Category Archive: Uncategorized

“The Mantle of Elias” and Chinuk-Chehalis Wawa

by

See what you think of this further evidence that we should call Chinuk Wawa something more like Chinook-Chehalis Jargon.

1848: Allen, “Ten Years in Oregon: Travels and Adventures of Dr. E. White and Lady”

by

Here’s a wonderful book to read. Quite the palate cleanser, after slogging through Herbert Beaver’s letters, but that’s another story.

Chez vous

by

One use of the all-purpose preposition < kopa > (kʰapa) that may trace back to French influence is the “chez vous” expression.

Songs of LBDB (Part 2: “America”)

by

Now switching over to Laura Belle Downey-Bartlett’s “Chinook-English Songs” book…

Métis French is part English :)

by

When I look through a dictionary of Michif (mixed Cree-French language of Métis people, just possibly one of Chinuk Wawa’s ancestor languages), I see a good deal of French + English blending…

1891: Grotesque admixture…or just Jargon

by

From an article in a popular national newspaper (really a magazine) in the early post-frontier era…

And another Haida-style “northern song”!

by

Hayu masi kopa Deb Masso, who shared a song I’d never heard before…

French-creole Chinuk Wawa domestic relations

by

A new language is said to “creolize” when it becomes a community’s mother tongue…

1893: Chinatown agitated

by

History in the making: the legality of the US’s Chinese Exclusion Act is being decided…

1843: Belcher on “Chenooks”

by

Captain Sir Edward Belcher, a British naval commander, left us one of the less well-known memoirs of a late July to mid-September 1839 visit to the Fort Vancouver and Fort George (Astoria) area.