Talk:Lummi language

Etymology of Lummi

Pls see Talk:Lummi as to if this is Chinook Jargon or not; presuming that it is for now (see List of Chinook Jargon placenames.Skookum1 06:02, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

According to User:OldManRivers, he gives Lhaqtemish (see {{Coast Salish}} but I have yet to see this on the Lummi pages; would this be a Halkomelem or NSS or Skwxwu7mesh snichim term instead? One table I've proposed, which is partly in the Skwxwu7mesh article already, is a listing of the names for various peoples as used in the languages of other peoples; not sure what to call such a list/table though; with all possible variant spellings/spelling systems it could be a nightmare organizationally/layout-wise......Skookum1 (talk) 03:50, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Undiscussed namechange redux

While I grant that Lummi (linguistics) and Saanich (linguistics) aren't appropriate article names (I was aware of them for a long time but just "let it go") I really don't think "Lummi Salish" or "Saanich Salish" are appropriate; the most common usage is "Lummi language" and "Saanich language". As with Heiltsuk language and Oowekyala language being parallel dialects of Heiltsuk-Oowekyala, which doesn't have an indigenous-language name, the same applies here. The solution wasn't "Heiltsuk Wakashan" or "Oowekyala Wakashan" (Or "Bella Bella Wakashan" or "Owikeno Wakashan"), the solution was "Heiltsuk language"....Ooowekyala is a language name but as with St'at'imcets language the convention is to add "language" even to a language name. "Lummi Salish" and "Saanich Salish" come off neologistic, I propose these be changed to something more reflective of both standard ways of speaking of these languages and the emergent Wiki convention (="language"). For one thing "Salish" isn't a language name either; even the language group is not "Salish languages" but "Salishan languages".Skookum1 (talk) 13:26, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Go for it. I just didn't want to get into the language/dialect debate, but maybe it can be avoided here. I'll even move them, so that you can't be accused of being hasty. (BTW, Salish is a language name, but just for Flathead.) kwami (talk) 19:34, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

That's why it's important not to mis-use it, as is commonplace, even or especially in contemporary sources ("most common errors" vs "most common [correct] usage"; wrong even when trying to be correct...); glad you agree; "Coast Salish" is often treated as a collective "nation" or as a singular tribe, i.e. because of the complexity of the Lower Coast's ethnographic map, even today, and also of some of the names, the media/general public seem to always field "of the Coast Salish tribe" or "the Salish name is" etc.; it's interesting it that the Kwakiutl misappropriation has been p.c.-discredited (though still used by many Kwak'wala-speaking peoples) but Salish, which is exactly the same situation - the name of a local group transposed across the whole of the language group - has remained current, even promoted by FNs such as Chemainus' and Lower Skagit campaigns for "Salish Sea"; it's also necessary I suppose, if not using the specific tribe-name, when peoples aren't members of "collective ethnicity" - but isolates, like the Skwxwu7mesh, Shishalh, Chehalis etc - the Chehalis are not Sto:lo, by the way, even though they speak Halqemeylem - their dialect of it, which is apparently distinct and has similarities to St'at'imcets; just got this in a communication from one of their researchers, hope to have some cites soon. In various old histories all the lower Coast tribes, including the Nooksacks and Clallsms an those up the Fraser and the Comox etc, were collectively styled "Cowidgin" - Cowichan; that didn't last long but it's signatory to an effort to find a collective name for the complex ethno map/community of the region; Sto:lo was one new-era coinage, a manque of the English "Fraser River Indians" which was current for a long time, but it's not accepted by all groups within the region; confusing for a hwelitum (one o'us): Siwash tribe/Indians and Siwash language I've seen in period sources, too, to mean the Coast Salish as a group, including or more particularly for Puget Sound; not meant derisively but mistaken to be ethnically correct, I suppose because of its widespread usage within CJ in the times when a lot of whites spoke/understood it. NB even language redundancies are covereed in titles - Oowekyala and St'at'imcets are already references to the language, not hte people, so "+ language" is redundant, but has become the standard; in other cases people-names are used to refer to the language as well as the people; or rather the root is, as "people" is often left off (Nuxalk in the sense of the people would properly be Nuxalk'mx, for instance), in other cases the English name has remained (Okanagan language) also Okanagan people, though in that case it's a big disambig reason because of the most-common-usage region-name, and the lack of currency of Siylx in English. Carrier/Dakelh/Babine/Wet'su-wet'en has yet to be sorted out....I'm not sure there can be consistency, other than rough guidelines, because of the preferences and in situ reality of each group; thanks for doing the change, I'm not an admin and perhaps do too many of them for my own good ..... :-) Time for dinner, again, sorry to ramble, just thoughts on emergent issues from this and around the PacNW ethnoscape.Skookum1 (talk) 21:36, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

If the language name is relatively unambiguous, as it is for Latin, then there's no need to add the 'language' tag, which might save some argument. kwami (talk) 21:56, 26 September 2008 (UTC)