Chinook Jargon

The neutrality of this article is disputed. Relevant discussion may be found on the talk page. Please do not remove this message until conditions to do so are met. (September 2021) (Learn how and when to remove this template message)

This article is missing information about orthographies. Please expand the article to include this information. Further details may exist on the talk page. (June 2019)

Chinook Jargon
chinuk wawa, wawa, chinook lelang, lelang, chinook
Native to	Canada, United States
Region	Pacific Northwest (Interior and Coast): Alaska, British Columbia, Washington State, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, Northern California
Native speakers	More than 640 (at least 3 native adult speakers alive in 2019 based on estimates from the Chinook Jargon Listserv archives) (2020)[1]
Revival	Never went completely extinct; 650 native speakers according to 2010 US Census
Language family	Mainly Wakashan (Nootka Jargon), Chinookan, and Indo-European (Germanic and Italic)
Writing system	De facto Latin, historically Duployan; currently standardized IPA-based orthography
Official status
Official language in	De facto in Pacific Northwest until about 1920
Language codes
ISO 639-2	chn
ISO 639-3	chn
Glottolog	pidg1254  (pidgin) chin1272  (creole)
ELP	Chinook Wawa

Chinook Jargon (Chinuk Wawa or Chinook Wawa, also known simply as Chinook or Jargon) is a language originating as a pidgin trade language in the Pacific Northwest, and spreading during the 19th century from the lower Columbia River, first to other areas in modern Oregon and Washington, then British Columbia and parts of Alaska, Northern California, Idaho and Montana while sometimes taking on characteristics of a creole language.^[2] It is partly descended from the Chinook language, upon which much of its vocabulary is based.^[3] Approximately 15 percent of its lexicon is French, and it also makes use of English loanwords and those of other language systems. Its entire written form is in the Duployan shorthand developed by French priest Émile Duployé.

Many words from Chinook Jargon remain in common use in the Western United States and British Columbia today and it has been described as part of a multicultural heritage shared by the modern inhabitants of the Pacific Northwest. The total number of Jargon words in published lexicons numbered only in the hundreds, and so it was easy to learn.^[4] It has its own grammatical system, but a very simple one that, like its word list, was easy to learn. Though existent in Chinook Jargon, the consonant /r/ is rare, and English and French loan words, such as rice and merci, have changed in their adoption to the Jargon, to lays and mahsi, respectively.

Name[]

Most books written in English still use the term Chinook Jargon, but some linguists working with the preservation of a creolized form of the language used in Grand Ronde, Oregon, prefer the term Chinuk Wawa (with the spelling 'Chinuk' instead of 'Chinook'). Historical speakers did not use the name Chinook Wawa, however, but rather "the Wawa" or "Lelang" (from Fr. la langue, the language, or tongue).^{[citation needed]} Wawa also means speech or words – "have a wawa" means "hold a parley" even in idiomatic English today,^[5] and lelang also means the physical bodypart, the tongue.^[6]

The name for the Jargon varied throughout the territory in which it was used. For example: skokum hiyu in the Boston Bar-Lytton area of the Fraser Canyon, or in many areas simply just "the old trade language" or "the Hudson Bay language".

History[]

Origins[]

Whether the Jargon was a post-contact or pre-contact language has been the subject of debate.^[7]

The pre-contact hypothesis states that the language developed prior to European settlement as an intra-indigenous contact language in a region marked by divisive geography and intense linguistic diversity, eventually expanding to incorporate elements of European languages, with approximately 15 percent of its lexicon derived from French.^[8][9] The Jargon also acquired English loanwords and its written form is entirely in the Duployan Shorthand created by French priest Émile Duployé. ^[10][5]

The post-contact hypothesis suggests it originated in Nootka Sound after the arrival of Russian and Spanish traders as a means of communicating between them and indigenous peoples, eventually spreading further south due to commercial use.^[7] University of Ottawa linguist David Lang has argued for this understanding.^[11]

Linguist Barbara Harris suggests a dual genesis, positing that both origins probably have some legitimacy and the two varieties eventually blended together.^[7]

By 1840, it had creolized into a native language for some speakers.^[12]

Use[]

