1786-1787: Portlock and Dixon on the northern PNW coast
Seems to me this early set of contacts with Tlingits and their northern neighbors indicates virtually no trade language existed on the northern Pacific Northwest coast in the late 1780s.
Monthly Archive: January, 2022
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1906: For presentation to Teddy Roosevelt
In a previous post, I reported that US President Teddy Roosevelt spoke Chinook.
1793-1825: Why Métis speech dominated the PNW Interior before Chinook Jargon did
Here’s an easy way to see why it was that Métis speech was the “lingua franca” of the Interior Pacific Northwest, until Chinook Jargon took over.
kʰə́ltəs kʰámuksh in SW WA Salish?
We know that ‘dog’ is an insult in many Pacific NW Indigenous languages…
1791-1792: Joseph Ingraham on the PNW coast…
Boston trader Joseph Ingraham (1762-1800) spent a couple of seasons in Haida Gwaii and in Nuuchahnulth country, at a time when numerous Euro-American vessels had already become a common sight…
1905: Les Indiens stenographes
New details about Chiefs Louis and Johnny Chiliheetza’s visit to see the King of England and the Pope…
SW WA Salish ‘stinky’ and CW snort of refusal?
The newest-named Washington State Ferry vessel, the MV Wishkah, got me thinking.
I wonder about indirect questioning
I received a copy of the excellent book “Language and Culture in Aboriginal Australia”, thank to the wonderful Lingoblog…
1853: Not an April Fool’s ad?
One of the first newspapers in Washington would seem to have lost little time indulging in April Fool’s pranks…
Circa 1961: Okoke tea, yaka hyas kloshe
Eric Deane Sismey (1893-?) was a post-frontier surveyor in the Okanagan country of British Columbia, so his quotation of Chinook Jargon from a Native man seems worth paying attention to.