What else is ENDOGENOUS to Chinuk Wawa?

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This short note invites you to make suggestions to me…

What things in Chinuk Wawa cannot be traced back to any other languages?

I keep showing you words, metaphors, grammatical features, even aspects of how the Jargon sounds, that each have a most likely source in Chinookan, or in Salish, or in Canadian French, etc. etc.

But don’t let me lead you into thinking everything here comes from elsewhere…

…What I haven’t pointed out quite as much is…everything else! 🙂

There has to be plenty of stuff in Chinook Jargon that originated within this language. In fancy words, stuff that’s “endogenous” to CJ. Native to it.

For example: músum-nánich ‘to dream’ (literally ‘sleep-see’). No matter how extensively I research it, I’m finding no parallel expression in any of the known contributing languages to the Jargon. (Even K’alapuyan.)

I can speak confidently about the history of linguistic research on Chinuk Wawa, and tell you that us linguists have hardly even thought about the question of what’s totally unique to this language.

This is a classic research opportunity. Whenever you realize what’s been overlooked by everyone who came before, you have the chance to do a ton of excellent work.

I’ll get on this.

Your suggestions?

What in the Jargon do you suppose came into existence after the birth of the language?