Category Archive: Uncategorized

1889 Oregon CPE: Jesus appears

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Again with the cussing, pidgin-speaking, Chinese immigrants — ?!

1853: Source of the idea that saplél is French

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A myth is both busted and partly confirmed today. 

1909: City folks had forgotten Chinuk Wawa, Quinaults didn’t know English

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A reprint article credited only “Exchange” tells of some white city folks visiting Taholah on the Quinault Indian Reservation a generation after the frontier era.

Circa 1862: Maybe if he’d known Chinook…

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Imagine my delight on finding another example of 1800s supernatural communication that involves Chinuk Wawa!

1870: From Our Warm Springs Correspondent (a tall tale)

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Published letters to the editors of newspapers in earlier days were customarily signed with a pseudonym, to protect the writer’s anonymity…

Quileute’s Chinuk Wawa (and other) traces

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I’ve gradually been looking through linguistic documentation of Indigenous languages that have borrowed Chinook Jargon words, and today I come to Quileute…

Re-evaluating Boas’s 1888 “Chinook Songs” (Part 13, the finale)

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We finish up with two last Chinook Jargon songs, plus a Tlingit mystery bonus.

1873: More about Yaquina Bay war rumors

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Today we’re privileged to be told another version of a Chinuk Wawa conversation between an Oregon (or California) Coast Indian and a Settler woman. 

FREE CHINOOK JARGON LESSONS!

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Here’s how to get ’em…

Suggesting a Salish source for təná

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Each year, I try to do a post or two on a Halloween theme; I guess today we’re dealing with the “trick” part of “trick or treat!”