Just to clear up a couple of points that were left dangling in the Acres of Clams thread, which I recently ran across...

PN (Phil Nuytten) writes: : I doubt [geoduck] is Chinook since it would be in the Chinook jargon : if it were.

Why ? One of the notable things about pidgin trade languages is that they *don't* contain all of the vocabulary of whatever language they draw most of their words from. There are lots of Chinook words that aren't in CJ, and there are some very important, basic CJ words that are of Nootkan (Vancouver Island) rather than Chinook (lower Columbia River) origin.

Sandy writes: :Good to have your expertise here, Phil. Now, who/what/where the heck are the Lushootseed?

Phil again: : Looshutseed [sic-LBR] is not a NWC language that I know of

but it *is* a *language* hereabouts, and a NWC one if you call Puget Sound part of the coast. Lushootseed is the same as "Puget Sound Salish"; it's a generic term for the Salish language(s) native to the shores of Puget Sound, everything south of the Lummi/Nooksack areas and north of the Chehalis/Quinault, except for the Hood Canal Salish, who were Twana speakers. Major local forms of Lushootseed include Skagit, Sauk-Suiattle, Swinomish, Snohomish, Duwamish, Suquamish, Snoqualmie, Muckleshoot, Puyallup, Nisqually, Sahewamish ... basically each village/river had its own dialect, which have to a considerable extent been homogenized by the reservation system, intermarriage, and the automobile; however there are still obvious differences in grammar, not just local slang as someone suggested, between Skagit and Southern Lushootseed (Snohomish is a transitional dialect, plus its territory -- the Tulalip Reservation, especially -- has attracted people from all parts of the Sound.) The proper spelling of the name of the language *in* Lushootseed is dxwlESucid, where the w is superscript, the E should be a schwa (180-degree-rotated e), and the S should be a š (s with a hacek, or inverted circumflex). The Lushootseed word for geoduck is indeed gwídEq, again with a superscripted w and a schwa. But where they got it from, I've no idea.

Lushootseed is the language of the noted local elder storyteller Vi (taqwšEblu) Hilton of "Lady Louse" fame. I am afraid I don't know *anything* about Lushootseed folk songs. Most of the Puget Sound tribal organizations have programs to preserve and revive their local forms of Lushootseed, though in some cases the speaking population is reaching the vanishing point. It is taught in Auburn (Muckleshoot) and Marysville (Snohomish) schools, among others. The Lushootseed Dictionary (University of Washington Press, 1994) is a treasure trove of information largely not yet readily available on the Internet. ;-)

mousethief writes: : "Nisqually" is a river and valley just north of Olympia, WA. Which : is sort of weird because most rivers in these parts end in "homish" : or "wamish" -- which makes me think it's not the original name but : one given by the White Man. It is also the name of a local tribe -- : perhaps the white settlers named the valley after the people they : found dwelling in it (there are other local rivers named after : local tribes -- Puyallup for example).

Actually, the -mish (-bš in Lushootseed) means *people*, not *river*; the rivers were named for the peoples who inhabited their banks.

huy? [as they say in Lushootseed on parting; the ? is a glottal stop, not a question mark]

Liland Esperanto hymnist and wannabe Lushootseed speaker

PS I'm new here, so pardon my butting in like this...