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’