, French, Silverstein, Hymes, et al.  It's
>one of the best documented near-extinct languages.
>
>As for the mama/papa universals, the funny thing about them is they're so
>widespread that common genetic origin can't be what's going on.  Darned if
I
>DO know what's going on, though.  I refer people to Roman Jakobson, "Why
>'Mama' and 'Papa'?," in Perspectives in Psychological Theory, ed. by B.
>Kaplan and S. Wapner (1960), N.Y., International Universities Press.  Also:
>Edmund Leach, "More about 'Mama' and 'Papa'," in Rethinking Kinship and
>Marriage, ed. by Rodney Needham (1971), London, Tavistock.
>
>Hope that helps.  Feel free to copy this into the CJ list if there's a
>debate there on this.
>
>Chris Roth