Snass Sessions 11.04.2023: Alec Samson, Lillooet, 18951
David Douglas Robertson, PhD
Consulting linguist, Spokane, WA, USA
Background information on this writer:
Alec Samson is a subscriber to Kamloops Wawa, according to issue #118b (July 1894), front wrapper page 2. He wrote today’s letter, and is mentioned in another Indigenous-written letter.
Note:
Alec Samson writes excellent Chinuk Wawa, but his handwriting isn’t always the most careful. I take this as an indication that he was indeed “writing exactly the way he talked”. It seems to me that his writing hand was trying to keep up with his thoughts.
Lillooet, BC is a St’át’imc (“Lillooet”) Salish community in south-central British Columbia. It’s very important in the province’s gold-rush history.
There’s usually little or no punctuation in the Indigenous-written letters, so what you see here is pretty much my additions of commas, periods, and so on.
If you see [SIC] in square brackets it shows possible mistakes in the writing; other material [in square brackets] is inferred and added by me.
*Asterisked* material shows an uncertain reading of the Chinuk Pipa writing.
Underlined material is in other languages than Chinook Jargon.
Anything < in angled brackets > is non-Chinuk Pipa, i.e. written as standard English in the original document.
The notation (Ø) shows that you can understand a clause to contain either “silent IT”or a “silent preposition”.
I have put line breaks between every clause-containing sentence, and added punctuation, to help the reader. (But I’ve preserved each writer’s own idiosyncratic punctuation marks.) I’m experimenting with extra indentation to show the existence of subordinate clauses. (And to reflect the flow of the speaker’s thoughts.)
Many thanks to all of you who participated in this Snass Session!
IN THE TRANSLATION OF THIS DOCUMENT, I’VE PUT IN A LINE IN ITALICS, TO SHOW THE LITERAL MEANING OF EACH “WORD”.
The letter (top was cut off in photocopying):
The letter, transcribed & with a suggested translation:
Kopa < 9 10 >2 dits3 < 1895 > Shanwari4on 9 10 day(s) 1895 January‘On the 19th* day, 1895, January.’
Wal5 naika tiki:6 tanas wawa kopa maika: Pir Lshyun: well I want little talk to you Père Le Jeune‘Well, I’d like to have a little word with you, Père Le Jeune’
kopa Kamlups: Wal ukuk son: naika tiki mash: tanas
at Kamloops well this day I want send little‘at Kamloops. Well, today I’m trying to send a bit of’ chikmin: kopa maika: Naika tiki: mash iht tala: money to you I want send one dollar
‘money to you. I want to send one dollar’ kopa ukuk Chinuk pipa: Wawa: kopa Kamlups:7 Tlus alta: for that Chinook paper Wawa from Kamloops Please now
‘for that Chinook paper, the Wawa from Kamloops. Please now’ kwanisim:8 maika mash pipa kopa naika: Pus maika tlap:
always you send paper to me When you receive ‘keep sending the paper to me. When you receive’ naika pipa: tlus maika mamuk: kilapai:9 kopa naika my letter please you make return to my
‘my letter, please make a response to my’
2
< 9 10 > is probably Alec Samson’s way of writing the English-language word nineteen. We know that most numbers in the Northern Dialect were from English. And we’ve seen other Native writers (who didn’t speak much, if any, English) writing higher numbers in a similar way – e.g < 20 3 > to mean ‘23’. 3
Dits is how the Chinuk Pipa alphabet represents English days, phonetically [deiz]. Notice how this English plural gets used in a singular meaning, ‘day’, in Chinook Jargon! This happened a lot with CJ borrowings from many languages. 4
Shanwari is clearly from English, and it’s the normal spelling of this word in Chinuk Pipa. But it represents a pronunciation like [janwari]…do you know anyone who pronounces ‘January’ that way? I grew up in the Pacific Northwest saying [janyuweri]. There’s a strong chance Shanwari reflects the foreign (French) accent of Father JMR Le Jeune, whose Kamloops Wawa spellings were imitated by almost all writers of Chinuk Pipa. 5
Wal is a very frequent word in the Northern Dialect. Can you count how many times it’s used in this letter? 6
: is a punctuation mark of Alec Samson’s own invention. He’s not using it the same way we use the colon (:) in standard English writing. Intead, he seems to write : at the end of every meaningful small group of words that he says. In this way, he’s demonstrating a really advanced level of linguistic understanding – a knowledge of “constituent structure” that I’ve worked hard to teach in linguistics classes! However, about halfway through this letter, he stops writing it 🙂 7
Wawa kopa Kamlups (‘The Word from Kamloops’ / ‘Talking from Kamloops’) is a unique paraphrase of the newspaper’s title, Kamloops Wawa (‘Kamloops Speaks’).8
Kwanisim (‘always’) is the normal way to express ‘keep on’ doing / ‘still’ doing.9
Mamuk kilapai (‘make return’) is more literally to ‘send back’ something.
