/pLEX/ is Jargon?

[hzenk at PDX.EDU]

-pLEX is recorded in Wasco as 'medicine'.  Jacobs also records Clackamas -blEX
'medicine, poison'.  The Demers dictionary has Chinuk Wawa optlaH (H for the
"h" with its right leg lopped off) 'liniment' (the o- suggests that this is a
feminine noun, while the Wasco and Clackamas citations all appear with the
masculine prefix i-; this suggests that the stem could have had different
meanings in Chinookan depending on its gender prefix).  And finally, Dale
Kinkade has Upper Chehalis plEX with the following translation and note: 
"aphrodisiac, Spanish fly, love medicine, love charm; possibly a loan from
Chinook, via Chinook Jargon eptlach."  Dale got the latter ("eptlach") from S.
V. Johnson I believe, who in turn got it from one of Gill's dictionaries. 
Where Gill pulled it out of I've never been able to trace:  he labels the item
"O.C" = Old Chinook, that is, not Chinook Jargon at all.  Henry

Quoting David Robertson <ddr11 at COLUMBIA.EDU>:

> Hi, could someone help me?
>
> Apparently M. Dale Kinkade suggested that the Nxa'amxcin or Moses-Columbia
> Salish word /pLEX/ 'Indian dope, love medicine' might have come from Chinuk
> Wawa.
>
> (L = slurpy l, E = schwa, X = back x.)
>
> This is noted as a personal communication from Dale in Ewa Czaykowska-
> Higgins and Marie Louise Willett's 1997 paper "Simple Syllables in
> Nxa'amxcin", IJAL 63(3):385-411.
>
> Do any of you recognize this word?
>
> --Dave R
>
> To respond to the CHINOOK list, click 'REPLY ALL'.  To respond privately to
> the sender of a message, click 'REPLY'.  Hayu masi!
>
>

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