Author Archive

Ladies’ clubs named in Chinook Jargon

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A turn-of-the-century convention of Washington State women’s clubs has a significant Chinuk Wawa component!

You can be the sharpest tool in the shed! Learn these new words!

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Attention gearheads!

California CPE: Heap big Odd Fellow

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Pidgins as street languages in the late frontier period…

My Dear St. Nicholas:–

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So wonderful: a local girl tells about Chinuk Pipa shorthand in a national kids’ magazine.

Furriers, fur slippers, the fur trade, & “píltən” (fuzzy) thinking

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Pelletier!

Dregs of Chinook Jargon in a Nicola Valley court case

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An awkwardly prosecuted case of illegal liquor sales to Indigenous women (a classic colonialist prohibition) near Kamloops carries plenty of implied information about the post-frontier Nicola Valley language situation…

Rourke Groceries ad

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Short and sweet…

Dead canoes: another “new old” word?

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The Easter season (see yesterday’s post) may have been directing my thoughts towards death more than usual — leading to new discoveries like today’s.

Easter Sunday

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How Easter was explained in Chinuk Wawa, 1902…

Ugh! You’re invited to the Redmen dance!

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Add this to your collection of jovial Chinuk Wawa party invitations, sub-file Redmen.