Above
What to Imitate: Students of the Milluk language only need to learn how Lolly Metcalf pronounces this Milluk word as / gwaan /, which is the first time that she says it. The word appears in the Milluk texts, but only with the first syllable. It appears there as | g̣wa·n | which we modernize to be | ɢ̣wa·n |. Annie Miner Peterson’s version of the word begins with what we call a Back G, or call a ‘dotted G’.
The Easy-Way-to-Type Spellings as Phonemic Representations: We treat our easy ways of typing the word as phonemic representations of the word by putting those spellings between sets of diagonal lines / / as opposed to putting them within square brackets [ ] as phonetic transcriptions. That is because we make a point of making the easy-way-to-type spellings phonemic, which is to say by using the Milluk language’s own natural alphabet of distinctive speech sounds, which distinguish one Milluk word from another.
Our easy-way-to-type spellings also happen to use only the letters of the Roman Alphabet, plus @ to represent the vowel Schwa [ ə ]. Because of that, some of the phonemes of Milluk are written with letters of the Roman Alphabet in combination. For example, the Milluk word / chaachai / ‘walk’ has two syllables which each begin with the Milluk phoneme / ch /. To hear that word, see the interview segments “Walk 1” and “Walk 2” on this website. The sound / ch / is at the beginning and end of the English word ‘church’. In our phonetic transcriptions, we write this sound as [ č ] in our Americanist phonetic transcriptions and as [ tʃ ] in our phonetic transcriptions in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). In the IPA, affricate consonants are written as a stop consonant in combination with a fricative consonant, which is what they are phonetically.
Phonemic Representations in Linguistics: In linguistics, words and sentences which are written phonemically are not only enclosed between sets of diagonal lines / /, they are also written using standard phonetic symbols, such as / č / in the Americanist tradition of phonetic writing and the equivalent combination of [ tʃ ] which consists of IPA phonetic symbols.
Daisy’s Version of the Word: Lolly’s younger sister Daisy says the word with a second syllable. At the beginning of the interview Daisy says that she never really spoke the Milluk language. We only put what Lolly says in Milluk into our table of transcriptions.
Lolly Metcalf actually does say the word as [ gwa·na ], but only after Daisy says it that way. When Lolly says the word with a second syllable one can hardly even hear the second syllable.
Later in the interview, in the interview segment “High”, we can hear Daisy say [ gwa·na ] again, which could even be transcribed as [ gwa·nʌ ]. It is hard to say what the exact tongue-height is for the vowel of the second syllable, since Daisy is so much in the background in that interview segment. Daisy seems stuck on the idea that the word has a second syllable. Even though we do not see the two-syllable form of the word in the Milluk texts, we have to take seriously the idea that such a form of the word might have actually existed in the language, just because of the fact that Lolly actually says it, even if it is very difficult to hear the short vowel at the end of Lolly’s two-syllable version of the word. Because of all of this, the version of the word with a second syllable is really only a linguistic curiosity.
Translations: In the Milluk texts, Annie Miner Peterson only said this word as [ ɢ̣wa·n ]. Its most common translation is ‘up above’, but it is also translated twice as ‘above’. In some lines of text, one can say that its translation is ‘up’. Once it is translated as ‘up high’. Once it is translated as ‘up in the air’, and once it is translated as ‘High above!’. There are also lines of text where it is translated as ‘up on top of’, and ‘on top of’. There is one translation of it in Annie Miner Peterson’s autobiographical text where it refers to ‘upstairs’ in a house.
How to Say ‘Heaven’ in Milluk: Students of the Milluk language should take special note of the fact that in the right context, the Milluk word / gwaan /, no matter which way you spell it and pronounce it, refers to heaven. That is especially clear in two Milluk texts.
The Word in Sentences: At the beginning of the very last paragraph of the Trickster Epic, in Jacobs’ 1940 volume of Coos texts, on page 221, there are the sentences:
tsú‿ɢ̣wá·n wə́s·i tɫə‿dí·lúɫ. wí·‿kwi·‿tɫi·_ɫnə_kʼáʰ‿də_ʔmá·niʔyas.
Now the young man returned above. It is he who is the father of us people.
The very last line of the Trickster Epic, in Jacobs’ 1940 volume of Coos texts, on page 222, is the sentence:
ɢ̣wá·n dlúqʷsəm tɫi·_ɫnə_ʔmá·niʔyas.
Our father (still) lives up above.
The word also refers to heaven in the last four lines of the Milluk text titled “A mitʼɛ́·din shaman’s prayer when giving fresh fish and meat to a mourner after a burial”. This is in Jacobs’ 1939 volume of Coos texts, on pages 91-92. The last four lines of the text are:
di·_ɫ‿kʼáʰ‿ha·qʷdzú·n tɫi‿iɫnə_má·niʔya·s_ədža_də‿kwí·‿ɫá. ɢ̣wá·n ɢ̣á‿hantɫ‿k̯ʼíl·ɛ·‿dlú·ɢ̣wa.
The person who has left us has gone to our father. Up above there he will live well.
án‿hántɫ dá·s‿kwi‿hɛ́udzətsʼɛ́·nu. tɫí·‿ɫnɛ‿x̣‿má·niʔyá·s hántl‿kwíyɛ ɫú·dədá·ya.”
He will not have a hard time any more. Our father will look after him.”
The Velar-Uvular Sound Correspondence: No one should think that Lolly Metcalf is mispronouncing this word by saying it as [ gwa·n ], instead of saying it Annie Miner Peterson’s way of saying it as [ ɢ̣wá·n ]. This is one of several examples of a regular sound correspondence between Coos Bay Milluk, which has velar consonants in a number of words where Annie Miner Peterson’s Milluk has uvular consonants. Uvular consonants are farther back in the throat than velar consonants.
The Shared Sound Correspondence: The same sound correspondence exists between Annie Miner Peterson’s Hanis (with velars) and Annie Miner Peterson’s Milluk (with uvulars) . Hanis was also spoken along the shores of Coos Bay. The shared sound correspondence suggests close contact between Coos Bay Milluk and Hanis. The Native village called Milluk (present-day Charleston, Oregon) and the Native village called Hanis (the present-day Empire neighborhood of the city of Coos Bay) are only six miles apart. One can drive between them nowadays in eight minutes without speeding.
Jacob’s Old-Fashioned Terminology: People should not be thrown off by the fact that Melville Jacobs in his 1939 volume of Coos texts, on page 13, in the section where he describes Coos phonetics, calls uvular consonants ‘velar’ consonants. He refers to velar consonants as ‘medial palatals’.
An Equivalent Hanis Word: Mrs. Peterson’s Hanis equivalent of the Milluk word [ ɢ̣wa·n ] is the Hanis word [ ɢ̣ax̣ánč ], so Mrs. Metcalf’s pronunciation [ gwa·n ] cannot simply be a Hanis word. One might imagine that Mrs. Metcalf is just saying a Hanis word, instead of saying a Milluk word, because of the shared sound correspondence between Coos Bay Milluk and Hanis, but that is not possible with this Hanis word which does not participate in the regular sound correspondence.
Other Forms of the Word in Milluk: The word | ɢ̣wá·nʔniya | ‘become above’ is in a line of text where the whole line of text is translated as ‘He got to quite a height above’. With a slightly different ending, the expression | ʔnə_ɢ̣wá·niyu | means ‘over me’, where the possessive pronominal proclitic [ ʔnə ] means ‘my’. The word | ɢ̣wá·niyu |, wth this same slightly different ending is also in a line of text where its translation is ‘on top of’.