Folk etymologies

[Scott Tyler]

LaXayam naika sick friends,

These are fun and I am doing my best to with hold my natural impulse to take silly folk etymology to the extreme.
But I do recall some funnies from my youth and childhood. 
At Neah Bay we used to have open range for so called domestic cattle and horses.  These critters could roam town tipping over 
garbage cans looking for tasty tidbits of lettuce and even paper bags to chew on. They would sometimes get run over by cars---except the 
car and the cow or horse would both die when such an accident occured.  Often, when others asked the question "How come?"
Our answer as a kid from the "Bay Area" (i.e. Neah Bay area) was simply, "Cow humm."

alta nika sick hihi
anah crawl-a-way 
haw-kwatl Ay joke so!
Ayam not hayyon hayak either!
your not-so tipso Siks,

scott/ooshtaqi
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Francisc Czobor 
  To: CHINOOK at listserv.linguistlist.org 
  Sent: Monday, April 10, 2006 8:11 AM
  Subject: Folk etymologies


  Clark, how are you !
   
  Very interesting the folk etymologies that where circulating in order to explain the origin of some CW word.
   
  They seem to prove that some people had the impression that CW was a sort of corrupted mixture of English and French and tried to expalin it as such.
   
  Beside classics like "Clark how are you" for klahowya [LaXayEm], or "Clatter away" for klatawa [Latwa], many other specimens are to be found in handwritten side notes in the copy of the first edition of Hibben's "Dictionary of the Chinook jargon" that was scanned at Early Canadiana Online (http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/PageView/37625/0002).
  Some examples of such folk etymologies for words that are actually from Native languages:
   
  "Oh no!" for Anah [aná] (exclamation denoting pain, displeasure or depreciation); 
   
  Chuck [cEqw], water, is explained as "the noise the streams make"; 
   
  "Chuck in, out" for Chukkin [tsEkEn], to kick; 
   
  "Canard" for Ehkahnam [ikanEm], tale or story
   
  "Lend a hand" for Elahan [ilihan, ilan], aid, assistance; 
   
  "Unlock" for Hahlakl [XalaqL], wide, open; 
   
  "Alone" for Halo [hilu], none, absent; 
   
  "How could?" for Howkwutl [XawqwEL], inability; 
   
  "Hullo!" for Hullel, to shake; 
   
  "Hurrah" for Hwah [xwa], exclamation of surprise or admiration; 
   
  "Hie on!" for Hyak [ayaq], swift, fast, quickly, hurry; 
   
  "Upset" for Ipsoot [ipsut], to hide; 
   
  "Equal" for Kahkwa [khakwa], like, similar to, equal with; 
   
  "Clear" for Klah [LaX], free or clean from; 
   
  "Acquaintance" for Kumtuks [kEmtEks], to know, understand, be acquainted with; 
   
  "Quack-quack" for Kwehkweh, mallard duck; 
   
  Also some French words, although recognized as being of French origin, are given unusual explanations:
   
  "La mère" for Lammieh [lamiyay], old woman, usually derived from "la vieille"; 
   
  "La plage" for Laplash, board, usually derived from "la planche". 
   
  Alta niker clatter away,
   
  Francisc
   


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