Snass Sessions 10.07.2023: John Baptiste Denis letter, Sechelt, 19041
David Douglas Robertson, PhD
Consulting linguist, Spokane, WA, USA
No background information on this writer is known to me. Please proceed to the next page!
Sechelt, BC is a Coast Salish community west of Vancouver.
For the moment, I’m placing a notation /// to show the ends of written lines in this letter; do you think the writer tended to end sentences at the right edge of the paper? With this writer, I also notice that he may be using long blank spaces to separate phrases, sentences, etc.; see what you think when you look at the original letter.s
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
The letter, page 1:
< 1904 > kopa March < 12 >///2‘1904, on March 12.’
Naika mamuk-tsim ukuk pipa kopa maika, ‘I’m writing this letter to you,’
pi tlus maika///mamuk-nawitka3 ‘and please believe’
ikta naika tiki kopa maika, naika papa: ‘what I want from you, my father:’
Lili, kopa ankati. naika tlap pipa kopa maika, ‘For a long time, in the past, I received the newspaper from you,’
pi naika kopit; ‘but I stopped;’
pi alta///wiht naika tiki ‘but now I again want’
tlap pipa kopa kanawi mun. ‘to receive the paper for every month.’
Drit naika olo///kopa kakwa: ‘I’m really hungry for such a thing:’
pus naika tlap pipa kopa kanawi mun, ‘for me to receive the paper for each month,’
pi maika mamuk tsim kanawi///-ikta kopa saia. ‘and (for) you to write everything (i.e. the news) from far away.’
Naika tiki chako-komtaks [ikta]* mitlait kopa kanawi-kah ilihi. ‘I want to find out [what] there is in places everywhere.’
Pi wiht maika///mamuk-tsim kimta,4 ‘And also you wrote afterwards,’
S[ahali-]T[aii] wawa5, kopa pipa ‘God(’s) word, in the papers (issues)
ankati naika tlap///;‘that I used to receive;’
2
Indigenous writers had many different ways of writing European-style dates in their letters. This makes sense in light of how recently they had been introduced to the Settler custom of assigning numbers to days and years. 3
Mamuk-nawitka (literally, ‘make-true’) = ‘believe’. This might seem a strange thing for the writer to say here, but maybe he means something like ‘take it seriously’. The alternative way for us to read this would be …mamuk nawitka ikta naika tiki…, ‘do indeed what I want…’4
Credit to Alex Code for helping us understand this phrasing. Alex pointed out that in the Kamloops Wawa newspaper, there was often a “Monthly Budget” section that might start with news from various Indigenous communities, followed by religious teachings. 5
Sahali Taii wawa (literally, ‘the God word’) is a long-established phrase meaning ‘the word of God’. It’s one of the “inalienable” possession phrases in Jargon, different from the usual possession phrasing, which would be Sahali Taii iaka wawa (‘God his word’).
maika mamuk-tsim (Ø) kimta [kopa]6 ukuk ankati7 pipa ‘you wrote it afterwards [in] those long-ago papers’
naika tlap. ‘that I received.’
Pi alki naika ///tlus-nanich naika chikmin kopa ukuk, pi sins.*8 ‘And in the future I’ll take care of my dollars* for this, and (my)* cents.’
Drit naika ///tomtom kakwa ⸽ .9‘I’m really thinking this way.’
Pi wiht naika wawa kopa iht:10 ‘And also I’ll talk about a(nother) thing:’
Naika aias-tiki ‘I really want’
pus///maika [pa]tlach11 kopa naika ⸽ naika styuil kopa tanas-son pi wiht kopa///pulakli-styuil. ‘for you to give me my prayers for morning and also for the evening prayers.’
Pi naika tiki tanas-buk,12‘And I want the little book,’
pus maika///lolo kopa naika tanas-styuil-buk, ‘for you to bring me the little prayer book,’
pus alki naika ///styuil drit, ‘so in the future I can pray right,’
pi k’o kopa13 kah-son14 naika mimlus: ‘until the day that I die.’
Naika tiki///nanich kopa naika tomtom pi wiht kopa naika siahus; ‘I want to look into my heart and also into my (own) eyes;’
kakwa alki///drit naika styuil kopa kanawi son ⸽ .‘so I’m really going to pray every day.’
