Author Archive

Why it’s hard to decide what the Northern Chinook Jargon word for a ‘car’ is

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In our fun (I say awesome because I’m from the 80s) Northern Chinook Jargon sessions, sometimes lately we’ve talked about how to say ‘a car’.

Sunday (Oct. 12) @ 7PM: Join us to talk northern Chinook Jargon!

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I care this much about gathering folks into our thriving NCJ language nest —

WA: Sequim Press, Part 4 (04/22/1921, “pepah wawa”)

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Short & sweet!

1872, BC: Was justice served by this Jargon translator?

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Do you think this Chinuk Wawa interpreter, and the Settler court, did right by the Indigenous defendant here?

1914: LBDB’s “Chinook-English Songs”, part 8 of 15 “Chaco Mitlite Sapolill” (Comin’ Thro’ the Rye)

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Sure, Laura Belle Downey-Bartlett (1851?-1933) was a genuine pioneer (“of 1853” as they’d say) Settler kid.

Another example of how clunky Chinuk Pipa’s own number symbols were

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Right now I’m not re-finding the document, but in one edition of “Sténographie Duployé”, a textbook of the French-language ancestor of Chinuk Pipa, I found this:

1885, Nesbit: “Tide Marshes of the United States”

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The title (no pun intended) page of David Montgomery Nesbit’s “Tide Marshes of the United States” (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1885) mentions our Chinook-speaking friend Eldridge Morse!

1881, OR: “Chenook”-speaking Webfoot discovers a comet

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In the summer of 1881, a newly noticed comet was all over the newspaper pages.

Why < na.wi.tka > in BC Chinook Writing?

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And, why does < u > have 2 different shapes in BC Chinook Writing?

Boas 1892: Many discoveries in a short article (Part 26: ‘losing/missing…’

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Here’s yet another of the things about Chinuk Wawa that researcher Franz Boas was the first to notice.