Chinook Jargon “skúl” = ‘residential school’ in BC languages
I remember folks, years ago, asking me if there was information about BC’s old residential schools for Indigenous kids in the Kamloops Wawa newspaper, and telling them “nope”.
I was wrong.
To learn about BC residential schools, please click here
What I hadn’t yet learned was, they were not called residential schools in that paper, which ran mostly from 1891 to 1904.
Instead, in English, they were called “industrial schools“. Same phrase in French (translated).
And in Chinook Jargon, they were just called skul. No need to be more specific. There were no other schools available for Native youth.
Realizing this through the years has also led me to understand that the loaned noun skul, taken into BC Indigenous languages from Chinook Jargon (as well as from English), primarily meant “residential school” in that era.
Here are a couple examples among the several I’ve found so far:
Nɬeʔképmx (Thompson Salish):
regarding the Kamloops residential school (per p. 68 of same document)
St̓át̓imcets (Lillooet Salish):
regarding St Mary’s Mission residential school
Further examples will abound.
Meanwhile, I’ve assembled all references to BC’s residential schools in Kamloops Wawa into a document. It should get publicly posted soon.