In the Diocese of Kamloops, British Columbia, hundreds of speakers also learned to read and write the Jargon using Duployan shorthand via the publication Kamloops Wawa. As a result, the Jargon also had the beginnings of its own literature, mostly translated scripture and classical works, and some local and episcopal news, community gossip and events, and diaries.^[9] Novelist and early Native American activist Marah Ellis Ryan (c. 1860–1934) used Chinook words and phrases in her writing.^[13]

In Oregon, Chinook Jargon was widely used by Natives, trappers, traders, employees of the Hudson's Bay Company, missionaries, and pioneers who came across the Oregon Trail from the 1830s-1870s. In Portland's first half century (1840s-1890s) there were frequent trade interactions between pioneers and Native Americans. After about 1900, when such daily interactions were less frequent, Jargon was spoken among pioneer families to prove how early they arrived out west. Many Oregonians used Jargon in casual conversation—to add humor, whimsy or emphasis and to exhibit deep knowledge of Oregon's history. Though traditions of speaking Jargon faded away among the non-Native population, some of Oregon's tribal groups continued speaking Chinook Jargon, though usage was diminished.

According to Nard Jones, Chinook Jargon was still in use in Seattle until roughly the eve of World War II, especially among the members of the Arctic Club, making Seattle the last city where the language was widely used. Writing in 1972, he remarked that at that later date "Only a few can speak it fully, men of ninety or a hundred years old, like Henry Broderick, the realtor, and Joshua Green, the banker."^[14]

Jones estimates that in pioneer times in the 1860s^[15] there were about 100,000 speakers of Chinook Jargon.^[16] The language was being used, even entire paragraphs, without translations in local newspapers from at least Oregon and Washington states. It was also used by teachers to teach natives at school, by shopkeepers to sell things, by courts as an interview tool or to judge if a person was a citizen or not, by priests to teach religion, and between children playing on the street.

It peaked in usage from approximately 1858 to 1900, and declined as a result of the Spanish flu and World War I.^[17]

In the 20th century, Chinook Jargon entered a slow decline. As late as the 1940s, native speakers were still being born in Tiller, Oregon,^[18] but by 1962 the Summer Institute of Linguistics (SIL) estimated that only 100 speakers were left.^{[citation needed]} In the 2000s, Lane Community College in Eugene, Oregon started a three-semester university program teaching Chinook Jargon^[19][20] The 2010 United States Census recorded 640 native speakers.^[21]

Evolution[]

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources:  –  ·  ·  · scholar · JSTOR (August 2008) (Learn how and when to remove this template message)

There is some controversy about the origin of the Jargon, but all agree that its glory days were during the 19th century. During this era many dictionaries were published to help settlers interact with the First Nations people living there. The old settler families' heirs in the Pacific Northwest sent communiques to each other, stylishly composed entirely in "the Chinook". Many residents of the British Columbia city of Vancouver spoke Chinook Jargon as their first language, even using it at home in preference to English. Among the first Europeans to use Chinook Jargon were traders, trappers, voyageurs, Coureurs des bois and Catholic missionaries.^[22][23]

Hawaiians and American in the region made much use of it as well. In some places Kanakas married into the First Nations and non-native families and their particular mode of the Jargon is believed to have contained Hawaiian words, or Hawaiian styles of pronunciation. Similarly the Jargon as spoken by a Chinese person or a Norwegian or a Scot will have been influenced by those individuals' native-speaker terms and accents. In some areas the adoption of further non-aboriginal words has been observed. The Chinook Jargon naturally became the first language in multi-racial households and in multi-ethnic work environments such as canneries and logging camps and ranches where it remained the language of the workplace well into the middle of the 20th century. During the Gold Rush, Chinook Jargon was used in British Columbia at first by gold prospectors and Royal Engineers; then as industry developed, Chinook Jargon was often used by cannery workers, hop pickers, loggers, fishermen and ranchers of diverse ethnic background. It is possible that at one point the population of BC spoke and understood Chinook Jargon more than any other single language, including English.^[24] Historian Jane Barman wrote,

The persistence of everyday relationships between Natives and Europeans is embodied in Chinook. Emerging out of early contact and the fur trade, the Chinook jargon possesses at most 700 words derived in approximately equal proportions from the powerful Chinook Indians of the lower Columbia, from the Nootka people of Vancouver Island, and from French and English... jargon provided 'an important vehicle of communication for trading & ordinary purposes.' James Douglas often spoke in Chinook when addressing Native people, a local Indian then translating his words into the local tongue. Bishop George Hills and other early Anglican clerics did the same when preaching. Chinook was the language of instruction in the school for Indian children that Hills established near Victoria in 1860.

