Quoted speech...don't talk flowery

[David Robertson]

How to quote someone else's words in Jargon?  There's no trick to it, but 
we haven't talked about this language function much.  So here's an example 
from Shuswap country:

"Luisa wawa, 
LOUISA SAY
Louisa says, 

'Naika ilo ikta mamuk pi ukuk man tiki mamuk skukum haws naika.' 
I NOT THING DO BUT THAT MAN WANT MAKE STRONG BUILDING ME
'I didn't do anything, but that man wants to put me in jail.'

Luisa wawa kakwa. 
LOUISA SAY THUS
That's what Louisa says.

Luisa wik saia skukum haws."  
LOUISA NOT FAR STRONG BUILDING
Louisa almost got thrown in prison.

I supplied the punctuation because these shorthand letters hardly use any.  
That's one reason why quoted speech is an interesting subject: It's hard to 
identify it in these letters, unless you think hard about how to divide the 
words you see into phrases & clauses & stuff.  (Think of the Schoolhouse 
Rock song "Conjunction Junction.")

A few notes:

There's less use of repeated (resumptive) pronouns in this flavour of 
Jargon than you see in some areas, Grand Ronde for example.  So we don't 
find "Luisa iaka wawa" [literally Louisa she says], or "ukuk man iaka tiki" 
[that man he wants].  

Good style in the shorthand letters calls for lots of repeated information, 
though.  So we find the quote introduced with "Louisa says" and followed 
by "That's what she says."  

"Skukum haws" is either a noun, "prison," or a patient-oriented verb, "to 
get imprisoned."  It depends on how you use it.  Both times it's used here, 
it's clearly a verb.  See why?  I don't think we're being told that Louisa 
was almost a jail...!  (It's really unlikely the writer, a respected 
religious official, was trying to say this woman was "built like a 
brick...house.")  And if the writer intended the slightly less metaphorical 
meaning, that she was "not far from the jail," the normal way to say that 
would be to throw in the preposition: "wik saia KOPA skukum haws."  When 
Louisa says the man wants to "mamuk skukum haws," that's a regular old 
Jargon causative verb: cause to be imprisoned = put someone in jail.  

About metaphorical stuff: Don't go looking for it.  Most people, speakers 
of any language, are very very un-literary when they're writing notes to 
each other.  My experience in translating the shorthand letters is that 
I'll only confuse myself more if I start looking for a metaphorical meaning 
in some expression that I have trouble translating.  That's what I did to 
myself with that "nim kopa lisak" that was mentioned the other day...I 
forgot the simple fact that the guy was just talking about writing a letter 
to someone, so lisak (bag) = envelope.  By ignoring this common sense, I 
got so confused that I didn't understand the sentence for 2 years!  

I'm reminded of the person who (with some justification) wrote 
exasperatedly to me once about people who just want to "write haiku in 
Chinook."  The point is well taken: Even though a lot of Jargon looks to 
have been created by metaphorical extensions of meanings, like "tanas man" 
[little man] for "boy," that doesn't mean we can now use metaphor 
constantly in Jargon.  It's not that Jargon is unsuited for abstract 
imagery.  Instead, flowery talk isn't a big part of Jargon grammar or 
culture--so far--, and the majority of humans speak all of their languages 
in a mostly straightforward way.  

We irritating Bostons give advice to each other that sums it up: KISS (Keep 
It Simple, Stupid).  We irritating Bostons have violated that rule plenty 
when we've talked Jargon.  Look at the misunderstandings we've caused at 
treaty gatherings.  

Pi klunas wik drit naika komtaks.  

--Dave R

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