Sunday 9 November 2008

Tilicum

Shaw glosses it

Til´-i-kum, or tilakum, n. (C) (Chinook,-tilikhum.) People; relations; relatives; associate; family; folks; friends; kin; kindred; band; tribe; fellow nation; population; person. (Applied generally, it means those who are not chiefs. It is also used to signify a tribe or band.) Example: Cultus tilikum,—common or insignificant persons. Huloima tilikum,—strangers. Nika tilikum,—my relations. Yaka klatawa kopa yaka tillikums,—he has gone to his people. Ahnkuttie tilikums,—ancestors; forefathers. Eells gives "Nika tilikums,—my friends; my relations; so when preceded by the other pronouns, as mika, mesika, nesika, klaska, yaka, it has reference to friends or relations. Hiyu tilikums,—a crowd; a throng. (Other spellings: Telikom; tekum; tilacum; tilecum tilicum; tellikum; tillikums (pl.); tillicum; tillochcum.)

>2) How is the word pronounced? spelt?
Primary accent is on the first syllable. The consonants are as in English (Chinook Jargon was traditionally written mostly in an English-based, relatively unstandardized orthography, though there was also a unique writing system called Duployan shorthand that was used in some circles, and increasingly from the turn of the 20th century on there has been a tendency to use IPA-related phonetic symbols, or "North Americanist" orthographies that draw heavily on those symbols). The first vowel, indeed the first syllable, is as in "till", the second vowel is a very understated schwa, like the i in "calibrate" or the second "a" in "catapult" at normal conversational speed; and the final syllable is somewhere along a spectrum between "come" and "calm". "Tillicum" is the usual English spelling. "Tillikum" is also common. Versions like yours with single "l" are less common (in English contexts; probably more common in actual Chinook Jargon usage, but pronounced identically. I'll leave it to the experts to say what the proper modern orthography is at Grand Ronde, Oregon.

>3) What is the connection with Tillicum Village?
Same word but with two l's. I imagine you have done a Google search and came up with Tillicum Village, in which case you know Tillicum Village is an Indian Cultural Center and restaurant (indigenous-style salmon) on Blake Island in Puget Sound.

>4) What is "Elip Tilicum? "
Well, Elip (EE'lip) is "first, superlative, elder", so "Elip Tilicum" could easily be "old friend" or "best friend" or "the elders of my people". ChinUk Wawa is a contact language, and its words, as in any trade jargon or pidgin, are very elastic and can cover quite a bit more semantic ground than their roots mean in the original languages.

>5) From what language or dialect did the word "tilicum" originate?
Chinook, as your dictionary entry below illustrates. Via Chinook Jargon into English.

>6) From what race or tribe did the word "tilicum" originate? (this may be >a different name or the spellings may be different, and someone halfway >across the world where we speak Indo-European mostly may get confused).
The Chinook, or Chinookan-speakers, are the indigenous peoples who lived at the time of European contact on the lower reaches of the Columbia River and around the area where it enters the Pacific. As far as I know the Chinookan languages per se are completely extinct, but the Wawa, or Jargon based on it (with admixtures of Nootkan, Salishan, English, French and other vocabulary) survives, as its use on this very mailing list evidences. This Jargon was a very widespread contact language in the NW US and far western Canada in the 1800s.

>And what is the connection?
The Royal Navy probably got the word from the Canadians. (If it's old enough, it might even have been built when the Royal Navy was also the Canadian Navy. Maybe it saw service in the Pig Wars. ;-)

Source:

http://tinyurl.com/6mc8s7

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