Salish idiom parallel to Chinook Jargon idiom

[Dave Robertson]

Hi and apologies for not posting much lately!  I've got a busy life writing
a dissertation, working full-time, and raising an ever-larger family.

But I found some time for reading Paul Kroeber's book "The Salish Language
Family: Reconstructing Syntax".  There I notice a Lushootseed idiom that's
directly parallel to a universal Chinook Jargon one.  Without bothering to
explain weird listserv approximations of funky Lushootseed symbols, I'll
reproduce it in (1):

p'atl'atl' dxw7al dEgwi gwE xwEtl'SadEd
worthless  to     you   if  I-break-a-leg   [glosses are mine]
"It doesn't matter to you if I break a leg" (from Hess 1995:71)

The first four words have a pretty much word-for-word translation in Jargon.
 I'll give it here in the "Kamloops Wawa" variety in (2):

kaltash   kopa maika pus...
worthless to   you   if...
"It doesn't matter to you if..."

An interesting question is whether this idiom existed first in Salish, and
maybe other Pacific NW languages, or was instead borrowed from Jargon.  I
tend to suspect the former.  Seems to me I noticed another Jargon-paralleled
idiom in Kroeber this week, the famous "good if" imperative.  I'll hunt for it.

By the way, you speakers of a certain Jargon variety might have noticed the
first word in Lushootseed is mighty close to your word for "bunk", and I
don't mean a bed.

--Dave R

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