Does stlaashin mean “food” or “a giveaway”–“potlatch” even? I came upon this new word in Bishop Durieu’s Bible History; it’s in the story of Daniel and Balthazar (Belshazzar), which incidentally is the source of… Continue reading
Thing #1: the characters I knew as Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, from the Bible story of a crime against humanity (3 young men thrown into a raging furnace), are also known as Ananias,… Continue reading
Here is a fun loan from Secwepemctsin (Shuswap Salish) into Kamloops Chinuk Wawa: huhulitin ‘musical instrument’. The earliest example I find is this one: Divid David aias komtaks pli myusik kopa iht huhulitin iaka nim… Continue reading
“The Destruction of Sennacherib“, some of you know, originally composed in English verse by Lord Byron in 1815, was translated into Chinook Jargon in 1903 by JJ Edwards, and now resides in a file at… Continue reading
So here is an essentially randomly picked li’l stretch of Chinook Jargon: Kimta klaska kakshit Sidisias iaka Then they beat on Zedechiah’s siahus pi klaska mamuk klatwa iaka kopa Babilon skukum haws. face… Continue reading
I often claim that the Chinook Jargon documents that I work with daily are as valuable historically as linguistically. Indian residential schools holding the kind of importance that they do in the Canadian… Continue reading
One of Father Le Jeune’s tidy little charts that can be so fun: “ABBREVIATIONS” Pus msaika tiki mamuk If you folks want to tanas iht iht nim, tlus msaika tlus nanich ukuk: shorten… Continue reading
A few years ago, I mentioned on the old CHINOOK group a Salish-looking word I found in Kamloops Wawa: iilhit. Back then, I didn’t grasp the meaning of iilhit, but because it’s used in… Continue reading
In which we make the case that Chinook Jargon is well-equipped to discuss modern times. See how expressively the language is used here to talk about the latest in skyscrapers: Iakwa msaika nanich… Continue reading
This is my current #2 favorite Jargon word. I’ve gotten to the book of Tobit/Tobias in the shorthand Bishop Durieu’s Old Testament History, serialized in our favourite 1890s newspaper, Kamloops Wawa. There is a word… Continue reading
