Pronunciation of "eulachon"

[hzenk at PDX.EDU]

For a fish that is as ubiquitous and well known as it is on the lower Columbia,
it is surprising that almost no non-secondary Chinuk Wawa sources from the area
unambiguously show a word for 'smelt, eulachon'.  Silverstein and Moore in the
Moulton edition of the Lewis and Clark journals cite Lower Chinook u-LXan (L =
barred-l, X = "x" with dot under it) 'dried eulachon'.  u- marks the feminine
singular in Lower Chinook.  E. S. Curtis's The North American Indian (vol. 8,
appendix) has ihl-Hun (H = "h" with a dot over it; omitting other diacritics)
'smelt', suggesting that i-LXan with masculine singular i- was also a valid
Chinookan form.

Harrington in 1942 ambiguously recorded 'ulXAn' (' = glottal mark, X = "x" with
dot under, A = alpha) 'smelt'.  The speaker isn't given, but this word appears
with other citations from a man named Joe Peter, from whom Harrington recorded
Lower Cowlitz (Salishan), Upper Cowlitz (Sahaptin), and Chinuk Wawa.  The
citation is identified as being "Chin.", which considering the likely source
would mean "Chinook" = Chinuk Wawa not Chinookan.  Harrington didn't really
record any Chinookan, except for some rather dubious vocabulary from a Lower
Chehalis and Chinuk Wawa speaker who was of Chinookan descent.  In that
vocabulary there is (taking the liberty of transliterating a la foregoing:)
i'ulXan' 'smelt'.  This probably wouldn't be valid as a Chinookan form, because
(as Dell Hymes has assured me) *i-u- would be impossible Chinookan ('the-
masculine-singular-feminine-singular...').  Evidently, the speaker was
remembering a Chinuk Wawa word (presumably, ulXan), but tacking a Chinookan i-
on it because she had heard many Chinookan words beginning with i-.

Anyway, it looks like ulXan is the lower Columbia CW word for 'smelt', vs.
u-LXan (maybe also i-LXan) Chinookan for the same.  It still troubling not to
find more references.  Henry

Quoting James Crippen <jcrippen at GMAIL.COM>:

> This is only tangentially related to Chinook Jargon, but I think it's
> the best place to ask this question. I'm interested in the  "eulachon"
> fish (Thaleichthys pacificus, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eulachon),
> also occasionally known as the "candlefish". It's the little
> herring-like smelt fish that has cream-colored flesh and is extremely
> oily. It is traditionally processed for its oil which was used in
> trade along "grease trails" up and down the coast. I believe the name
> comes from CJ. But the name for this fish, has a few different
> regional pronunciations in English in the PacNW. In Alaska where I
> grew up it was pronounced "hooligan", as with the British soccer fans.
> I'm curious about its pronunciation elsewhere along the coast, and the
> different ways people write it.
>
> Hayu masi,
> James Crippen
>
> To respond to the CHINOOK list, click 'REPLY ALL'.  To respond privately to
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>

To respond to the CHINOOK list, click 'REPLY ALL'.  To respond privately to the sender of a message, click 'REPLY'.  Hayu masi!