turnip query

[David Robertson]

Francisc, hayash mersi pus ukuk mayka wawa.

I suspect the answer has to do with the particular dialects of French used 
in the lower Columbia River area.  As with other contact languages, we have 
to remember that Chinook Jargon's French component doesn't necessarily come 
from Standard French.  Could "turnip" have come from a Canadian dialect 
term like <navot> or <naveau>, maybe even <naval>?  I notice the Laverdure-
Allard Michif dictionary has <lee navoo>, [li navo].

Another example of nonstandard French in Jargon is /kapu/, from <capot>.  
The Standard French word is <capote>.  Michif has <kapoo>, [kapo].

FWIW, Michif has <patak> for "potato", a distinctive pronunciation that's 
reflected in some Interior Salish languages such as Spokane.  Compare this 
with Standard French <patate>.

--Dave R


On Fri, 15 Sep 2006 07:58:15 -0700, Francisc Czobor <fericzobor at YAHOO.COM> 
wrote:

>LaXayEm !
>
>  There is a Chinook Jargon word for "turnip", that appears in various 
forms in different sources:
>  - lenawo (in Le Jeune's "Chinook Vocabulary" and "Practical Chinook 
Vocabulary", and also in Shaw's English-Chinook part, taken obviously from 
Le Jeune);
>  - lenamo (Demers);
>  - ledowo (Hutchings&Rosenfield 1860, Macdonald 1863);
>  - la mooow (Tate 1889?, Downing&Clarke 1898, and again Shaw, who found 
it probably in one of the former two).
>  I assumed that the "correct" form (or at least the closest to the 
original) should be Le Jeune's _lenawo_ and supposed that the etymology is 
most probably the French word _le navet_ = "turnip".
>  But re-reading an old message posted to the Chinook List by Dave 
Robertson (10 Apr 1999, Subject: Upper Chehalis Salish in relation to 
ChInuk Wawa), I noticed among the "words from Chinuk Wawa" (i.e. Upper 
Chehalis loanwords from CW) the word _ninamu_ = "rutabaga" (i.e. a kind of 
turnip).
>  Taking into account that the oldest form from those quoted above is 
Demers' _lenamo_, now I suspect that this is also the most "correct", being 
also the closest to _ninamu_. But what could be the origin of this word? Is 
it French?
>  It isn't easy to derive "lenawo" from "le navet"; but if the word is in 
fact lenamo/ninamu, it's even more difficult... or maybe _m_ and _w_ are 
two forms for rendering the [v] sound? In fact, we have, in the case of the 
French loanwords, examples both with v>w (la veste > lawest) and v>m (la 
vieille > lamiyay). But in this case what could be the explanation of 
changing the last vowel from [e] to [o]?
>  Or maybe the word has another origin? Laksta kEmtEks ukuk?
>
>  Francisc
>
>
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