Indian sounds in Kamloops Wawa writing (fwd from A. Grant)

[David Robertson]

Naika siks,

One more shorthand word where Le Jeune appears to use a letter for
an "Indian sound":  It's viewable on Cleven's website along with the
others mentioned.  It's a scan of the word <ulkat> (meaning 'long).

Le Jeune's spelling here is a little unclear, and could be read as the
shorthand letters yu-l-k'-a-t or else yu-lh-k-a-t.

"K'" is the sort of sound discussed previously; see below.  Here it's
probably not intended to stand for a popping ejective sound, but for a
back "q" sound.

"Lh" is the voiceless L that's characteristic of Northwest indigenous
languages.  It's Le Jeune's shorthand "L" with a tick by the side.

In either case, Le Jeune was documenting an "Indian" pronunciation of
Chinook Jargon, in this case from the Kamloops region.  Compare the Indian
pronunciation /yulhqat/ from elsewhere.

My opinion is that this is not unusual at all, and that Chinook Jargon
everywhere was oriented toward an Indian model.  Some speakers were less
perceptive of the features of that model, and some folks weren't very good
at following that model in any case--but there really was a
general "right" way to talk Chinook, which applied to pronunciation as
well as to grammar.  (Remember the numerous references by writers in the
past to the need to make gargling / sputtering / strangling / guttural
sounds in order to pronounce Jargon correctly!)

Cheers,

--Dave R.


On Sat, 11 Sep 2004 14:01:45 -0400, David Robertson <ddr11 at COLUMBIA.EDU>
wrote:

>>>> David Robertson <ddr11 at COLUMBIA.EDU> 11/09/2004 05:22:47 >>>
>I just had a glance at a page that Mike Cleven's updated on his
>Chinook
>website.  (Google Alert is a wonderful service).
>
>Comparing the shorthand spellings of a number of words, probably from
>Le
>Jeune's 1924 vocabulary, I see a number that are written with a
>special
>letter Le Jeune invented to spell Indian sounds.  Either k' or q', or
>their "rounded" versions k'w or q'w, can be spelled with this letter.
>(It's his shorthand "k" letter with a little tick on the side.)
>
>Sure enough, all of these shorthand forms correspond to known Indian
>pronunciations from Oregon & elsewhere.  Here's a list.
>
>LJ: kolan  Oregon: q'wElan
>LJ: kwaten Oregon: k'watin
>LJ: kho    Oregon: q'u'
>LJ: khow   Oregon: k'aw
>LJ: khell  Oregon: q'El
>
>So Le Jeune was noticing these "ejective" sounds in the Chinook spoken
>by
>people in BC.  This is among the earliest evidence we have of a
>clearly
>Indian sound-system in CJ from that region.

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