Parlez-vous Haisla?

[David Robertson]

So this Haisla dictionary of sorts* has two different roots for 'Chinook
Jargon.'

The first is /cNukw wawa/ 'to speak Chinook (borrowing from Chinook
Jargon).'  The capital N here means a syllabic /n/.

The second is /zNukw/ 'Chinook,' a 'borrowed word of unknown origin.'
Derivatives listed are /zNugwk'ala/ and /zNuk'wala/.

Why the first is considered a clear borrowing from CJ, while the second is
not, intrigues me.  The first might be a sample of how a Haisla speaker
would pronounce CJ, equivalent to dropping the phrase 'parlez-vous
francais?' into conversation in English.  (Think of the Billy Joel song
with the lyric '...now you parlez-vous francais.')  It could be
effectively in quotation marks, a sign that the Haisla consultant might
have known more than a minimum of Jargon.

The second, then, might be the actual borrowing from CJ.  It sure looks
nativized to Haisla's sound system.  As to the source, I'm inclined to
think it could just be from Chinook Jargon.  This is no more mysterious
than any other nativized loanword in North Wakashan languages:  Kwak'wala
has /dzamba/ for 'jeans,' pretty different from its ultimate English
source 'jumper(s)' but still identifiable.

Additionally interesting, the dictionary compilers leave the word(s)
for 'Chinook' out of their list of roots in Haisla -- even though it now
behaves as a native Haisla root.  Wonder what motivated that choice.  I
notice they made the same choice regarding a word for 'Japanese' and one
for 'church.'

The compilers are also the authors of the published 'North Wakashan
Comparative Root List;' that book also leaves out borrowed words.  In the
latter case it might seem a more justifiable decision.  (Comparative root
lists usually are connected with the reconstruction of a
prehistoric 'proto-' stage of a language family.)  But the same borrowed
roots, in most cases, entered each North Wakashan language at about the
same historical moment, and have a shared phonological shape.

For the use of community members who use or are learning these languages,
it would probably be helpful to include 'Japanese,' 'church,'
and 'Chinook' in the root-list of Haisla.  But apparently a lot of the
materials on Northwest languages aren't for community consumption.

--Dave R.

*Lincoln, Neville J. and John C. Rath.  1986.  Phonology, Dictionary and
Listing of Roots and Lexical Derivates of the Haisla Language of Kitlope
and Kitimaat, BC.  (2 vols.)  Ottawa:  Canadian Museum of Civilization.
(Mercury Series, Canadian Ethnology Service Paper no. 103.)