About me & CHINOOK JARGON!
About CHINOOK JARGON!: This site is my way of sharing my ongoing discoveries about the Pacific Northwest’s unique, historic “national language”, Chinuk Wawa a.k.a. Chinook Jargon — and making a living using my education.
About me: I’m a linguist. My mentor was the late, inimitable Robert Austerlitz, who demonstrated every day that linguistics is fun. My PhD dissertation is about a British Columbia (Canada) pidgin dialect ‘Kamloops Chinuk Wawa’, and its writing system ‘Chinuk pipa’. It analyzes around 150 of the Aboriginal-written texts I’ve located. This is the first full grammar of a CW variety, and perhaps of any pidgin language in the world.
I’m interested in — and write about —
- language contact, especially pidgins and The West:
- Chinook Jargon
- the distinct West Coast variety of Chinese Pidgin English
- pidgin Heiltsuk
- so-called Nootka Jargon
- Métis languages, including:
- CJ
- BC’s ‘French of the Mountains’/Michif French
- the Cree-French mixed language known as (Southern/Heritage) Michif
- aboriginal Pacific Northwest languages, with an emphasis on:
- Salish (I do a lot of work on the neglected ɬəw’ál’məš / Lower Chehalis language)
- Chinookan (particularly Natítanui / Clatsop / Shoalwater Lower Chinookan)
- language revitalization
- historical documents
- anthropological study of language
- writing systems
- missionary linguistics
- ‘Basic Linguistic Theory’ (grammatical description + lexicography + text collection)
- names (onomastics)
as well as…
- words that can’t be spelled (for example what I might approximate as “cazh”, 1980s slang for “casual; cool”)
- invented languages — conlangs — artificial languages — science-fiction languages — movie languages
Job offers are welcome, my friend. Freelance to full-time.
Klahawiam x naika nim x Dave
ɬax̣ayam! qʰata mayka nim? mayka kəmtəks qʰata-pus munk-t’səm kʰapa chinuk?
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LaXayam shiksh, dret, na kemps uk chinuk-wawa t’sEm qhata Las munk khapa shawash ili7i – –
lili anqati na chaku-kEmtEks ukuk khapa uk that thoni pi chup henli.
pi anqati tEnEs-hayu ntsayka munk ukuk chinuk lu7lu khanawi wam-ili7i.
alta na hayu munk-t’sEm na hayash skul-pipa pus munk-nanich qhata ixt Xluyma chinuk wawa
Las wawa ukuk khapa bisi, khanada alaxti “alta 100 sno” — kakwa Las wawa
klahawiam x naika nim x Dave
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Dave, if you and/or your blog followers want to construct a “wish list” of books and publications, I would volunteer to help search for them. As you know, I regularly attend large used book sales and can add them to my watch list.
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I am doing research on Columbia Plateau Native Americans and frequently encounter Chinook jargon in old news articles. I would be happy to share those references with you if you tell me how I can best do that.
Also, Alexander Caulfield Anderson wrote a booklet in “Handbook and map to the Gold Regions of the Frazer’s and Thompson’s River’s: with table of distances” which has a little Chinook Jargon dictionary section, and is available to read as a google ebook.
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Thanks, Sharon, this would be a good place to share those old bits of Jargon. You can email me ( d d r 1 1 [@t] c o l u m b i a [d.t] e d u ) — and I’ll be happy to post them with credit to you!
Cheers,
–Dave Robertson–
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I noticed that you seem keen on reviving (to some extent) Chinook Jargon or at least getting people to be more aware of it. There is a group who might be able to offer some assistance in that respect.
Check out Say Something in Welsh, it is a free site which was set up to give simple lessons focusing on speaking with the aim of getting more people speaking at least some Welsh. It’s ended up being a major success with their learners being featured on Welsh language television/radio as well as winning the national learner of the year competition. Using a very simple structure to the lessons they get you saying a lot surprisingly quickly.
