1909, Tacoma, WA ad: I will cultis potlach clams! Hiack chockwa!
“Clams”, from the English plural, was incontestably a Chinuk Wawa word.
Monthly Archive: October, 2024
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Lempfrit’s legendary, long-lost, linguistic legacy (Part 23: how to menace etc.)
Containing at least seeming new discovery, here’s the last of the vocabulary-listing pages in Father Honoré-Timothée Lempfrit’s little-known document; next up will be some texts!
1904, Anacortes, WA: “Two Klooches” doggerel
I figure, given the racialized nature of today’s Pacific Northwest folklore poetry, that a “bussle (bustle) of hops” might have a double meaning:
More humor in Chinuk Wawa: 1879, Oregon — US Grant could toast in every language
Before the end of the frontier era, an Oregon newspaper viciously skewered its enemies wherever they might be.
Didactic dialogues in CW dictionaries, part 7A: Shaw’s “examples” (1st installment; a Boas mystery!)
A big goal in my examination of the “didactic dialogues” that some Chinuk Wawa (Chinook Jargon) dictionaries used to present is this: to help you see which ones are the most useful.
1878, SE Alaska: Chief Toy-a-att’s speech: Back-translation challenge
There are plenty of hints in today’s featured frontier-era newspaper article that Chinook Jargon was being used a lot in Southeast Alaska.
1906, Olympia, WA: Mika quanisum potlum!
It was 16 years into the post-frontier era. Did the local newspaper translate the Chinook Jargon it was quoting?
So many Métis words in interior PNW languages (Part 11: Spokane Salish — a bill of goods)
Another in our ongoing collection of Canadian/Métis French words that show up in a very interesting geographical pattern: they’re loaned into the Indigenous languages of the Interior Pacific Northwest!
1903: Oregon Indigenous baseball doggerel
This vintage baseball item fits in our “Chinook Jargon-related doggerel” file; look for the Wawa component!