There is no recording for this session due to technical difficulties.
Snass Sessions 10.28.2023: Louis Lkaan, Soda Creek, 18941
David Douglas Robertson, PhD
Consulting linguist, Spokane, WA, USA
Background information on this writer:
Louis Lkaan is a new subscriber to Kamloops Wawa, according to issue #118b (July 1894), front wrapper page 2. That announcement is probably related to today’s letter. See what you think.
Soda Creek, BC is a northern Secwépemc (“Shuswap”) Salish community in south-central British Columbia. The date of this letter was determined from the French-language letter on the same page from a local priest.
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.
The letter, transcribed & translated:
Naika Lui Lkaan2 kopa Soda Krik. I Louis Lkaan at Soda Creek‘I’m Louis Lkaan at Soda Creek.’
Naika iskom3 ukuk < 10 >4 sins pipa,5 I take that 10 cent paper‘I’m subscribing to that 10 cent paper,’
pi naika mash ukuk < 10 > kanamokst ukuk pipa;6 and I send this 10 along.with this letter‘and (so) I’m sending this here 10 (cents) together with this letter;’
pi ankati naika mash iht tala kopa maika, but previously I send one dollar to you
‘but some time ago I sent one dollar to you,’
pus7 naika8 piii9 ukuk Kamlups Wawa pipa; HYPOTHETICAL I pay that Kamloops Wawa paper
‘so I could pay for that Kamloops Wawa paper;’
pi ilo10 naika tlap11 tanas pipa12 kopa maika. but not I receive little paper from you‘but I didn’t receive any of the little papers from you.’
2
Lkaan is written as 2 syllables, so it would seem the double “aa” is really something like [aʔa] in the writer’s Salish name. There is no symbol (letter) in Chinuk Pipa for the glottal stop that I’m guessing is in there.3
Iskom indicates “getting” something on purpose , so a good translation is often ‘taking’, and commonly it means ‘subscribing’ to the Chinook Jargon newspaper. 4
< 10 > was most likely pronounced [tɛn]. In the Northern Dialect, the higher the number, the more likely you’ll use the English word. Especially from ‘6’ upward, we find the English numbers to be more common than the older / Southern Dialect ones from Native languages.5
< 10 > sins pipa, ‘10-cent paper’, matches the “cover price” on Kamloops Wawa per issue. 6
Notice the differing uses between the previous line and this one. Here, < 10 > sins means apparently a dime coin, and pipa indicates this ‘letter’ that we’re reading. 7
Pus is a major Indigenous part of Chinuk Wawa’s grammar. It fundamentally marks a “hypothetical” – a situation seen as not necessarily having happened yet. Sometimes you find that it expresses ‘if…’ Other times, it expresses ‘so that…; in order that…’ Look for it again later on in this same letter! 8
…pus naika piii = ‘…so I can pay for’. Notice, if the writer had left out the naika (‘I’), we’d have …pus piii (‘to pay for’). Both are good Jargon. My impression is that Northern-Dialect writers who are Indigenous prefer the first version, the one Louis Lkaan uses. 9
A reminder to you: piii means ‘to pay for; to purchase’, all in one word. Whenever we find piii kopa, it means ‘to pay money to someone’, ‘to pay money at a certain place’, and so on. 10
Ilo often carries along some of its old, original meaning from the Haida language, ‘not at all; none (at all)’. This is especially common when we’re referring to physical objects, so here, the idea is ‘no little papers at all’. 11
Tlap indicates “getting” something not on purpose, beyond your control. So a good translation is often ‘receiving’, ‘managing to get’, etc.12
Tanas pipa has 2 meanings, because pipa has 2 meanings, as I noted above. This phrase can mean ‘a note’ (‘a little letter’), or it can be literally ‘the small newspaper’ (because Kamloops Wawa is only about the size of your hand).
Klunas maika tlap ukuk tala, maybe you receive that dollar‘Maybe you received that dollar,’
klunas ilo. maybe not
‘maybe not.’
Alta iht mun,13 naika mash ukuk tala, now one month, I send that dollar‘A month ago, I sent that dollar,’
pi alta naika wawa kopa maika, and now I say to you‘and now I’m saying to you,’
tlus14 maika mash tanas pipa kopa naika, good you send little paper to me,‘you should send the little paper to me,’
pus maika tlap ukuk tala. HYPOTHETICAL you receive that dollar
‘if you received that dollar.’
Potaha,15 Pir Lshyun. goodbye Pere Le Jeune‘Pútucw, Père Le Jeune.’
Naika Lui Lkaan. I Louis Lkaan‘I’m Louis Lkaan.’
13
Alta (‘now’) + an amount of time = ‘that amount of time ago’, in the Northern Dialect. You can see the logic of this, because it’s saying ‘it’s been (amount of time) now, that (something happened)’.14
Tlus (‘good’) + sentence = that sentence ‘should’ happen.15
Potaha is Secwépemc Salish for ‘goodbye’ to one person. We see it pretty often, in letters written by Native people