Category Archive: Uncategorized

Another vocative formation in Northern Chinook Jargon

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To catch someone’s attention using their name, all dialects of Chinuk Wawa allow just hollering “Tony!” or “Paisley!” or whatever.

Shameful news about másháchi ‘bad, harmful, terrible, mean’

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Alexander Ross was quite good with languages.

Why do we need a Chinook-Peipa (shorthand) font?

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Why do we need a font for Chinook-Peipa that plays well with word processing software? 

2 reasons why that atrocious Chinook housing name might have been in good faith

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The other day, I reported on an (unfortunately) atrocious try at a Chinook Jargon name for a Vancouver, BC housing development.

Another PNW Indigenous “Marseillaise”, and it’s a doozy

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For real??

TRIUMPH OF THE IGNOROIDS!

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The image you’re seeing is from British Columbia, 100% fact-checked! Okok pikcha masaika nanich yakwaa, dleit kopa Bisi-illahi okok, pi dleit naika kumtuks poos nawitka!

Reader poll: is “chum” salmon inferior?

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Based on conversations I’ve had with actual Pacific Northwesterners, this Chinook Jargon-related question suggests itself:

Flipping a 180°: máɬx̣wəli ‘from fire’

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Among the words from the Lower Chinookan language that we know in Chinuk Wawa is the adverb máɬx̣wəli ‘away; over away; placed elsewhere; on the other side; inland; over in’. That’s the CW… Continue reading →

1901, Sechelt: I’ll come back and shoot you when I know Chinook

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Humor! Ar! Ar!

Etymologies: the huge family of Lower Chinookan -skan, and the huge value of back-translating

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I’m not here to criticize my academic great-grandfather Franz Boas, I’m here to help folks understand Indigenous languages a bit better, just like him.