1868: Sproat, “Scenes and Studies…”
A Scottish settler on Vancouver Island, who claims to know just 100 Chinook Wawa words, turns out to be a sympathetic and keen observer of First Nations life…
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1890s: “Hobnobbing with a Countess” in the Okanagan
I want to make brief reference to the diaries of an Ontarian who immigrated to southern interior British Columbia’s Spallumcheen Valley…
Some Wahkiakum County history
Some history from one of the oldest Settler communities in Washington State, now a backwater…
Eats Shoots & Leaves, Chinook Edition
One example sentence in an old Chinook Jargon dictionary made me look twice…
CW & St Joseph’s Catholic church, Kamloops
A good All Saints Day subject: there’s a really good article published last week up in Kamloops…
1893: Happy Chinook Halloween
I’ve once again managed to find a connection between Halloween and Chinuk Wawa 🙂
Losing ‘sleep’ up north
In British Columbia, the old word < moosum > (músum) ‘sleep’ fell into disfavor because of its longstanding naughty overtones…
Getting drunk with the Canucks etc.
pʰáɬlam (< patlum > in BC spelling) is a famous old Chinuk Wawa expression…
Cheechako entered English via the Klondike
Other Chinuk Wawa words entered English earlier, usually in Oregon and Washington, but “cheechako” can technically be called a Canadianism…
Patl kopa is bad, mamuk patl kopa is good
“Full of”, in Chinuk Wawa, is just plain “full”.