Salmon Fishing Terms in British Columbia

Abstract

LIS PAPERPROPOSESto discuss the technical vocabulary peculiar to the sport of salmon fishing in the rivers and coastal waters of southern British Columbia. There are five species of salmon found in British Columbia waters, four of these much sought after by sports fishermen; as a result, a distinctive and colourful vocabulary has arisen in this area of English-speaking Canada. Each species has several common names as well as the biological Latin one, often differing from the terms by which it is known immediately to the south in the state of Washington, or to the north in Alaska; these names are frequently of local Indian origin. In addition, there are numerous names within the species that, to the devotee of the art, indicate the age, size, or state of maturity of the fish. At least two of these terms have an ancient history in the sport of angling; their exact etymology is obscure, but cognates are to be found in other northern Indo-European languages. In addition to fish names, the sport has spawned a variety of specialized methods and tackle, all carefully and specifically named, and in large part unknown to the rest of English-speaking North America. As can be expected, there are specific differences among the various forms of Canadian and American English. The fact of such differences in the lexical spectrum can be underscored by the unique ethnolinguistic paradigm exhibited by British Columbians in respect to the sub-culture associated with salmon fishing. Indeed, such lexical differences not only provide an interesting example of variation across the isogloss boundaries already established by the American-Canadian border, but also serve as an example of western Canadian English differences from other English-speaking areas within Canada itself. Atlantic and Pacific salmon are both of the family Salmonidae, but while the Atlantic salmon and the several species of trout found in the Pacific north-west all belong to the genus Salmo, the Pacific salmon is genus Onchorhynchus, so called because of the characteristic hooked nose developed during spawning. There are five species of Onchorhynchus found in British Columbia waters: sockeye (0. nerka),