Category Archive: Uncategorized

Inadvertent cussin’ in a hymn!

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A long hymn composed by none other than St. Thomas Aquinas gets a slightly alarming Chinook translation…

1930s: Chinook in Oregon loggers’ lingo

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Some say we should be bringing back certain 1930s Great Depression-era good ideas, like a Green New Deal…

1788: A scrap of Nootka Jargon?

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This scrap of early information might help us figure out the etymology of Chinuk Wawa’s háyásh ‘big’.

(le)múlá ‘moulin’ as Métis ‘machine’

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Checking back through my previous articles here, it seems I haven’t yet mentioned this connection between Métis French and Chinook Jargon.

Taking a run at the etymology of “eulachon”

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I’ve seen so many half-assed etymologies published for the English words that come from Pacific NW languages, I figure I’ll see if I can hold a candle(fish) to their absurdity.

1932: “240 Chinook Jargon Words”

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Does this have a US Forest Service connection, maybe?

Correcting the etymology of p’ú ‘to shoot’: it’s Nootka Jargon

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A separate discovery in Captain George “Vancouver’s Discovery of Puget Sound“, edited by Edmond S. Meany (Portland, OR: Binfords & Mort, 1957)…

Reasons why Demers and Blanchet learned and taught CW so fast

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Because of their exposure to Indigenous peoples in Eastern Canada!

A couple reasons for “kopa yawaa” in northern CW

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I was writing a post about Kamloops-area soldiers writing home in Jargon during World War 1, and George M. Cohan’s 1917 patriotic song “Over There” came into my mind…

1853-56: Two brothers’ diaries (Part 2 of 2)

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Picking up partway through 1854 today…