They’ve built a whole community which is now volunteering to do additional languages (Finnish, Dutch even Latin!). Perhaps you could add Chinook Jargon to the list and build an excellent tool for getting more people to tryout the language and learn something new. Plus you can also increase knowledge of this outside of the Pacific Northwest just as SSIW have (I’m in Belgium for example).
If you want a hand taking this forward then please let me know.
Best regards,
Martin
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Attn, Professor Dave Robertson
I write to you today to request you be a speaker at our Rotary club.
We meet at the Arbutus Club in Vancouver on Fridays at noon with the speaker on from 1.00 to 1.30 pm
We have dates available from mid March on.
I saw you on TV from Sam Sullivan’s program.
I am interested in Native languages and found your presentation fascinating.
Bill Bourlet
Arbutus Rotary club
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Dear Dr. Robertson. I am an 82 year olds retiree presently living in Spokane. My interest in the Jargon came early in that my mother and uncle were raised south of The Dalles, OR and were very conversant in the Jargon because the ranch had a lot of native help and the Jargon was commonplace. I learned a little and probably could make myself understood if I had a lot of time; however, I certainly could not start to carry on a conversation. My interest is trying, even at this late date, in trying to find someone to help me hone what skills I had because I see this as the obvious decline of something of historical significance. I have approached several elders around the area and none are too knowledgeable or perhaps interested when the present emphasis appears to be on their own language. I have Shaw’s book (autographed) and Thomas’ but reading is not the same as listening.. Any thoughts?
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Dear Mr. Frizzell,
I really appreciate your taking the time to write to me with your fascinating personal anecdotes. This is the sort of thing that really brings the Jargon alive for people! There are a few resources online, as I’m confident you’ve found, for practicing Chinook Wawa. But not much that encourages you to have conversations in it, or to let you get clarifications easily. Since you’re in Spokane where I am, would you like to email me? I’d be honored to meet up some time and talk with you. You can reach me at spokaneivy {AT] gmail (DOT] com (you understand how to turn that into a real email address…)
Best wishes from
–Dave–
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I had a couple questions if you have time.
First, I have been interested in chinook jargon since I learned about it through Jim Holton’s book about seven years ago. I was talking to a friend a few months ago about the book and saw that it is now $400 on amazon. I was just curious because I bought it for around $20. Was it pulled for some reason? Is it flawed?
Second, I live in central oregon near the town of Tumalo. The origin of the name of the town is unkown but it has been suggested that it was named after a klamath word ‘temolo’ which apparently means wild plum. The word tumala from cj for tomorrow seems equally likely to me. The klamath people didn’t live here historically so it seems odd that that would be where the name came from. How would a person investigate further.
Third, Are there any notes from Franz Boaz in chinook jargon? Didn’t he collect stories and mythologies in cj? It would be nice to read them in the language they were told in with the original speakers word choices intact. Or if these are not available has anyone worked to recronstruct them?
Thank you for your time
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Hi Robert,
Thanks for your questions! I appreciate you coming by my site.
1) Get Jim’s book for free online! http://www.rjholton.com/
2) I don’t know any great evidence that Tumalo is not Chinook Wawa. And that “Klamath” word looks suspiciously like “lemolo” (“wild”) in the Jargon. So I lean toward the “Tomorrow” meaning, which after all is the kind of thing we white folks name our towns 🙂 (Thinking of “Alki” for Seattle here.)
3) There’s not a whole lot of Boas material that he actually recorded in Jargon. He published a couple short article about it, which are good reads. Other than that, speaking as a linguist who works with Boas’s field notes, you’ll find plenty of signs that Jargon was used to get the meaning of Native-language stories from his consultants. There’s even the occasional word or phrases in Jargon in Boas’ handwriting; I just learned a new one the other day, “tlaska kuli kwas” (“they run away scared”). But frustratingly for someone who used Jargon so much, Boas like most other 19th century folks hardly thought it was worth writing down.
