jhabley-ga:
Thank you for your Question regarding tranlations of English words
into the Squamish language. I am happy to report that I was able to
find the translations for most of the words on your list.
The reference I used was:
Kolstee, A.F., ed. The Eagle School student dictionary of the Squamish
language, Carson Graham Secondary School, North Vancouver, 1993
This work references direct support and input by Peter Jacobs,
mentioned in bobbie7-ga's comment below. Fortunately, the central
branch of the public library in my city has a copy of this in its
reference archives, and I was able to pay the library a visit just
now.
------------------------------------
Notes: because of the fact that the Squamish language is a spoken
language, several different written forms have been used to record and
express the language on paper. The orthography used in this dictionary
is based on the following rules.
1) There are 42 distinct and meaningful sounds
2) Sixteen of these can be represented by characters from the English alphabet
3) The character <7> (number seven) is used to indicate a glottal
stop, which literally means a momentary closing of the glottis at the
back of the throat (ex. say the letter <k>... the very first part of
that action is a glottal stop)
4) an apostrophe represents an audible emphasis (or 'exploded'
emphasis according to the dictionary's author); if it appears above a
character, it is weakly emphasized; if it appears after the character,
it is strongly emphasized; for the purposes of displaying this through
Google Answers, I will use an apostrophe character, <'>, where it
means strongly exploded; and, I will use a doublequote character <">
where it means weakly exploded (ex. if the character is the letter <a>
with an apostrophe above it, I will show it here as <a">)
5) an underscore appearing under a character represents a guttural
sound; for the purposes of displaying this through Google Answers, I
will use an underscore character immediately following the underlined
character (ex. if the underlined character is the letter <c>, I will
show it here as <c_>, which you should read as 'an underlined c')
6) The letter <w> appearing after a <k> or an <x> means that the
preceding character is sounded using rounded lips.
In addition to these stated rules in the dictionary, I also noted the
use of a comma diacritical over some 'consonants' (as in, consonants
from the English alphabet). I believe that this denotes a shortened
sound. I will use a comma character <,> immediately following the
character to denote this (ex. if the comma diacritical appears about
the letter <w> it will appear here as <w,>).
------------------------------------
Now, for your list of words:
---
nature
- I was not able to find this exact word, or any word denoting 'all
that surrounds us'. As a possible proxy, I found these words:
outside - ats'k_
earth - temi"xw
world - k_"ek_"si"n ti siya"t-shen
---
little rock
big rock
- I was able to find the words <small>, <big>, and <rock>:
small - etsi"m (used when referring to an object only)
big - hiyi"
rock - smant
rocks - smenma"nt
---
island
island - skwetsa"s
---
cabin/small house/cottage
- I was able to find the phrase <log cabin>, also meaning <cut-off house>:
log cabin - t'a"k_'its'a"w,txw
---
home
- the closest I could find was <house>, not exactly the same.
house - lam, <--- note that last character has comma diacritical
---
cedar
- I was able to find <red cedar> and <red cedar tree>
red cedar - x_pay
red cedar tree - x_a"pay,ay
---
sleep/slumber/rest
- I was able to find <sleep> and <rest>
sleep - i"tut
rest - pa"yem
---
lake
lake - x_a"chu7
---
ocean
ocean - shk_wen
---
hummingbird
hummingbird - techtechni"s
hummingbirds - te"ch'techtechni"s
---
sun
sun - sne"k_wem
---
tranquil/serenity/solitude
- I was not able to find any of these three words, the closest proxy
is <quiet>, which appears later in this list
---
forest/trees
forest - stse"k_tse_k
trees - stse"k_tse_k (yes, same word)
---
retreat
retreat - tsekwk_a"m
---
peace
- I was not able to find <peace>, I was able to find <peaceful>:
peaceful - a7a"yas
---
quiet
quiet - esch'a"xw eslha"lhk_en
---
relaxed
- I was not able to find this word, the closest proxy would be <rest>.
---
I hope that this result is satisfactory. Again, please read the Note
above to ensure that you properly interpret the orthography I have
used here.
Thank you very much for this opportunity to discover even a little
piece of a fascinating part of the history that surrounds me here; the
city I live in is part of the Squamish nation's traditional lands (can
you guess where I live?), yet despite the best efforts of the elders
of the Squamish nation, their history is slowly but surely fading away
due to the lack of a written language. Scholars such as Peter Jacob,
A. Kuipers, and others who have strived to preserve this culture are
to be commended.
Regards,
aht-ga
Google Answers Researcher |
