From the wonderful old language discussion forum, American Notes and Queries, comes this note on a Pacific Northwest English borrowing from Chinuk Wawa: Icta (Vol. v, pp. 66, etc.). — Icta, or icter, is a… Continue reading
It’s time to update the first linguistic study I ever published on Chinuk Wawa. (That’s a live link, if you want to go read some scholarly prose.)
IMHO: this one is right up there with the greatest productions of Google Translate, or of any nonsense verse writer.
These local tribal people had long acquaintance with the fur trade, and they were consistent in identifying Métis influence.
Compare this with the 100% Chinook Jargon “Songish Legend” that I’ve separately written about…
This article specifies that the following took place “over fifty years ago”, so it was perhaps around 1859, early in Settler era of BC.
Praise where praise is due: this early PNW doggerel poem manages to rhyme in Chinook Jargon!
One surviving travel narrative from early PNW contact times is not about trading, but about a year and a half of terror.
In south-central Alaska, Ahtna Athabaskan people’s Chinook Jargon (Chinuk Wawa) was as mixed with English as we’ve seen in previously known sources. {Clickable link there.} Stick Indians (Ahtnas), Plate 122 of the Report… Continue reading
There once existed a distinctly Pacific Northwest literary genre that was emblematic of its place and time.
