"Cat" word w/French definite article

[David Robertson]

Good day,

In a paper I'd never seen before ("Chinook Jargon phonology and proposed
etymologies", 1976), Samuel V. Johnson notes of the Chinook
word "lapellah"/"appellah"...and all the other spellings of it...

"The earliest attestations of ROAST do not have the initial ‘l’.  This
appears to be a later development perhaps under the influence of the French
article which is found in so many CJ lexemes.  EO ‘appola’
853COL; ‘ap’pola’ 857SWN."

[The last bit means he found the word in an 1853 source & an 1857 source.]

So here is another case where a word seems to have been used in Chinuk-Wawa
pretty early, then got the French "le" or "la" attached to it.  A remaining
question is why.

--Dave R

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