Canadian English
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Transcript of Canadian English
Canadian English
LING 202, Fall 2007
Dr. Tony Pi
Week 8 - Dialects: The West
Ky-OAT-ee or KY-oat?
Controversy in Toronto about the proper pronunciation of the word ‘coyote’
• Torontonians: Ky-OAT-ee• Westerners: KY-oat or KY-
oot (Northern Alberta) - claims this is the ‘Canadian’ pronunciation
BUT– Origins actually from Nahuatl
(Aztec) ‘coyotl’ > co-yo-te (Spanish)
– borrowed into southwestern US English in early 1800s
• both pronunciations American
Bungi/Bungee
1779—letter from Sturgeon River Fort: “This goes to inform you of Five Indians that Arrived Here Last Night, Three Natives of the Land and two Bungees or Sauteux [= Saulteaux] Belonging to Carriboes Head.” (quoted by Stobie 1967-68, p. 66)
Scots and Cree• Speakers are descendants of mixture of Cree, Orkney, Scottish, and
Salteaux/French
Hudson’s Bay
• origins in forts on Hudson’s Bay around 1730s-40s– Hudson’s Bay Company originally hired mainly Highlanders or Western Isles who
spoke Gaelic rather than Scottish English– Orkneymen (Scottish English) employed after 1740s also contributed to Scottish
sounds around the bay
• Cree Indians acquired Scots-English as a result– children of mixed blood became common– the Company ordered women and children to be addressed only in English
Where Bungi Spoken• Languages heard
– English, French, Gaelic, Chippewa, Cree spoken by large sections of the trading post communities
• Emergence of Bungi– English dialect emerging from
union of Scots and Indians, for whom English was a second language
– inter-marriage resulted in chidren who learned the dialect
• Where Bungi heard– Along old trade routes and
from Lower Fort Garry to mouth of the Red River
Red RiverSettlement
Victor P. Lytwyn,from Blain thesis,p. xiii
Phonology of Bungi
– rhythm (lilting cadence)• syllable stress (equal in canoe or bannock)• marked pause between syllables (as in sum-mer, win-ter)
that is characteristic of Cree
– consonants and vowels• southern Bungi (Plains Cree influence)
– affricates common in Swampy Cree lost» shawl > sawl, picture > pitser, judge > dzudz
– no distinction between p/b, t/d, k/g (same in Cree and Gaelic)» dog > dock
– vowel in lake and plate closer to e in pepper– vowel in man sounds more like mon– boat has two syllables– willows along the river > wullows along the ruvver
Syntax of Bungi
• Freer use of demonstratives– ‘that beer shouldn’t come first; that education
should come first’
• pronoun ‘he’ (Cree influence)– used for corporate entities
• “the government, he”; “the Hudson Bay, he”
– used for women• “my daughter, he”; “my wife, he”
– unlike English (masculine, feminine, neuter), Cree only has (living, unliving) distinction
Vocabulary of Bungi
• Mostly disappeared– Scots dialect expressions
• “to think long”: to yearn for• “whatever”: common interjection• “slock”: put out a light or fire
– Cree influence• “new chee!”: Cree greeting ‘wachiyi!’ mistaken for ‘what
cheer!’ - greeting New Year• “keeyam”: never mind• “chimmunk”: hollow splash when a stone falls
perpendicularly in the water from a height• “apeechequanee”: head over heels
Indian Influence on BC English
• Native Indian influence on BC English– fish
• sockeye < Salish suk-tegh ‘red fish’• chinook / quinnat = king salmon (Alaska)
– spring salmon (BC term)
• chum = dog salmon or keta• coho < Interior Salish (?) = fall fish / silver salmon (US)• kokanee < Interior Salish
– Indian life• grease trails (for transporting valuable oil of the candlefish
between the coast and the Interior Indians
Chinook Jargon
• language once spoken along the Pacific coast from Alaska to the mouth of the Columbia River
• auxiliary trade language– not a first language
Shrouded Origins
– some think Chinook Jargon existed before white traders as a trade language between Indian tribes, while others think the Jargon was spread by white traders
– Sources of Chinook Jargon• Chinook language as base• words from Nootka (west coast Vancouver Island)• Salish, Kwakiutl• English and French• Chinese• Russian• Polynesian language of Hawaii
Basics of Chinook Jargon
• restricted use– extremely simple grammar
• almost no inflections• number to indicate plural, or repetition of a word• no tenses
– time inferred from context or by adverbs like alta ‘now’ or alki ‘soon’
• words can function as any part of speech• meaning can change depending on word order
– limited vocabulary• Chinook nation provided half of ~500 words in the Jargon
– basic terms and structure words (numerals, pronouns, interrogatives
– catch-all preposition: ‘kopa’ - to, for, by, from, etc.
