1868: A Chinuk Wawa dictionary we hadn’t known of
Here’s a marvelous discovery…
A Chinook Jargon dictionary we hadn’t known about!
While I was researching a CJ song we hadn’t known about, which appears in a separate post on my site, I was googling a certain Jargon phrase. The first thing that showed up was this:
“Chinook Jargon…from the New Gold Regions of the Northwest[,] by Francis M. Thompson. St. Louis [Missouri], 1868.”
It’s a typewritten copy, held by the Yakima Valley Libraries [Washington state], from a very obscure published book. That book is mentioned in one bibliographic source that I know of. But it’s not in James C. Pilling’s knowledgeable 1893 bibliography of Chinookan languages and Chinuk Wawa. Nor is it mentioned in Samuel V. Johnson’s 1978 dissertation of CW dictionaries. It doesn’t even show up in WorldCat, the tool that professional librarians use!
Having emphasized its obscurity, I can now de-mystify today’s find. First, here’s a visual sample from it (you can of course go read & download the whole thing for free) —
A quick comparison of the above few words’ spellings with other dictionaries shows that a grand old Chinooker tradition is alive and well —
“Thompson’s” dictionary is actually plagiarized from Duncan George Forbes MacDonald’s 1862 book “British Columbia and Vancouver’s Island: Comprising a Description of These Dependencies … Also an Account of the Manners and Customs of the Native Indians.” (Click that link to go read & download the book.)
Thompson was apparently one of those who saw a fast, if unscrupulous, money-making opportunity in peddling the Jargon to far-West gold seekers.
It’s a good day, regardless, when we find another piece in the story of Chinuk Wawa!
