Source of tanlki "yesterday"

hzenk at PDX.EDU hzenk at PDX.EDU
Fri May 16 03:09:41 UTC 2008


Boas has taanLki (first "a" stressed) 'yesterday' as Lower Chinook  
(Chinook Texts 155.7).  He also has taqEL ("E" stressed) as Kathlamet  
Chinook with the same meaning (Kathlamet Texts 87.14, 88.8).  It seems  
to me the two words could be related:  in Lower Chinook, q following a  
stressed vowel changes to glottal stop before another vowel.  Those  
two "a"'s of taanLki (the first with a length bar in the original), I  
would think, should have a glottal stop in between:  hence (if I'm  
right) Lower Chinook had ta7aL corresponding to Kathlamet taq(a)L).   
One of the Grand Ronde elders I worked with pronounced the word  
"ta7aLqi" as Jargon (7 = glottal stop; L = barred-l; maybe some  
distortion by analogy with aLqi 'later', a very common Jargon word).  
If there are any Chinookanists still lurking out there maybe they  
could enlighten us.  Henry

Quoting Francisc Czobor <fericzobor at YAHOO.COM>:

> Hi James,
>
>   According to Gibbs (1863), it comes from [Proper] Chinook tánlki,   
> with accent on the first syllable (Ross 1810 has tanilkey).
>   In CJ the word is recorded in various forms (tahlkie, tahnlkie,   
> talke, talki, talkie, tanke, tanlke, tontleke, tantki, taLki,   
> tatlki, etc.), but everywhere where the stress is marked, it's on   
> the first syllable.
>
>   Francisc
>
> James Crippen <jcrippen at GMAIL.COM> wrote:
>   Does anyone know the etymology of tanlki "yesterday"? I have it listed
> in Sam Johnson's 1978 dissertation on Chinook Jargon, but no info on
> the source language. It doesn't look like English or French.
>
> Also is the first or last syllable stressed? I am curious because I am
> looking at a possible loan of this from CJ into Tlingit, but stress is
> probably the deciding factor.
>
> Mási,
> James
>
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>
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