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

[David Robertson]

Anthony,

I'm not sure how directly Le Jeune participated in the tradition of writing
Chinook that goes back to Blanchet/Demers/St Onge.  (For those who want to
be reminded, those were the guys who used letters "h" and "k" with parts
cut off of 'em, to show sounds like /x/ and /k'/.)

For one thing, I haven't yet seen much indication that Bishop Durieu's
original "flying sheets", which Le Jeune, Chirouse & a few others studied
Chinook from while sailing over from Le Havre, France, used an alphabet
like Blanchet's.  When Le Jeune reproduced those original word lists in his
1924 "Chinook Rudiments" book, he used what was already his own usual way
of writing (other than shorthand).  For example, he wrote consonants
like /x/ as <h'>, and often wrote sounds like /k'/ or /q'/ as <kr>; he
wrote vowels like /u/ and /i/ with double letters <ou/oo> and <ee>.

That second technique goes back at least a couple of generations before Le
Jeune, among French-speakers in the Pacific Northwest.  Pandosy used <kr>,
<pr>, and so on for the ejective/popping sounds in Yakama in the late
1830s.  Franchere--around 1810?--also used "R" to show indigenous sounds.
This tradition, though, doesn't show up in Blanchet & company's way of
writing Chinook, wikna?

We do know that Le Jeune corresponded quite a bit with Father St Onge, who
in fact talked in those letters about comparisons & contrasts between BC
Jargon circa 1895 and the Oregon Chinook he knew from decades earlier.
(Interestingly there are a number of features in that Chinook which remain
characteristic of Grand Ronde Jargon.)

My best guess is that Le Jeune's *shorthand* alphabet may have been
influenced by contact with St Onge, and through St Onge to the Blanchet /
Demers tradition: I say that because Le Jeune's shorthand leaned quite a
bit toward the one-sound, one-symbol idea, as those guys did.  (For example
his vowels, and even diphthong combinations of 2 or more vowels, were
written with single symbols.)  But Le Jeune's *Roman* (English or French-
style) writing of Chinook looks a lot more like an even earlier, French-
influenced alphabet.

A last note, branching to a broader topic: The above applies mostly to
Oblates (members of the Oblates of Mary Immaculate).  Missionary priests,
including French-speaking ones, in the Northwest who belonged to other
orders & especially the Jesuits, tended to follow a different tradition of
writing Indian languages.  The "Jesuit" way differs for example in using
<g> for the /x/-type sounds, barred-L for the voiceless L, and <z> for
the "ts" sounds.  Popping/ejective sounds weren't writen any differently
from the non-popping sounds.  Vowels were given generally Italian values.

The work that the Jesuits did was known to some of the Oblates (and vice
versa); one small sign of this is Le Jeune's use of his shorthand symbol
symbol that (normally) stood for "ts" as (sometimes) the sound /z/, a nice
reversal of the Jesuit idea!

So there are 3 broad traditions to be aware of, just among the French-
speaking CJ writers: An early general one that used "R", an Oblate one that
aimed to use one symbol for one sound, and the Jesuit one with similar
goals but different methods.  Not all writers fit neatly into any one of
these 3, for example Adrien-Gabriel Morice wrote Carrier in an
idiosyncratic Roman alphabet & in beautifully sensible syllabic symbols,
but then again he was sort of a renegade.

Klahawiam naika,

--Dave R


Kopa Sat, 11 Sep 2004 14:01:45 -0400, Anthony Grant yaka mamuk tsim:

>[forwarded from Anthony Grant by Dave R:]
>
>Dave, Mike et al:
>
>The original edition of Blanchet and St Onge used a similar kind of
>symbol of the glottalised and uvularised velars.  (Thanks to Sally
>Thomason for forwarding me a copy of that booklet many moons ago.)  I
>assume LeJeune was hooked into that orthographical tradition in some
>way?
>
>Anthony

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