Category Archive: Chinook Jargon

This is not a red herring ;-)

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Ceci n’est pas un faux-fuyant 🙂 Alta polis man iskom iht dais [SIC!!!], ukuk Then the policeman picked up a dice, (one of) those chikmin dais kluchmin lolo kopa iaka lima pus metal dice… Continue reading →

More on Robert Brown; he knew his Jargon

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We haven’t given Robert Brown (b. 1842) his due.  I mean, he was a well-regarded Scottish botanist and explorer of our Pacific Northwest region, and certainly I’ve already praised his Chinook highly, but… Continue reading →

The priest explains capitalism

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I thought this extended selection, where Father Le Jeune of the Kamloops Wawa responds to a reader’s complaints about his newspaper’s price, was a really great illustration of the kinds of education you can do in… Continue reading →

Hear a Chinuk Wawa lecture streaming tonight

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8pm Pacific time zone on CIRH Roundhouse Radio 98.3 from Vancouver BC: a guy called David Robertson, talking & singing about “The Chinook We Never Knew — But Will“. Stream it live…or any… Continue reading →

Be not quass of nika…

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Frederick Whymper‘s contribution to the Chinook Jargon doggerel canon! In “The Sea: Its Stirring Story of Adventure, Peril & Heroism” (London: Cassell, 1883), this knowledgeable Northwest hand discourses sagely on Chinuk Wawa, including… Continue reading →

Happy New Year!

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Verses for the end of year Ilo drit ayu son iakwa nisaika mitlait Nanish alta wan sno iaka wiht shako kopit… “Not very many days do we have left here; Look now, one… Continue reading →

The doggerel hits the fan! “Klose Nesika Illahee”

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The doggerel hits the fan! Mysteries are sprayed liberally! From a one-page remembrance of an indigenous Warm Springs leader, “Stock Whitley” by Carson C. Masiker in Oregon Native Son and Historical Magazine, Vol. II no. 3-9… Continue reading →

Kanamokst as a noun!

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The word that was spelled kanamokst in the Kamloops area is known in every dialect of Chinuk Wawa. Dictionaries mostly define it in English as an adverb, “together”. This is what you’ll learn from the Grand Ronde… Continue reading →

Definitions *in* Chinuk Wawa

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Most wanted, to bring Chinook Jargon alive: definitions of the language…in the language. If we’re making the effort to revitalize an endangered idiom such as “Chinook”, we have to give new speakers a… Continue reading →

Hyou dams!

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Mirabile visu, a book review turns juicy! Commenting at length on Horatio Hale’s 1890 revision of his 1846 (Wilkes) U.S. Exploring Expedition report, a Robert Brown tosses in some great s#!+ in Chinook that you’ve never read… Continue reading →