The Onoma language, a major source of Chinook Jargon vocabulary

(Image credit: Twitter)

Chinuk Wawa of course contains many Chinookan words; I often point out Salish ones as well. But were you aware of this source language?

“Onoma” must a Native language, it sounds so pretty. (File under Typographical Errors.)

—  from “The Chinook Jargon” by Myron Eells, American Anthropologist volume VII (July 1894), pages 300-312

It’s also fun that this tabulation goes on to distinguish a large “French” contribution from a tiny “Canadian French” one…??? An early indication of the trend of scholars knowing quite little about Canadian and Métis speech. Maybe Onoma is from their language 🙂