Monthly Archive: August, 2026

2020: “Don’t destroy the writing”

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Chinook Jargon-related research:

A mis-filed archival item about “Kamloops Wawa”

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At the National Centre for Truth & Reconciliation’s online archive of historical documents, I notice that a document relating to the Chinook Jargon newspaper Kamloops Wawa is misfiled. 

Why did Gibbs 1863 call ‘hazelnut’ a K’alapuyan word?

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Why did George Gibbs say that the Chinook Jargon word for ‘hazelnut; nuts generally’ is K’alapuyan?

Planning: The Great Chinook Jargon dictionary (1st note)

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In honour of the 15th anniversary of this website of mine today, let’s plan ahead!

Gibbs 1863 on dialects in Chinuk Wawa

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In my opinion, the best of the English-speaker-oriented Chinook Jargon guides in the frontier era may well have been George Gibbs’s “A Dictionary of the Chinook Jargon, or Trade Language of Oregon“.

I think we can add pípa-sàmən to the “general lower Columbia” (Central Dialect) lexicon

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My 2023 post about “Bridge River paper salmon” is about the Northern Dialect.

Ankati Kamlups Indyustrial Skul (1890-1978)

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Good thing to use your Chinook Jargon knowledge on: Image credit: Parks Canada ANKATI KAMLUPS INDYUSTRIAL SKUL (1890-1978) Ayu tanas klaska chako iakwa kopa klunas 108 ilihi, kopa klunas 38 hlwima Sawash tilikom… Continue reading →

Do we really believe there was a Jargon phrase “lám pi tsə́qw”?

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At least as early as his 1884 edition, John K Gill of Portland included in his Chinook Jargon dictionary an entry <lum-pe-chuck> ‘grog’.

‘Not working’, ‘out of order’, ‘down’ = KAKSHIT

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The word that also means ‘to be broken’ comes in handy in our modern tech age…

HIRE A LINGUIST! What this atrocious housing development name tells us about the need for good Chinook Jargon dictionaries

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Can you say HIRE A LINGUIST! in Chinook Jargon?