"Eulachon" among the Kwakwaka'wakw

[James Crippen]

On 10/1/06, Terry Glavin <terry.glavin at gmail.com> wrote:
>  Along the Lower Fraser, spelling varies - oolichan, eulachon, oolichen, etc
> - and among fishermen is almost exclusively pronounced "hooligan".

Masi for all the insightful explanations and references. It seems that
my innocuous question about English pronunciation stirred the pot full
of oil and brought many interesting things to the surface... I wish I
could spend the time reading the various writings you've all cited but
I'm too busy gathering data for a paper on ergativity in Tlingit right
now. But I'll certainly add them to my list!

So here are the generalizations I've put together so far, feel free to
correct or add to them. In Oregon (on the river and the coast) and in
Washington (both the outer coast and in Puget Sound, I assume) it
seems to be pronounced in English as "oo-lih-kun" with the stress on
the "oo" and a voiceless "k" on the last syllable. Since this is
nominally English I expect that the initial "oo" has an optional
glottal stop preceding it, perhaps required for some people (as I
would). It's pronounced "hoo-lih-gun" with stressed "hoo" and voiced
"g" along the Lower Fraser (and interior BC?) and throughout Southeast
Alaska. However on Vancouver Island (and perhaps along the mainland
coast as well?) it's pronounced "oo-li-kun" as is typical further to
the south.

I'm still curious about the pronunciation on the west coast from north
of Vancouver Island up to the Alaskan border. Anyone live there or
spend enough time there to notice the pronunciation used up towards
Prince Rupert?

One of the reasons I'm addressing this issue is to compile an informal
list of the various regional English pronunciations on the Wikipedia
article. The discussion of the various names seems a little too
abstract and it needs some solid geographic examples. Also I'm just
curious, of course.

Masi bookoo :-),
James

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