Snass Sessions 09.30.2023: William Pierriche letter, 19061
David Douglas Robertson, PhD
Consulting linguist, Spokane, WA, USA
Some background information:
A “Pierriche” is greeted by Damien Maxime in letter [046.003] and by Jamie Michel in letter
[047.007]. He may be the same William Pierriche who datelined his letter [143] Wilmer, which is very
near Shuswap and Invermere, BC.
A man known as Pierriche from the same area is noted in Kamloops Wawa #94 (3 September 1893),
pages 142-143:
1 Wilmer, BC is in historically eastern Secwépemc (“Shuswap”) Salish territory.
• Sometimes I place a notation /// to show the ends of written lines in this letter; we can ponder whether the
Indigenous writers tried to end sentences at the edge of the paper.
• 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
try to preserve any punctuation marks that the Indigenous writers use.)
I’m experimenting with extra indentation to show the existence of subordinate clauses. (And to reflect the flow of
the speaker’s thoughts.)
< IV. > Piirish kopa Hlawt, iaka skukum sik, pi iaka aias
‘Pierriche at Hallout was terribly sick, and he badly’
tiki iskom Å [likalisti]. Kakwa, klaska lolo iaka kopa Shhkaltkmah, pi iaka
‘wanted to take communion. So, he was carried to Shhkaltkmah, and he’
iskom Å kopa Sondi haws kanamokst kanawi tilikom:
‘took communion at the church along with everyone:’
ukuk son < 15 > Ogyust, wik-saia iaka kopit iaka win,2 pi ayu
‘that day was the 15th of August; his life was nearly gone, but lots of’
tilikom mamuk-hilp iaka kopa styuil pi kopa tlus shanti.
‘people helped him with prayers and with good singing.’
2 Your win is your ‘breath’, so it’s also your physical ‘life; being alive’.
The letter, page 1
Page 1 text:
< Sep. 21d* 1906
Wilmer B.C. >
‘Sep. 21d*, 1906, Wilmer BC’
Naika papa Pir Lshyun, chi naika chako (Ø) iakwa-ilihi,3 kopa naika kluchmin iaka haws,
‘My father P.re Le Jeune, I’ve just come to this village, to my woman’s house,’
pi drit yutl naika tomtom
‘and I’m really happy’
pus naika nanich naika tanas wiht.
‘if I’m seeing my kids again.’
Nsaika yutl-tomtom kopa4 nsaika wiht mit5 kanamokst.
‘We’re feeling good about our again meeting up.’
Alta nsaika, kwanisim nsaika6 tlus-tomtom kanamokst,
‘Us now, we’re always happy with each other,’
kakwa kopa ankati.
‘like in old times.’
Pi alta, o papa, kopa iht7 naika tlap-drit-skukum-sik-tomtom:8
‘But now, oh father, there’s one thing that I’ve gotten really depressed about:’
Som taims naika krai kopa ukuk pipa;
‘Sometimes I cry about that letter;’
maika wawa kopa naika kopa ShKH [Shhkaltkmah].
‘you were talking to me at Shhkaltkmah.’
Drit naika ilo tiki pus naika kakwa!
‘I really don’t want to be like that!’
3 Iakwa-ilihi (literally ‘here-place’) = ‘this village/place’, a more specific meaning than another common phrase, ukuk
ilihi ‘this country; this world; this life’.
4 I’ve previously taught that the way to say ‘about (some information)’ is kata (literally ‘how’). But when you mean
‘about (a thing)’ you say kopa.
This is very much in parallel with expressing ‘for (a purpose)’ as pus, versus ‘for (a thing)’ which is kopa.
5 Mit = English ‘meet’, a newer loan into the Northern Dialect. Like your average new loan into this dialect, it’s more
precise than the previously existing ways to express ‘meet’ in Jargon, such as chako kanamokst (literally ‘come
together’) or nanich kanamokst (‘see each other’).
6 Nsaika ‘we’ is repeated here, in Salish style.
7 Iht ‘one’ can mean ‘one (particular) thing’. And, because iht can mean ‘another’, it can mean ‘another (particular)
thing’.
8 Tlap-drit-skukum-sik-tomtom (literally ‘catch-really-strongly-sick-heart’) uses the normal tlap formation that shows
things happened to you, without your control.
Naika promish9 kopa S[ahali]T[aii],
‘I make a promise to God,’
[pus]*10 iaka patlach sakramint11 kopa naika kopa mirii,12
‘(if) he gives the sacrament to me for marriage,’
naika ashnu kopa Sondi haws ilip kopa ayu tilikom.
‘I’ll kneel in the church in front of a crowd of people.’
Iawa naika wawa
‘Then I’ll promise’
pus13 iskom ukuk kluchmin
‘to take that woman’
pus kwanisim naika kluchmin, iaka,
‘for her to always be my wife,’
pi mimlus.14
‘until death.’
9 Promish is a new borrowing from English, again more specific in its meaning than the previous Jargon expressions for
the idea of promising (such as tlus wawa, literally ‘good talking’). It’s written with William Pierriche’s native
Secwépemc accent; his language makes no distinction between s and sh sounds.
10 It’s entirely possible that the writer accidentally left out pus here. But the sentence is understandable without it.
11 Sakramint is from English, probably influenced by the commonness of that language locally. Previously, Jargon had
used synonyms from French (saklema) or Latin (sakraminta).
12 Mirii is used here as a noun, but normally it’s a verb ‘to get married; to marry (someone)’.
13 Wawa pus is an older synonym for promish. There are several interrelated meanings of wawa pus: ‘ask (someone to
do something), order, tell (to do)’, etc.
14 Pi mimlus is literally ‘until dying’. The word pi ‘and; but’ is very frequently used when sequences of situations are
being told, so it sometimes means ‘until’ something occurred.
Page 2 letter
Alta naika mash15 ukuk sik-tomtom.
‘Now I’ll leave those bad feelings behind.’
Naika styuil kopa ST pus patlach skukum tomtom
‘I pray to God to give a strong heart’
pus mash-saia16 kaltash tilikom
‘to push away the no-good folks’
tiki mamuk-tsipi17 naika kopa klaska mamuk kaltash pipa
‘who want to throw me off with their writing worthless letters’
pi mamuk-tsim kopa naika nim.18
‘and writing about my name.’
Klahawiam, papa,
‘Goodbye, father,’
Naika Wiam Piirish.
‘I’m William Pierriche.’
15 Recall that mash also means ‘leave’, as well as ‘throw; send; put’.
16 Mash-saia (literally ‘throw-far’) is a very old Jargon expression for ‘get rid of’, etc.
17 Mamuk-tsipi is literally ‘make (someone) be wrong’.
18 I doubt that William Pierriche is saying a translation of the English expression ‘writing in my name’, i.e. on my behalf.
Instead, I take his words literally – ‘writing about my name’, i.e. about me