A miner whiling away the winter of 1858 in Victoria wrote his parents that he was passing the time 'studying the Chinook Jargon and can now converse with the Indians.' A beginning clerk in the Granville general store in 1884 was handed a Chinook dictionary, his pronunciation 'in the second language of the area' being repeatedly corrected by his employer. Again, the purchasing power of Aboriginal men, women, and families is underlined...

Chinook entered the mainstream. The summertime camps of late-nineteenth century Victorians 'were nearly all given rather fantastic and often facetious names: "The Three Black Crowes" or something à la Chinook... It was only after mid-century, when almost all Indian adults had learned basic English in school, that everyday use of Chinook died out in British Columbia.^[24]

A heavily creolized form of Chinook Jargon (Chinuk Wawa) is still spoken as a first language by some residents of Oregon, much as the Métis language Michif is spoken in Canada. Hence, Chinuk Wawa as it is known in Oregon is now a creole language, distinct from the widespread and widely varied pronunciation of the Chinook Jargon as it spread beyond the Chinookan homeland. There is evidence that in some communities (e.g., around Fort Vancouver) the Jargon had become creolized by the early 19th century and that would have been among the mixed French/Métis, Algonkian, Scots and Hawaiian population there as well as among the natives around the Fort. At Grand Ronde, the resettlement of tribes from all over Oregon in a multi-tribal agency led to the use of Chinuk Wawa as a common tongue among the linguistically diverse population. These circumstances led to the creolization of Chinuk Wawa at Grand Ronde.^[25] There is also evidence that creolization occurred at the Confederated Tribes of Siletz reservation paralleling Grand Ronde^[26] although, due to language revitalization efforts being focused on the Tolowa language, Chinuk fell out of use.

No studies of British Columbia versions of the Jargon have demonstrated creolization. The range of varying usages and vocabulary in different regions suggests that localization did occur — although not on the pattern of Grand Ronde where Wasco, Klickitat and other peoples adopted and added to the version of the Jargon that developed there. First-language speakers of the Chinook Jargon were common in BC (native and non-native), until the mid-20th century. It is a truism that while after 1850 the Wawa was mostly a native language in the United States portion of the Chinook-speaking world, it remained in wide use among non-natives north of the border for another century, especially in wilderness areas and work environments.^[5] Local creolizations probably did occur in British Columbia, but recorded materials have not been studied as they were made due to the focus on the traditional aboriginal languages.^{[citation needed]}

Many^[who?] believe that something similar to the Jargon existed before European contact — without European words in its vocabulary.^[27] There is some evidence for a Chinookan-Nuu-chah-nulth lingua franca in the writings of John Jewitt and in what is known as the Barclay Sound word-list, from the area of Ucluelet and Alberni. Others^[who?] believe that the Jargon was formed in the great cultural cauldron of the time of Contact and cannot be discussed separately from that context, with an appreciation for the full range of the Jargon-speaking community and its history.^[9]

Current scholarly opinion^[who?] holds that a trade language probably existed before European contact, which began "morphing" into the more familiar Chinook Jargon in the late 1790s, notably at a dinner party at Nootka Sound where Capts Vancouver and Bodega y Quadra were entertained by Chief Maquinna and his brother Callicum performing a theatrical using mock English and mock Spanish words and mimicry of European dress and mannerisms. There evidently was a Jargon in use in the Queen Charlotte, but this "Haida Jargon" is not known to have shared anything in common with Chinook Jargon, or with the Nooktan-Chinookan "proto-jargon" which is its main foundation.

Orthographies[]

There are a few main spelling variations of Chinook Jargon but each individual writer also had their own spelling variations.

1. English, French and German-Based Spelling:

In a general sense, when words derived from English or French the original English/French spellings were used. Words not derived from English/French were written in an approximate spelling based on mainstream English, French or German spelling. This would mean, for example, "cloochman" ("clooch" being native origin, "ch" being the German "ch") for "woman, wife", "house" (English origin) for "house", and "le clou" (French origin) for "nail, claw". This spelling doesn't take into account the actual mainstream pronunciation of the words in Chinook Jargon.

