Chinook Jargon origins for ethnonyms used in 20th c. Tlingit.

Thu Sep 25 04:26:50 UTC 2003

I have to dispute Liland.  The -waan and the rest of Tlingit kingoochwaan
almost certainly is straight from Chinook Jargon.  Tlingit speakers can
tell us of a "waan"-shaped allomorph of qwaan.  I haven't seen one, but I
can point out evidence that Tlingit molded other CJ loans into its own
sound system:

1.  dAanaa "money; silver; coin"  < CJ dala
2.  gUt / gwIt "dime"  < CJ bit
3.  sakwnEin "bread; flour" < CJ sEplel / sEplil
4.  nAaw "liquor" < CJ lEm
5.  wasOos "cow" < (Haida? and < )CJ musmus
6.  (?) anahoo "rutabaga" < CJ ~ lEnamu
7.  gawdAan "horse" < CJ kiyutan
8.  gishoo / gushoo "pig" < CJ kushu
9.  nadAakw "table" < CJ latap
10. K'anAaxan "fence" < CJ q'alaXan
11. weenAa (X'E) "(at the) sawmill" < CJ mula
12. kinjichwAan / kingoochwAan "Canadian, British" < CJ kinchoch man /
kingchoch man
13. (?) chAanwaan "Chinese" < English and/or CJ ~ chayna man; present in
numerous NW languages but in widely varying forms indicating varying
sources, e.g. various CJ, various local English varieties/accents.
14. sgOonwaan "student" < CJ skul man
15. wAashdan (KwAan) "America(n)" < CJ *and* English (bastEn man
*and* 'Washington people'), my best guess
16. nakwnEit "pastor" < CJ lEplet / lEplit
17. wanadOo (latIni) "she(e)p(herd)" < CJ lEmEtu (!with metathesis to
mElEtu!)
18. gOon "gold" < CJ and/or English gul /'gold'
19. Iktas "belongings" < CJ iktas (thank you, Nora Marks Dauenhauer, for
this one)
*BUT NOT 20. kanEist "cross" < Russian krest'?
*AND NOT 21. GayEis' hIt "jail", literally "metal house" (I'd first
wondered if it was a loan-translation from CJ skukum haws,
literally "strong house")

Also there is:
22. dAkde (At) "wind, offshore east" ==> CJ (per John Muir, "Travels in
Alaska", where he gives it as tucktay)
23. ch'aak' "eagle (bald)" -- kind of coincidentally resembles CJ
ch'akch'ak -- words for major wildlife often have similar forms throughout
the NW

Additional words:
(a) (waK)dAanaa "(eye)glasses", literally "eye-dollars" (cf. #1 above)
maybe due to their shine and roundness.  I may be mistaken, but wasn't
there a Tlingit chief circa 1870-80 named DAanaawaK, and might that be a
version of this noun?
(b) sakwnEin Eewu "cooked bread" (sic; literal; cf. #3 above), a loan-
translation < CJ paya sEplel
(c) wasOos laa tuXAni "milk" -- compare #5 above
(d) gishoo taayI "bacon" -- compare #8 above
(e) (ganas)wAan "(work)er" for a case where CJ man > a sort
of "characteristic" marker, as with #'s 12-14 above

Mystery word:
(f) wAadishgaa "priest" -- maybe pure Tlingit but the form makes me
think...

Most of the above come from Naish and Storey's noun dictionary (Roy, I
still owe you!!), but I've still to comb through the verb dictionary for
examples.  Comments from knowledgeable people on the Tlingit elements
above would be nice to hear.

Interested linguists can see also that Tlingit does cool things with high
vowels following an originally "labial" CJ consonant, esp. at the start of
words.  There's some nice phonology going on there.

Note that there may be other CJ words in Tlingit.  I was told of one after
my lecture in Juneau, by a Tlingit speaker who heard my samples of CJ &
recognized a word her grandma had always used.  She never realized it
wasn't Tlingit till then.  The published materials I've gotten access to
are pretty limited.

(And I still need to find copies of the Haida dictionary etc.!  I'm making
a list of CJ words in Haida in order to check the idea of CJ's having
spread from Haidas to Tlingits, or something.)

Good night.

--Dave

On Thu, 25 Sep 2003 01:44:14 +0000, Ros' Haruo <lilandbr at HOTMAIL.COM>
wrote:

>>From: Mitchell Roy <roy.mitchell at SEALASKA.COM>
>>Reply-To: Mitchell Roy <roy.mitchell at SEALASKA.COM>
>>To: CHINOOK at LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG
>>Subject: Chinook Jargon origins for ethnonyms used in 20th c. Tlingit.
>>Date: Wed, 24 Sep 2003 10:41:15 -0800
>>
>>Chinook Jargon origins for ethnonyms used in 20th century Tlingit.
>>
>>It seems to me that at least two of the modern Tlingit words for
foreigners
>>come from Chinook Jargon.
>>
>>It has been said that the Tlingit 'kingjichwáan' comes from "King George
>>One" which cannot possibly be true on the face of it.  First off, no
>>English
>>king would ever be called King such-and-such One, nor King such-and-such
>>the
>>First, while reigning.  (They are only called "the first" after another
>>king
>>with the same name has taken the throne.)  And of course, in English,
King
>>George the First would not be called King George One, even during the
>>reigns
>>of George the Second or George the Third.
>
>But of course "One" here *could* be the common noun "one". Highly
>implausible, but possible.
>
>>The clincher, of course, is to see that the '-waan' likely comes from
>>English>Chinook Jargon 'man' which comes out precisely as 'waan' in
Tlingit
>>phonology.
>
>Perhaps a clinchier clincher is the fact that it was precisely George III,
>not George I, who lent his name to all British North Americans, n'est-ce
>pas? On the other hand, isn't it possible that "waan" here is an allomorph
>of "k_waan" as in the USonym? A K-type consonant can easily lose itself in
>an abutting Ch-type sequence, I think. Of course this doesn't mean the
>Tlingit terms are not of CJ origin, only that maybe the -(k_)waan part
>isn't. I think it's highly likely that the "King George" and "Boston"
parts
>are of CJ (or NJ) origin, but I'm less convinced about that final
syllable.
>
>>C.J. for Englishman -- king chautsh man (Thomas)
>>Tlingit for Englishman/Canadian -- kingjichwáan / kingoochwáan
>>
>>C.J. for USAmerican -- boston man
>>Tlingit for USAmerican/Whiteman -- wáashdan kwaan
>>   (with influence of Tlingit word 'kwaan' = 'tribe' or 'nation')
>>
>>The Tlingit for "Chinese" looks suspiciously C.J.-able:  Cháanwaan; does
>>anyone have a C.J. term for Chinese man?
>
>Sainaman? (i.e. Saynaman)
>
>>Robert:  Do you have a list of Tlingit words that are likely borrowings
>>from
>>C.J.?
>>
>>Roy
>>
>>Roy Mitchell
>>Sociolinguist
>>Sealaska Heritage Institute
>>One Sealaska Plaza, Suite 201
>>Juneau, Alaska 99801
>>http://www.sealaskaheritage.org
>>907.586.9272
>>Gunalchéesh         Háw'aa        'Doyck-shin
>>
>
>lilEnd
>
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