Chinook Jargon Vocabulary
• skookum ‘big, strong’• chuck ‘water’• saltchuck ‘ocean’• klahowya ‘hello’ or
‘goodbye’• tyee ‘chief’ or ‘huge
salmon’• tillicum ‘people’ or
‘person’, extended to ‘friend’
• kin chotsch-men ‘King George Men’ = Hudson’s Bay Company traders
• Boston-men ‘Americans’
• passioks ‘French traders/blanket men’
• potlatch ‘give’
Chinook Vocabulary II
• English/French roots– capo ‘coat’– Mah-sie ‘thanks
(merci)’, ‘pray/prayer’– la puss ‘cat’– book– boat– cole ‘cold’– mama– cosho ‘pig (couchon)’
• Onomatopoeia– tik-tik ‘watch/telegraph’– poo ‘shoot’– tumtum ‘heart’,
‘emotion’, ‘love’– chik-chick ‘wagon,
wheel’
Adapting Jargon Sounds
• Indians– f, r difficult
• f > p• r > l• or omitted
– fish > pish– coffee > caupy– courir (run) > couley
– v > w– -dge > -tsh
– sauvage > Siwash
– n, -ing, d often omitted– handkerchief > hak-at-
shum
• Europeans– tl (velar clucking)
• tlicum > tillicum• klkwu-shala > salal
(evergreen shrub)
Creativity with Jargon
• siwash cocho ‘Indian pig = seal’
• hyas mowitch ‘big deer = moose’
• hyas Sunday = ‘holiday’
• skookumchuck ‘strong water = rapids’
• colechuck ‘cold water = ice’
• cultus coulee ‘useless run = stroll with no set destination’
• go klatawa ‘to go visit a special place’
• cultus potlatch ‘a little gift of no value, and nothing expected in return’
Jargon Metaphors
• opitsah ‘knife’• opitsah sikh ‘knife friend =
fork’• hyack ‘hurry = volunteer
firefighter’• skookum tumtum ‘strong
heart = courage’• Saghalie Tyee ‘chief
above = God’; Sockalee– yaka book ‘his book =
Bible’
• Causative verbs– mamook ‘to fish/do/make’
• mamook tumtum ‘make up one’s mind, decide, plan’
• sick tumtum ‘to be sorry, feel sad’
• cultus mamook ‘to do wrong, do something badly’
• mamook kumtux ‘make understand = to teach’
• Gesture and intonation– siah ‘far’; sia-a-a-ah ‘far, far
away’
Borrowings by Other Languages
• Meanings change– hyas muckamuck ‘big
food’ or ‘plenty to eat’• England > high
muckamuck ‘derogatory term for leaders of society’
– Chinook• southwest wind in
Oregon, Washington, BC, Alberta > warming and drying wind
– Siwash ‘Indian’• verb meaning sleep
without shelter• ‘to siwash’ > to be
interdicted (from buying alcoholic drink)
• Cowichan sweaters
– skookum• everything is skookum
‘satisfactory’• skookum house ‘jail’
Changes to Chinook Terms
• klootchman ‘woman’– > klootch ‘any Indian
woman living common-law with a white man’
– then klootchman became the man living this way
• English word-formaton rules– saltchuck ‘sea’
• > saltchucker ‘someone who fishes in the sea for sport’
• > chucker
Chinook Jargon in Place Names
• Mamaloos Island ‘dead/to die’
• Canim Lake ‘canoe’• Skookumchuck• Cultus Lake
‘worthless, bad’• Siwash Rock• Chickamin Mountain
‘metal/money’
• Tyee Lake• Mowitch ‘deer’• Mesachie ‘evil’