Author Archive

1941: Frank Drew’s Chinuk Wawa song…a Wám-Háws-Tánis-Sháti?

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Huge thanks to my reader “Joe” for pointing this one out!

1897: BS Jargon / OA Fechter

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A well-received social event social event staged by the Yakima Commercial Club’s married male members for the benefit of everyone else included some laughable BS in Jargon.

1856: A Double Dose (California CPE)

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Just another day at police court–with that other West Coast pidgin.

1817: Roquefeuil on the PNW coast, relying on English

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I think this particular book tells us more about how some Native people spoke some English with sailors by 1817…

1853-4: “Teapot” = “skookum paper”, in 2 places 1000 km apart

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One of the more impenetrable little mysteries of Chinuk Wawa may now be cleared up.

1845-1848: Neall, “A Down-Easter in the Far West”

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James Neall (1820-1903) was a Maine man who lived in the Oregon Country frontier from 1845 to 1848.

1886: Victoria-style Chinuk Wawa song from Nuxalks in Germany, and a grammatical mystery

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Thanks to Dale McCreery for this wonderful find.

Happy Halloween: A part Upper Chehalis, part Chinuk Wawa monstrosity? :)

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From the land of the “Halloweena” tribe…

1888: A Halloween tangent

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Only obliquely related to either Chinuk Wawa or Hallowe’en, the following piece of PNW regional humour was irresistible…

1911: The vampire used a combination of Chinook and sign language :)

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Extra Halloween / Chinook material for you…