Pi alki naika patlach chikmin///kopa Krismas: ‘And I’m going to offer some money at Christmas:’
6
The writer seems to have left out the preposition, kopa, here. I say this because the sentence is hard to make sense of without it. And, to my understanding, the “silent IN” preposition of Jargon would not have been used here – it’s limited to environments where you already know, without kopa, that the speaker is talking about locations. (Which is definitely not going on here.)7
Ukuk ankati pipa: ‘those oldtime papers’ is a more literal translation, but I feel in English we’d naturally talk about ‘those old papers’. So take note: ankati corresponds to one of the meanings of ‘old’. 8
Sins is not quite written clearly on the page, and it seems awkwardly tacked on to the end of the sentence. On top of this issue, the writer seems to be using chikmin (which normally means generic ‘money’ or ‘metal’) to mean ‘dollars’. ‘Dollars’ in Jargon is normally dala, which can also mean generic ‘money’. 9
Starting here, we find this writer clearly using punctuation marks of his own invention. 10
Iht is ‘one’, and it frequently is used to mean ‘another’ or ‘a thing’. In this example here, it’s carrying both meanings together: ‘another thing’.11
[Pa]tlach: the writer has left off the first syllable. This brings up a neat point about Indigenous understanding of Jargon – he understands patlach to be divided into 2 syllables, pa and tlach, which corresponds to how Indigenous languages are structured. I think no Settler would have done this, what do you think? 12
‘The little book’: the reference is to one particular publication by Father Le Jeune, containing prayers, hymns, and catechism in Salish. 13
…pi k’o kopa… (literally, ‘…and arriving at…’) is the common way to express ‘until’ in the Northern Dialect.14
Kah-son (literally ‘where-day’) is normal in the Northern Dialect for ‘when’.
Drit kakwa naika wawa kopa maika, naika papa:///‘That’s really what I tell you, my father:’
Naika Shon Baptist Dini, ‘I’m John Baptiste Denis,’
mamuk-tsim pipa kopa maika///.‘writing a letter to you.’
Maika lolo pipa kopa Sachal ⸽ . ‘You can bring the papers to Sechelt.’
Pus [maika]15 lolo lakit taim pipa16 iht ///sno, ‘If [you] bring papers four times a year,’
iaka17 tlus, ‘it’s all right,’
pi drit maika18 lolo ukuk tanas-styuil-buk///.‘but really, bring that little prayer book.’
Maika mamuk kakwa.‘Do that.’
Ikta maika komtaks? ‘What do you know?’
Pir Shirus wawa ‘Pere Chirous says’
pus19 alki ayu///tilikom chako kopa Sachal ilihi pi wiht ayu liplit kopa < 1 > Chun///.‘supposedly there’ll be lots of people coming to Sechelt village and also lots of priests, on the 1st of June.’
Naika wawa klahawiam kopa maika, naika papa; ‘I say goodbye to you, my father;’
Gud bai. ‘‘Goodbye.’
15
[Maika]: it seems a word has been left out again by the writer. 16
Lolo lakit taim pipa (literally ‘bring four times papers’) is somewhat odd wording in Jargon, placing the adverb ‘four times’ between the verb and its object. It might alternately be taken as ‘quarterly papers’, but that seems unlikely. For further instances of odd adverb placement, see kimta below.17
Iaka tlus ‘it’s all right’ is literally ‘(s)he’s all right’; using iaka for non-animate things seems to imitate how non-Indigenous users of Jargon, especially French priests. In French, you usually do say ideas like this as literally ‘he is all right’.18
Sometimes speakers include maika ‘you’ in commands. The next sentence shows this again.19
Wawa pus… is very common in the meaning of ‘says supposedly…; says as how…’
Mitlait styuil-buk kopa tanas-son, kopa mimlus-son///-styuil, pi wiht katishisim, kanawi-ikta katishisim///, kanawi shanti; ‘There’s a prayer book for the morning, for the evening prayers, and also the catechism, all sorts of catechism, (and) all the songs;’
pi iht ukuk naika tiki ‘and it’s one of those that I want’
pus maika ///patlach kopa naika: kopit styuil kopa tanas-son pi///makmak, kopit makmak, pi alta wiht maika styuil: ‘for you to give to me: just the prayers for morning and eating, after eating, and then also your prayers:’
Iaka ///ukuk20 naika tiki: ‘That’s what I want:’
kopit-sitkom-son wiht naika styuil. ‘in the afternoon too I pray.’
Iaka ukuk styuil-buk ‘That’s that prayer book’
naika tiki. ‘that I want.’
20
Iaka ukuk, ‘that’s what’, is a very common and useful expression in Northern Dialect