Chinook robin

[hzenk at PDX.EDU]

>   robin = pil koaten. I think this is in fact pil k'watin "red belly", a name
> very suitable for this bird (obviously in this case the American robin -
> Turdus migratorius, and not the European robin - Erithacus rubecula).
>   I wonder where took Shaw this bird name from. He took it obviously from
> some other source, because it is not his style (Shaw-style would be pil
> yakwahtin).

Shaw got this from a note by Boas in Science, March 4, 1892 (p. 129), titled
"the Chinook Jargon."  Here Boas talks about Jargon up and down the Northwest
Coast and some of the regional differences.  On the Columbia R. and Shoalwater
Bay he says he found some few words not recorded by Hale and Gibbs, including
(among others) "robin, pil k'oaten (= red belly)" (k'oaten has "e" with a
length bar and stress; ' is a hook, evidently the same as the modern sign for
an ejective).  The spelling matches with Shaw's, except I don't think Shaw knew
anything about ejectives.  As far as this being "really in use," well, why
wouldn't anyone using Jargon hesitate to use it?  Henry

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