SEQUIM — Tipping Dungeness Valley’s history a little bit on its ear, a linguist for the Jamestown S’Klallam tribe concludes that Sequim really doesn’t mean “quiet waters” after all.
Instead, Timothy Montler said Sequim translates in the Native language to “place for going to shoot” — a reference to the Sequim-Dungeness Valley’s once great waterfowl and elk hunting.
“Basically, it means hunting ground,” said Montler, an expert in the study of dying languages who since 1992 has been studying the Klallam language and has interviewed tribal elders with the Jamestown S’Klallam tribe.
“It has to do with the abundance of elk and waterfowl in the area.”
The Blyn-based tribe announced the new, accurate translation late last week.
As to the “quiet waters” translation, Montler said: “That’s something that somebody made up.”
If that is the case, it has stuck for much of last century.
The widely used “quiet waters” reference is long ingrained in Sequim history, and references to it can be found in many regional visitor guide and historical publications and on websites, including that of Sequim Chamber of Commerce, the city of Sequim and the state’s sites for Sequim Bay State Park and the state Department of Fish and Wildlife.
There are even valley-area businesses named that use “Quiet Waters” in their names.
Montler, a distinguished research professor in linguistics at the University of North Texas, has spent years researching and documenting the Klallam language, working with the last few native speakers on the North Olympic Peninsula.
His Klallam language website — which can be reached via http://tinyurl.com/klallam1 — is used by Klallam language teachers locally.
He is now working with Jamie Valadez, a Lower Elwha Klallam language teacher.
According to his website, “the Klallam language has since time immemorial been spoken on the north shore of Washington’s Olympic Peninsula from the Strait of Juan de Fuca inland into the mountains.
“It is also native to some other nearby areas such as Becher Bay on the south of Vancouver Island and on some nearby smaller islands.”
Klallam is one language in a larger family of Native American languages called Salishan or Salish spoken in what is now Washington, British Columbia, Oregon, Idaho and Montana.
A speaker of Lummi, for example, could learn Klallam very easily, and vice versa.
The Klallam language, itself, has several dialects.
“Elwha Klallam, Becher Bay Klallam, Jamestown Klallam and Little Boston (Port Gamble) Klallam are all very slightly different from one another in pronunciation and the usage of some words,” he said.
Meanings from parts of the Klallam word for Sequim mean “reason, thing or place for” and “shoot (with gun or bow and arrow)” and the ending means “go to.”
“So literally it means ‘place for going to shoot,'” Montler said.
Montler said the analysis leaves no doubt.
“It is clear to Native speakers and has been confirmed by elders at Port Gamble (Martha John), Jamestown (Elizabeth Prince) and Lower Elwha (Bea Charles and Adeline Smith),” Montler said.
Betty Oppenheimer, publications specialist with the Jamestown S’Klallam tribe, said the tribe’s culture committee thought it should now be publicized since it is now known linguistically that Sequim does not mean “quiet waters.”
“I think it just quietly rippled out of the ether,” Oppenheimer said of how the wrong translation spread, adding she had no idea where the reference originated.
Oppenheimer said the Jamestown S’Klallam tribe is trying hard to keep the language alive, teaching it to tribal youths beginning in kindergarten.
“They learn to introduce themselves and sing the songs of the language,” she said.
Pat McCauley, a marketing businesswoman in Sequim for the much of the past 25 years, said the “quiet waters” reference was cited in the late Clallam County historian Harriet U. Fish’s findings and books as coming from tribal members.
“That blows me away,” McCauley said, responding to the new translation for Sequim.
“But in some ways it makes sense. Sequim is not a waterfront town.”
Elaine Grinnell, a Jamestown S’Klallam tribal member and a member of the Sequim Museum & Arts Center board, said her grandmother, Elizabeth Prince, was interviewed by Montler before she died.
“My people did go there to shoot,” Grinnell, born in 1936, recalled. “The ducks would go in there, and the hunting was plentiful. I remember that as a kid.”
Her cousin and fellow tribal member, Les Prince, said he trusted Montler’s translation if he talked to the elders.
“Some of those old ladies, they really knew the language,” he said. “If he says they said it, then I would think it was right.”
But Prince, 78 and born and raised in the area, also said he suspected there were a number of interpretations for the name, Sequim.
Both Vickie Maples, executive director of Sequim-Dungeness Valley Chamber of Commerce, and Connie Alexander, chairwoman of Sequim Museum & Arts Center’s research department, said they were both happy that the translation has been clarified.
“It’s great to have someone say, ‘This is really what it means,'” Alexander said.
As a doctoral student at the University of Hawaii, Montler had received a working knowledge of Saanich, a language similar to Klallam that is spoken by the Salish tribe living on Vancouver Island.
He also had assisted his professor, Laurence C. Thompson, who was the first linguist to collect and publish grammatical information on Klallam.
After Montler developed teaching materials, Port Angeles High School began offering Klallam language classes for foreign language credit, and several elementary schools also teach Klallam.
Montler said there are many mistranslations of the Klallam language.
“‘Pysht’ in the Klallam language means ‘flows back against itself, onto itself or into itself,'” he said, a reference to the way the wind blows in the area near Clallam Bay.
“It has nothing to do with fish,” he said.
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Sequim-Dungeness Valley Editor Jeff Chew can be reached at 360-385-2335 or at jeff.chew@peninsuladailynews.com.