WA: Upper Skagit Valley place names, and salvaging language information
It’s not an unusual situation for proper names to be everything we know about some previously-existing language.
Monthly Archive: September, 2025
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Any CJ in Hupa?: The southern boundary of Jargon use
Is there even a single trace of Chinuk Wawa in northwest California’s Hupa language?
1859, BC’s Fraser River + CA: Earliest confusion of “high muckamuck” with Chinook Jargon
On the subject of a linguistic urban legend that I’ve already busted (see “Hawai’i Pidgin ‘High Makamaka’ Helps Us Bust a Jargon Myth“) —
1867, OR: Twenty-five cent diggings
Untranslated Chinuk Wawa was normal in Pacific Northwest newspapers in frontier times.
Support for ‘100’ coming from Chinookan ‘tree’
Apparently my suggestion that Chinuk Wawa’s tak’umunaq ‘one hundred’ is etymologically Chinookan for ‘(fir) tree’ isn’t outlandish.
1910, Nanimo, BC: Indian Shaker Church service
[Oops, I misspelled Nanaimo, sorry!] We can thank reader Alex Code for this neat item, too…
Čáw Pawá Láakni: They Are Not Forgotten
A phenomenal cultural document that recently joined my research library is the book “Čáw Pawá Láakni: They Are Not Forgotten / Sahaptian Place Names Atlas of the Cayuse, Umatilla, and Walla Walla” by… Continue reading
1857, WA: Earliest “Stick Indians”
The earliest “Stick Indians”?
What Taa-laa-wa Dee-ni’ a.k.a. Tolowa (CA/OR coast Athabaskan) has to do with Chinook Jargon
We are living in fortunate times. Lots of Indigenous-language resources are generously being shared online.
BC, about 1900: “Doctor Tom’s” song: Now with musical notation!
I previously shared the lyrics and the background to “Doctor Tom’s” medicine-man (“doctoring”) song.