Do these answers begin to help you?
–Dave–
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These are helpful answers yes, thank you. It is a shame more of the languge wasn’t written down when people were using it so often. It seems like languages do well to have a saga or holy book which the Charles Cultee texts could have been. At least we have them in english though…
Your website is very good. There is so much good information on here. I especially appreciate the audio and video sections. Thank you.
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I’m from the area and have wondered the same about Tumalo. I lean towards it being Wawa — the nearby Three Sisters Wilderness is full of names like Cultus Mountain/Creek, Tokatee Lakes, Olallie Mtn, etc.
I made a list a while ago while looking at a map of the area, I’ll dig it up if you’re interested.
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FYI, as far as I’m aware, Tumalo ‘tomorrow’ and Tokatee ‘beautiful’ are “dictionary” Chinuk Wawa names, not older customary ones. There was a spate of that kind of place naming by public officials around the 1930s, with the rise of bureaucracies like the US Forest Service.
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(Replying here because I can’t reply directly to your reply)
I didn’t consider the FS naming them! Interestingly, there is a Tumalo Mountain[1] by Mt. Bachelor, which is still in FS territory, but if Tumalo Mt is keeping with the Wawa naming theme of that area then maybe Tumalo (the town) really is intended to be Wawa and nobody bothered recording the namesake because it was generally understood at the time (even into the 30s?). Just idle speculation…
Out of curiosity, do you know if that’s the general trend with the Wawa names that you see today (names consciously assigned by whites to lend a ‘local flavor’)? I see a lot of them on the I-5, especially in Washington.
Thanks, and I really enjoy your blog!
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tumalo_Mountain
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You can usually tell which places were named more recently, because they’re in the wilderness or other non-settled areas. Plus their Jargon names are more poetic (like Klipsan ‘sundown’ & Toketee ‘beautiful’) than the frontier-era names (like Tumwater ‘waterfall’ & Tenas Illahee ‘island’). Your assignment: apply these two guidelines thoughtfully to the names you see as you drive. For example, is Mox Chehalis more likely to be an older traditional name, or a recent government-given one? 🙂
Hayu masi for your kind words about this website!!
Dave Robertson
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One extra point — certain old towns are kind of an in-between case. Early pioneer Settlers sometimes waxed as poetic in Jargon as in English when they named a new town, which is how we got Alki (effectively meaning ‘just you wait & see!’) for Seattle, and perhaps Tumalo (a similar sentiment, and a frequently used Jargon word in regional poetry).
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Regarding your “blue ruin” page:
I just scanned Sydney W. Moss’ Bancroft MS. You’re welcome to a copy if you want it.
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Ben, thank you for offering this. Yes, I would appreciate the chance to read Moss’ MS. Could you email it?
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Hi Dave,
I note in your review of Walt Moberly’s romp through early BC, mapping out railroad routes, chatting with the locals, and eventually speaking pretty fine Chinook, that you remark on the presence of a Michif word in the Shuswap kid’s vernacular…the word “Moneasses”, which is usually spelled “Moonias” (and various other incarnations), simply means “white dude”. In my research of northern Secwepemc, the Chinook is historically localized a bit, and combined with Michif the closer to Tete Jaune Cache and the Yellowhead you get. In fact, less Chinook sticks to the maps, the farther east, as by that confluence in the Yellowhead between late period (1850’s +), speakers of both lingua franca, had pretty much gravitated to the posts on either end of the New Caledonia trail (so Alexandria and Ft. George on the west retaining the remaining Chinook speakers, and Jasper’s House in the east with largely Michif speakers, given the mixed-blood Cree influence by then). The diaspora of the Great Lakes freemen, who spoke several languages by the time they arrived on this side of the Rocks, included some Michif, Lower Canadian French, Abenaki, Mohawk and some English; those who were signed up and outfitted on the coast and in the lower Columbia, also parleyed in Chinook, and brought it with them into the Okanagan, Thompson’s River and eventually Alexandria, where some of it remains today.
