Author Archive

Undercover with ípsət

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What hidden history might there still be to uncover about Chinuk Wawa’s ípsət (‘hide; cover; secretly’)? 

Central and Southern Chinook Jargon have a definite article “uk=”…but why isn’t it “lə=”?

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This I find to be a nifty question.

And a bit more about ‘owls’: Sahaptian

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I’ve noted that the Grand Ronde Chinuk Wawa word for an ‘owl’, pʰupʰúp, traces back to not only a K’alapuyan-language word (‘northern pygmy owl’) but also to southwest Oregon’s Takelma (‘screech owl’).

Another pidgin: the Lingua Franca

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I’m writing about yet another pidgin language, the famous Lingua Franca, here…

Victor Rohr makes us aware that Chinook Writing extended pretty much to Alberta…i.e. Métis people?

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A letter in shorthand French from Victor Rohr dated September 30, 1898, extends our knowledge of how far to the East people were reading and writing Chinuk Pipa! 

Chinuk Wawa in our lives: Tanasbourne

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One of our newer Zoom group participants, by living there, reminded me of a place I last mentioned to the Chinook Jargon world about 25 years ago:

Reader research challenge: William E Myers papers?

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Here I’m reactivating a question I raised 12 years ago…

1943, WA: Irate utility customer vents in Chinuk Wawa

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This was during wartime, too, so I wonder if the mail censors got alarmed about the “coded message” …

Lackett Joe on FamilySearch.org, 3 generations of a Chinook Jargon name

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A Chinook Jargon name we’ve mentioned before also shows up at FamilySearch.org.

Why are 1% of the hyphens in St Onge’s handwritten dictionary historically amazing?

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Good old Louis-Napoléon St Onge put a dash virtually everywhere he could think of, in his manuscript dictionary of the Central Dialect around 1890.