2. Approximate Sound-Based Spelling:

With every writer having their own variation of a fairly standardized spelling based on their own dialect, the same examples above could be "tlotchmin, haws, leklo".

3. IPA-based spelling for use on smartphones and early computers:

This was used on the Chinook Jargon Listserve in the 1990s and other places where it was/is difficult or impossible to type using actual IPA symbols.

4: IPA-based Grand Ronde Spelling:

This is only used by speakers of the Grand Ronde dialect in Oregon.

Below is a comparison chart.

hide

Listserv Symbol[28]	Grand Ronde Variations	Other Variations	English
?, 7			uh?oh (glottal stop)
!			ejective (comes after the ejective consonant)
h			aspiration (comes after the aspirated consonant)
w			rounded (comes after the vowel/consonant to be rounded)
a			father
ay, ai			sky
aw, ow			cow
b			bill
c		ts	cats
ch		tj, ty, sh, s	church
e, eh			bet
E, V, v		u, o, e	but, mutt
ey, ei			say
d			dog
f			father
g			get
h			happy
I			bit
i		ee	beat
k			cow, anchor (unaspirated)
kw			queen (unaspirated)
l			love
L, hl			clock (lateral fricative)
tl, thl			lateral affricate
m			mom
n			no (note that in some native languages and thus CJ dialects, "n" and "l" were pronounced so similarly they would switch between one and the other)
o			no
p			spit (unaspirated)
q			deep "queen" (uvular "k" with lips rounded) (unaspirated)
r			robber (note that most northern dialects said "l" instead of "r")
s			sink
sh			shoot
t			style (unaspirated)
uw		oo, u	moon
u		ê	book, put
uy			buoy (depending on your dialect)
w			water
x			velar fricative (Scottish English "loch")
X			uvular fricative
y		i	year

Jargon Chinook Alphabet (Grande Ronde)^[29]

a

ch

c’h

ə

h

i

k

kʰ

kw

kʰw

k’

k’w

l

ɬ

m

n

p

pʰ

p’

q

qʰ

qw

qʰw

q’

q’w

s

sh

t

tʰ

t’

tɬ

t’ɬ

ts

t’s

u

w

x

xw

x̣

x̣w

y

ʔ

Contemporary status[]

hideThis section has multiple issues. Please help or discuss these issues on the talk page. (Learn how and when to remove these template messages) This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (August 2008) (Learn how and when to remove this template message) This section's tone or style may not reflect the encyclopedic tone used on Wikipedia. See Wikipedia's guide to writing better articles for suggestions. (July 2018) (Learn how and when to remove this template message) (Learn how and when to remove this template message)

Linguist David Douglas Robertson and others have described Chinook Jargon as part of a shared cultural heritage of modern inhabitants of the Pacific Northwest.^[30][11]

Pacific Northwest historians are well acquainted with the Chinook Jargon, in name if not in the ability to understand it. Mentions of and phrases of Chinook Jargon were found in nearly every piece of historical source material before 1900. Chinook Jargon is relatively unknown to the rest of the population, perhaps due to the great influx of newcomers into the influential urban areas.^{[citation needed]} However, the memory of this language is not likely to fade entirely. Many words are still used and enjoyed throughout Oregon, Washington, British Columbia, the Yukon, and Alaska. Old-timers still dimly remember it, although in their youth, speaking this language was discouraged as slang. Nonetheless, it was the working language in many towns and workplaces, notably in ranching country and in canneries on the British Columbia Coast where it was necessary in the strongly multi-ethnic workforce. Place names throughout this region bear Jargon names (see List of Chinook Jargon placenames) and words are preserved in various rural industries such as logging and fishing.

The Chinook Jargon was multicultural and functional.^[31] To those familiar with it, Chinook Jargon is often considered a wonderful cultural inheritance. For this reason, and because Jargon has not quite died, enthusiasts actively promote the revival of the language in everyday western speech.

