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Top Chinook Jargon News

1915: One finds it funny to call them Savages
Kamloops · Kamloops

1915: One finds it funny to call them Savages

A bit of humor in objecting to Indigenous people being called bad names… Image credit: Google Play You may have read “So 2 Chiefs and a Priest Go to Europe…” on my website. Here’s a later issue of the same Kamloops Wawa newspaper telling us more about that trip. (My French-speaking readers should tell me what the unclear words are!) On trouve drôle d’appeler ce monde-ci des “sauvages”. Ma vieille tante “Marie Anne Pip” s’attendait à voir voici i…Read Article
Nater 2020 on Mackenzie 1793, and me on the lack of a pidgin
British Columbia · British Columbia

Nater 2020 on Mackenzie 1793, and me on the lack of a pidgin

Nater, Hank. 2020. Old records of three contiguous Pacific Northwest languages. Anthropological Linguistics 62(2):183-191. Hats off to Nater for doing the very hard work of scientifically re-examining some unscientifically recorded early data on Pacific NW languages! Image credit: Anthropological Linguistics In the article I’m talking about, Nater delves into Alexander Mackenzie’s 1793 records of making first contact with speakers of: Dakelh (a…Read Article
1888: How Port Townsend site was chosen
Port Townsend · Port Townsend

1888: How Port Townsend site was chosen

Chinook Jargon was pivotal in the founding of the Settler community of Port Townsend, Washington Territory… First cabin built at Port Townsend (image credit: History Link) How Port Townsend Site was Chosen PORT TOWNSEND, July 23, — Said an old resident yesterday: Capt. L[oren].B. Hastings, Sr. [1814-1881], shortly before his death, told me how he and Mr. [Francis W.] Pettygrove [?-1887] chanced to select a site for Port Townsend. They were enca…Read Article

Chinook Jargon in the news: “The Girl with Big Feet” community screening, June 27th!

Here’s your first chance to see a new movie that includes dialog in Northern Chinook Jargon, Dakelh, Toisanese, and English. Can you read the Chinuk Pipa in the movie poster below? Image credit: eventbrite “The Girl with Big Feet” has a community showing in Vancouver, BC, on June 27th, 2025! It’ll be from 6 to 7pm at the Chinatown Storytelling Centre. Following it, there’ll be a Q&A with its award-winning director, Karin Lee. ikta mayka chaku-kə…Vancouver, British Columbia · VancouverRead Article

‘Breechcloth’ in Lower Chehalis shows hidden Chinuk Wawa testicles

In the classic publication by photographer Edward S. Curtis, “The North American Indian” (1907/1930), Volume 9, page 188 documents the Lower Chehalis Salish word for ‘breech-cloth’. It was difficult to find a relevant image. This one’s not by Curtis, I’m sorry (image credit: A.J. Clothiers) Curtis’s spelling of that word would apparently indicate a Lower Chehalis šəp-ísq-ət̓ (lit. ~cover-stones-thing.used.for). This is almost certainly in part …Chehalis · ChehalisRead Article

1858, BC: “Ho! For the new mines” with American assumptions about Chinook

Back when Steilacoom (in Washington Territory) was still a major metropolis, it was a conduit for information on — and relating to — the new Fraser River gold rush in BC. J.S. Jaquith wrote the letter from there that’s reproduced in today’s reading. He speaks mainly of his experience 3 years previous, going to the Colville mines, but extrapolating from that to discuss how folks ought to go to British Columbia now. I appreciated the following pas…British Columbia · British ColumbiaRead Article

The traces of Chinook Jargon in Tuwáduqucad (Twana, Coast Salish)

Publicly posted on the web is a wonderful research tool that’s new to me…The “Twana Dictionary: Student Version” is made available by the Skokomish Tribe (western Washington). I’ve recently been doing a deep dose of one of my favorite pastimes, dictionary reading, in order to do something I’ve already posted for other Indigenous languages of the Pacific NW. I’m going to list all the loan words in Tuwáduqucad a.k.a. Twana that I think are reason…Skokomish · SkokomishRead Article

1884, WA: Chinook dictionary, racism, misogyny, bad grammar, the usual

A well-known Chinuk Wawa dictionary in the frontier era gets a reception that typifies Settlers’ privileged attitudes. The edition in question (image credit: HathiTrust) Here’s a paragraph that veers real fast from facts to a dense jumble of stereotypes: CHINOOK DICTIONARY. — We acknowl edge the receipt of a complete dictionary of the chinook jargon, with the compli ments of Messrs. J. K. Gill & Co., the enterprising paper dealers of Portland. G…Racism · DaytonRead Article

More humor: translating into Sechelt, or just playing cards?

I got a chuckle from the Chinook Jargon newspaper… (A link to much more humor on my website…) “Kamloops Wawa” of November 1896 (#146, page 236) has this neat story in Jargon, which I’ve translated for you: And I found two Sechelt men, and we wrote the Sechelt language: we wrote all the prayers, all the hymns, and all the Catechism in the Sechelt language. The previous day when we were on the steamer, several Sechelt young men were on the steamb…Sechelt · SecheltRead Article

1885, WA: German-Chinook oaths!

Of course you know “Dutch” always meant “German” in America back then. Here’s a nice anecdote from, I reckon, right around the corner from the newspaper office. Blogger’s conception of Old Nick (image credit: The Guardian) The German fella probably really was named Nick, although “Old Nick” is The Devil in English-language slang. Here we get some nice untranslated Chinook Jargon, plus further confirmation of the cooccurrence of Chinook ‘n’ cussi…Washington State · WashingtonRead Article

Chinook Jargon’s /yaka/ indicates pidginization from Chinookan /yax̣ka/

Now an ultra-short note. Image credit: How to Pronounce Chinook Jargon’s 3rd-person singular animate personal pronoun yaka ‘(s)he’ (and sometimes ‘they’) is a simplified version of its etymological source, Clatsop-Shoalwater Lower Chinookan yax̣ka. Because pidginization! Prove me wrong. ikta mayka chaku-kəmtəks? Ikta maika chako-kumtuks? What have you learned? And can you say it in Jargon?Astoria, Oregon · AstoriaRead Article

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