Cheers, and keep up the good work!. Jb.
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Thanks, Judy, for your kind and thoughtful comments! It’s a delight to learn more from you about the important and overlooked role of the mixed-blood people in our region. Do let me know if I can ever be of any help, all right?
Dave
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Hi!!! I’m a member of the Chinook tribe and am attempting to learn more about my native language!!!!… Unfortunately there is not many resources available online from what I’ve seen if I could possibly get a little assistance I would be forever grateful!!! Hayu Masi!!
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łax̣áwyam / klahowya, Samantha, I appreciate your visiting my site! I try to dump a ton of Chinuk Wawa-related material here, so feel free to use the Search box & ask lots of questions. For learning, I strongly recommend the Grand Ronde Tribes dictionary of 2012, easy to buy from Amazon etc. Plus there may be Chinuk Wawa classes held near enough for you to drive to, if you go looking. Also, search for Chinuk Wawa / Chinook Jargon videos, there are quite a few nowadays that’ll be a big help with pronunciation and such. Main way I can help: keep asking me all of your questions 🙂 All my best, Dave R.
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P.S., if you mean the “old” Chinookan language(s), that’ll be much much harder 🙂 There are no learning materials readily available. I’m starting to work as a linguist on understanding and describing “old” Chinook…big project!
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I’d be curious about the propaedeutic value of Chinuk Wawa. I know Esperanto can serve as a useful introduction to European and Europesque languages:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaedeutic_value_of_Esperanto
I wonder if Chinuk Wawa could serve as an effective propaedeutic to the indigenous languages of the Pacific Northwest and, to a lesser extent, maybe other regional indigenous languages too.
Given the present situation with reconciliation in Canada, I’m wondering if encouraging non-indigenous Canadians who may lack the necessary aptitude to learn a more difficult indigenous language as a second language could be encouraged to learn an international auxiliary language like Chinuk Wawa or another of the different North American trade pidgins as a second language and then the local indigenous language as a third since learning the easier language would presumably develop his aptitude for second-language learning. Aptitude for second-language learning is not fixed after all and can be developed through an easier language as a stepping stone.
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Thank you for visiting & commenting so thoughtfully, Martin. And thank you for teaching me a word for an idea that’s been batted around to some extent in the Chinuk Wawa community for years. I’m definitely on board with the concept that the Jargon (especially in Grand Ronde style) can serve as a pretty manageable introduction to the typical sounds, some of the grammar structures, and the kind of metaphorical concepts that broadly occur across Pacific NW languages. It makes a ton of sense to me for the additional reason that Chinook Jargon has historically been a “co-language” for its speakers, so it’s not exactly competing to crowd out the traditional tribal languages that are getting much-needed revitalization attention.
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Dear Dr Robertson!
I’m curious if anywhere in your studies you’ve come across any reference to a system of writing that may’ve existed amongst the tribes or clans of the PNW.
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Hi Kenneth, thanks for writing. I’ve found a distinct “Chinook writing” from the 1890s-1910s in southern interior BC, which is described in my dissertation. (See links in this site.) It was used for Chinook Jargon and for Salish languages. I’m not aware of any other writing in Indigenous communities, prior to the introduction of European-type education. I hope this helps —
Dave Robertson
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Some links apparently are out of date. I am however looking for any references of writing systems that predate the Duployan system, that come directly from an indigenous source.
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I’m not aware of any in the PNW. There are writing systems farther east from before Chinuk Pipa’s time…Cherokee, and maybe Fox/Winnebago/etc. syllabaries.
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Hi Dave,
There was a source in your dissertation that I can’t find – ‘field notes of Chinúk Wawa as spoken by Gilbert McLeod’ by Andrea Giles. Gilbert McLeod was my great-grandfather. Just curious if you have a copy of that source 🙂
hawaa!
kayleen
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Hi Kayleen, thanks for reading & asking. I’ll have to dig into the files to find that one…it’s been a few years! — Dave
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Y’know, Dr. Roberston, there’s not a single reason we couldn’t produce a multi-media disk and an accompanying app.