The Confederated Tribes of the Grand Ronde Community of Oregon is taking steps to preserve Chinook Jargon use through a full immersion head start/preschool which is conducted in Chinuk Wawa, in hopes of fostering fluency in the language.^[32][33] The Confederated Tribes also offer Chinuk Wawa lessons at their offices in Eugene and Portland, Oregon.^[34] In addition, Lane Community College offers two years of Chinuk Wawa language study that satisfy second-language graduation requirements of Oregon public universities.^[35]

In March 2012, the Tribe published a Chinuk Wawa dictionary through University of Washington Press.^[6]

At her swearing-in as lieutenant governor in 2001, Iona Campagnolo concluded her speech in Chinook, observing that "konoway tillicums klatawa kunamokst klaska mamook okoke huloima chee illahie" – Chinook for "everyone was thrown together to make this strange new country (British Columbia). Lit. ("All people go together they make this strange new land")."^[17]

An art installation featuring Chinook Jargon, "Welcome to the Land of Light" by Henry Tsang, can be viewed on the Seawall along False Creek in downtown Vancouver, British Columbia between Davie and Drake streets.^[36] Translation into Chinook Jargon was done by Duane Pasco.^[37]

A short film using Chinook Jargon, "Small Pleasures" by Karin Lee explores intercultural dialogue between three women of different cultural and linguistic backgrounds in 1890s Barkerville in Northern British Columbia.^[38]

Revival of the language[]

Chinuk Wawa was classified as extinct until the 2000s when it was revived, notably in 2014 with the release of Chinuk Wawa—As Our Elders Teach Us to Speak It by the Confederated Tribes of the Grand Ronde Community of Oregon. In 2018 Sequoia Edwards published a textbook for Chinook Jargon in Esperanto (La Chinuka Interlingvo Per Esperanto^[39]), and in 2021 published a Chinook Jargon translation of Beatrix Potter's The Tale of Peter Rabbit titled Pida Kwichadi Yaka Ya’yim.^[40] In November 2020 the online magazine Kaltash Wawa was founded, which is in Chinook Jargon and uses the Duployan shorthand alphabet.^[41]

In 2019 "Chinuk Wawa" became available as a language option on the fanfiction website Archive of Our Own.^[42] In 2020 Chinook Jargon was added to Tatoeba, a website that collects and crowd-translates sentences in various languages, and in 2021 was added as a language publishing option on the ebook publishing site Smashwords.

During termination of aboriginal peoples by the United States government, speaking of the language was forbidden, and as a result, developed a decline of speakers. After the conclusion of the termination era with the restoration of tribes in the Pacific Northwest area, revival of Chinuk Wawa began. There are fluent speakers of Chinuk Wawa, primarily in the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde.

Influence on English[]

British Columbian English and Pacific Northwest English have several words still in current use which are loanwords from the Chinook Jargon,^{[citation needed]} which was widely spoken throughout the Pacific Northwest by all ethnicities well into the middle of the 20th century. These words tend to be shared with, but are not as common in, the states of Oregon, Washington, Alaska and, to a lesser degree, Idaho and western Montana.

Chinook Jargon words used by English-language speakers[]

This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (January 2015) (Learn how and when to remove this template message)