pipa: Pus maika tlap (Ø):10 tlus maika: mamuk kakwa: letter if you receive it please you do like.that
‘letter. If you receive it, please do that.’ Wal naika tlus: Naika ilo sik: O naika tanas: well I good I not sick oh I little
‘Well, I’m all right. I’m not sick. Oh, I’m a little bit’ sik:11 Naika sik: tlun son: Pi alta naika: tlus: sick I sick 3 day but now I good
‘sick. I was sick for 3 days. But now I’m fine.’ Kopa Kolwatir kopa tilikom klaska tanas sik Pi ilo at Coldwater with people they little sick but not
‘At Coldwater, among the (Native) people, they’re a bit sick. But it’s not’ skukum sik12 mitlait kopa klaska Ukuk wiht naika strong sickness be.there with them this also I
‘a strong sickness that’s in them. This thing, too, I’m’ mamuk komtakst13 kopa maika Kopa Shanwari < 95 > kopa < 9 > make know to you in January ‘95 on 9
‘going to report to you: In January ‘95, on the 9th’ dits iht min14 iaka mimlus Iaka nim Sho Goti15 Iaka sitkom day(s) one man he die his name Joe Gautier* he half
‘day, this one man died. His name was Joe Gautier*. He was a’ Sawash iaka: Iaka mitlait kopa Kolwatir Wal naika Native he he stay at Coldwater well I
‘Métis. He lived at Coldwater. Well, I’m’ kopit wawa kopa maika Wal klahawiam kopa maika finish talk to you well goodbye to you
‘done talking to you. Well, goodbye to you’
10
(Ø) is the famous “silent IT” of Chinuk Wawa. 11
Wal naika tlus. Naika ilo sik. O naika tanas sik. This is a very frequent way of talking in the letters written by Indigenous people. It may reflects the traditional repetition that we find in Native storytelling, as well as just being modest.12
A skukum sik is a ‘strong sick(ness)’. This way of talking about disease is used in all Chinook Jargon dialects. It’s the same as in the Southern Dialect, where we can say sik miłayt kʰapa nayka iłwəli, ‘there’s a sick(ness) in my body’. This reflects Indigenous ideas about disease being a foreign object that gets into your body. 13
Komtakst shows us yet another BC Indigenous person who has this special pronunciation, with an extra “t” at the end of komtaks (‘to know’). 14
Min is a unique spelling that shows us Alec Samson pronounced man like [mɛn]. 15
It’s not possible to tell for sure, but this name seems to be from French, “Joe Gautier”. More research is needed.
kopa naika [Naika]* nim Alik Samson16 kopa Lilwat ilihi from me [my]* name Alec Samson at Lillooet place
‘from me; [my]* name is Alec Samson at Lillooet reserve.’ Tlus tlus maika mamuk kilapai ukuk naika pipa17 please please you make return this my letter
‘Please please respond to this letter of mine.’ Nanich Pus maika ilo kilapai kopa naika kakwa pus naika lost look if you not return to me like if I lose
‘Look: If you don’t reply to me, it’s like I lost’ ukuk chikmin Kakwa naika wawa kopa maika Pus maika tlap this money so I say to you if you receive
‘this money. So I say to you, “If you receive’ ukuk pipa tlus maika kilapai pipa kopa naikathis letter please you return letter to me‘this letter please return a letter to me.” ’
16
This is written as …klahawiam kopa maika kopa naika nim Alik Samson…, ‘…goodbye to you from my name(,) Alec Samson…’ That might be exactly what the writer meant to say; we do find in at least one other Indigenous-written Chinuk Pipa letter a similar expression, ‘they’re writing bad things about my name’. But, it seems more likely that the writer has just accidentally left out a naika in a place where there would’ve been 2 of them in a row: …klahawiam kopa maika kopa naika. Naika nim Alik Samson…, ‘…goodbye to you from me. My name is Alec Samson…’ What do you think? 17
Make sure you’re familiar with the common structure, ukuk naika [item] = ‘this [item] of mine