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Sounds fun! I’m in favor of anything that raises awareness of & fluency in Chinook Jargon.
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Pingback: McArthur’s “Oregon Geographic Names” (part 8 of 8) | Chinook Jargon
Lhaxáya!
I’ve been working on a project for a little while that you might be interested in, and I’d be interested in hearing your thoughts about it. It’s a Chinuk Jargon vocabulary list with source-language information for each entry, and written in an orthography that includes most of the phonemes of the Grand Ronde orthography, but that uses just the basic roman alphabet (and not requiring upper-case characters). (Acute accents and a rare circumflex are used, but are not essential.)
The pronunciations are given approximately according to their Grand Ronde values, but biased towards the pronunciation of the original word in its source language.
Actually, I stumbled on your page recently, and read the discussion above about the possible “propaedeutic”(!) value of Chinuk. That has been my motivation in compiling this project. In fact, I am much more interested in traditional Indigenous languages than in the Jargon, but I’ve wondered if learning to pronounce Jargon words according to their traditional Indigenous sounds, and knowing their source language (family), could give the average non-linguist of the PNW a decent start into learning about the more daunting original languages.
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Sounds intriguing, thanks for mentioning it, JP Z. I’d think you’ll find much of your work has already been done others? And especially the 2012 Grand Ronde Tribes dictionary is so easily available now.
And there’s always the issue that when one creates a specialized variety of Chinuk Wawa, it can wind up as a “walled garden”, where the speakers have a reduced mutual understanding with those who use historically documented varieties of CW.
Thinking my way through this, I find myself feeling that the greatest need is for more learning materials in the traditional Indigenous languages themselves. Are you by chance linguistically trained, and inclined to take that one for K’alapuyan languages, Chinookan, Molala, Alsea, Tillamook, etc.?
All best from
Dave Robertson
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I hear your point. I think to avoid the walled garden effect, it’s necessary to make sure the new orthography (or pronunciation) is at least passively clear to those who have learned another version. In mine, for example, skuwkum chuhk is probably clear to everyone familar with Chinuk; lhutshmen tilixuhm rather less so. That’s the challenge of any new system designed to enhance an established one without requiring complete relearning. I think it can be done, but the walled garden risk is real.
But I certainly agree that more learning materials in the old languages is what’s most important. I do have some linguistic training, enough to know the basics of phonology and grammar, but I’m not a professional by any stretch. I do have a lot of experience with second language learning, however. I’m currently working on some materials for learners of Plains Cree, but eventually I’d like to get back to creating something similar for SENĆOŦEN (North Straits Salish). I hadn’t thought of approaching any additional languages, but I’d be happy to discuss those you mentioned more with you and see if there if there’s something I could contribute.
Best wishes,
JP
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I am trying to understand what the word “Waucoma” means. Online it says “Waucoma” means place of the cotton woods, but I spoke with a Wasco elder that said he does not believe that to be a good translation but did not have an alternative. Currently I am thinking Waucoma is the true name for what is now Hood River, Oregon but am looking for any clarification. Looking through old documents, all the cotton wood references are from newspapers out of Portland, which makes me question the validity. Thank you.
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Thanks for your comment, JH. I’m less conversant with Chinookan languages than with Chinook Jargon, but it’s clear that “cottonwood” tree in Kiksht/Wishram and Kathlamet is i-kuma / wi-kuma. Different word is recorded in Clackamas, something like wi-lamayxn. So maybe your elder speaks something more like Clackamas? Plus, I have to specify, this is words for ‘cottonwood tree’. ‘Place of cottonwoods’ might be expected to start with the prefixes ga- or ni- or similar.
Hope this helps,
Dave Robertson
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