• Cheechako — Newcomer; the word is formed from chee ("new") + chako ("come") and was used to refer to non-native people.
• Chuck — Water; and thus saltchuck "salt water". Colchuck Peak and Colchuck Glacier in the Alpine Lakes Wilderness take their name from Colchuck Lake, "cold water".^[43]
• Cultus — means bad, worthless, useless, ordinary, evil or taboo. Cultus iktus means "worthless stuff".
• Hiyu — less common nowadays, but still heard in some places to mean a party or gathering. From the Chinook for "many" or "several" or "lots of". The Big Hiyu (also known as "The July") was a week-long joint celebration of Dominion Day and the Glorious Fourth in the Fraser Canyon town of Lillooet, featuring horse races, gambling, a rodeo and other festivities. A tenas hiyu (small gathering) was on a much smaller scale. The community of West Seattle has celebrated the month of July for more than 75 years with the HiYu Summer Festival.^[44]
• Iktus — "stuff" in Chinook Jargon, also pronounced "itkus" with 't' and 'k' reversed.
• Klootchman or klootch — in the Jargon meaning simply "a woman" or the female of something – klootchman kiuatan (mare), klootchman lecosho (sow), tenas klootchman or klootchman tenas (girl, female child). Still in use in English in some areas and with people of an older background to mean a First Nations woman, or to refer to the wives/women attached to a certain group in a joking way e.g. "we sent all the klootchman to the kitchen while we played cards". Unlike its male equivalent siwash, klootchman does not generally have a derisive tone nowadays (when used).
• Masi — In northern BC and the Yukon, and used in broadcast English in those areas, the Chinook Jargon adaption of the French merci remains common, i.e. mahsi or masi, with the accent on the first syllable (unlike in French).
• It is possible that the slang term moolah, meaning money in American slang, comes from the word 'moolah' meaning 'mill' in Chinook.^[45]
• Mucky muck or muckamuck — in the Jargon means "plenty of food" and came to connotate one who lived well, thus in colloquial English an important or officious person. Related to this is high mucky muck, or Chinook hiyu muckamuck.
• Potlatch — in Chinook Jargon is a ceremony among certain tribes involving food and exchange of gifts, nowadays sometimes used to refer to a potluck dinner or sometimes the giving away of personal items to friends.^[43]: 396
• Quiggly, quiggly hole — refers to the remains of an old Indian pit-house, or underground house, from kickwillie or kekuli, which in the Jargon means "down" or "underneath" or "beneath".
• Siwash — (/ˈsaɪwɑːʃ/ SY-wahsh) properly a First Nations man, but sometimes used for women as well. The origins and meaning may be considered pejorative and derogatory French sauvage.^[43]: 452 When pronounced /səˈwɑːʃ/ sə-WAHSH, with the rhythm of the original French, it is used by modern speakers of the Chinook Jargon in Grand Ronde, Oregon, with the context of meaning a Native American, or as an adjective connoting connection to same, such as in Siwash Rock or Siwash Sweaters. The /ˈsaɪwɑːʃ/ pronunciation is considered offensive in Grand Ronde.
• Skookum — The most versatile is skookum, which was used in the Jargon either as a verb auxiliary for to be able or an adjective for able, strong, big, genuine, reliable – which sums up its use in BC English, although there are a wide range of possible usages: a skookum house is a jail or prison (house in the Jargon could mean anything from a building to a room). "He's a skookum guy" means that the person is solid and reliable while "we need somebody who's skookum" means that a strong and large person is needed.^[46] A carpenter, after banging a stud into place, might check it and decide, "Yeah, that's skookum". Asking for affirmation, someone might say "is that skookum" or "is that skookum with you?" Skookum can also be translated simply as "O.K." but it means something a bit more emphatic.
• Tenas — means "small".
• Tillicum — means "people/person", "family", and "people".
• Tolo — used in Western Washington to mean a semi-formal dance, analogous to the homecoming ball, to which girls ask boys. From the Chinook for "to win".
• Tyee — leader, chief, boss. Also Big Tyee in the context of "boss" or well-known person. In Campbell River and in the sport-fishing business, a really big chinook salmon is a Tyee. In the Jargon Tyee meant chief, and could also be an adjective denoting "big", as with tyee salmon or tyee lamel (boss mule). A hyas tyee means "important/big ruler/leader", i.e. – king, big boss, important ruler, and is also sometimes used in English in the same way as Big Tyee. e.g. "He was the undisputed hyas tyee of all the country between the Johnstone Strait and Comox" This was also the common title used for the famous chiefs of the early era, such as Maquinna, for whom it was applied by Captain Vancouver and others in the context of "king". The Hyas Klootchman Tyee – "Great Woman Ruler", roughly "Her Majesty", was the historical term for Queen Victoria. The word tyee was commonly used and still occurs in some local English usages meaning "boss" or someone in charge. Business and local political and community figures of a certain stature from some areas are sometimes referred to in the British Columbia papers and histories by the old chiefly name worn by Maquinna, Concomly and Nicola. A man called hyas tyee would have been a senator, a longtime MP or MLA, or a business magnate with a strong local powerbase, long-time connections, and wealth from and because of the area. There is a popular BC news site named The Tyee. Beginning in 1900, Tyee was also the title of the University of Washington Yearbook.^[47]

Notable non-natives known to speak Chinook Jargon[]

• Francis Jones Barnard
• Francis Stillman Barnard
• Sir Matthew Baillie Begbie
• Franz Boas^[48]
• Sir James Douglas
• Joshua Green
• Phoebe Goodell Judson
• Father Jean-Marie-Raphaël Le Jeune
• Sir Richard McBride
• John McLoughlin
• Morley Roberts^[49]
• Robert William Service
• Sam Sullivan
• Theodore Winthrop

See also[]

• List of Chinook Jargon placenames
• American Indian Pidgin English
• Haida Jargon
• Maritime Fur Trade
• Medny Aleut language
• Nootka Jargon
• Tlingit noun
• Wobbly lingo

References[]

External links[]

Chinook Jargon test of Wikipedia at Wikimedia Incubator

For a list of words relating to Chinook Jargon, see the Chinook Jargon language category of words in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Note: The Incubator link at right will take you to the Chinuk Wawa test-Wikipedia, which is written in a variation of the standardized orthography of the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde which differs significantly from the orthographies used by early linguists and diarists recording other versions of the Jargon:

• Portland State University Chinook Jargon Collection—dictionaries, books, & journal articles documenting the etymology, grammar, history, origins, and use of the Chinook Jargon trade language collected by Donald W. Bushaw.
• Selected references for students and scholars—including study guides and four dictionaries
• British Columbia Time Temple Archive Excellent resource compiling public domain texts written about and in the Chinook Wawa
• Kamloops Wawa page, Chinook Jargon Information Superhighway site
• Chinook Texts by Franz Boas
• ntsayka ikanum (Our Story) Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde Culture website—written and spoken examples of elder wawa from Grand Ronde as well as information on the history of the tribe and language.

Archives[]

• Thomas Wickham Prosch papers. 1775–1915. 1 linear foot (3 boxes). Includes dictionary of Chinook jargon. At the University of Washington Libraries, Special Collections.

Free e-books[]

• Franz Boas (1910). Chinook: an illustrative sketch. Gov't. Printing Office. Retrieved 25 August 2012.
• Franz Boas (1894). Chinook texts. Gov't. Printing Office. Retrieved 25 August 2012.
• Horatio Hale (1890). An International Idiom: A Manual of the Oregon Trade Language or "Chinook Jargon". London: Whittaker & Co.
• Walter Shelley Phillips (1913). The Chinook Book: A Descriptive Analysis of the Chinook Jargon in Plain Words, Giving Instructions for Pronunciation, Construction, Expression and Proper Speaking of Chinook with All the Various Shaded Meanings of the Words. R. L. Davis Printing Company. Retrieved 25 August 2012.
• Charles Montgomery Tate. Chinook as spoken by the Indians of Washington Territory, British Columbia and Alaska for the use of traders, tourists and others who have business intercourse with the Indians : Chinook-English, English-Chinook. M.W. Waitt, Victoria, B.C. [1889?]
• James Constantine Pilling; Smithsonian Institution. Bureau of American Ethnology (1893). Bibliography of the Chinookan Languages (including the Chinook Jargon). Govt. Print. Off. Retrieved 25 August 2012.

Dictionaries online[]

• Directory to on-line Jargon dictionaries
• Abridged Chinook Dictionary
• Chinook Jargon history, dictionary and phrasebook—includes annotated version of Shaw's dictionary, augmented by content from other word lists.
• George Gibbs (1863). A Dictionary of the Chinook Jargon: Or, the Trade Language of Oregon. Cramoisy Press. Retrieved 25 August 2012.
• Gill's dictionary of the Chinook jargon: with examples of use in conversation and notes upon tribes and tongues. J. K. Gill Company. 1909. Retrieved 25 August 2012.
• Horatio Hale (1890). An international idiom: A mannual of the Oregon trade language, or "Chinock jargon.". Whittaker & Co. Retrieved 25 August 2012.
• George Coombs Shaw (1909). The Chinook jargon and how to use it: a complete and exhaustive lexicon of the oldest trade language of the American continent. Rainier Printing Company, Inc. Retrieved 25 August 2012.

News and newsletters[]

• Tenas Wawa—Archive of early 1990s newsletter about Chinook Jargon, also includes audio of a song in the Jargon.
• Can We Still Speak Chinook? from B.C.'s The Tyee, January 2006
• "Status Report: Chinuk Wawa Language Nights in Portland". The Where Are Your Keys? LLC blog. 2011-11-23. Archived from the original on 2012-07-06. Retrieved 2012-08-02.

Other links[]

• First People's Language Map: Chinuk Wawa
• First People's Language Map: Chinuk Wawa Resources Resources