Category Archive: Uncategorized

How he was sold

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As direct linguistic evidence, this is not so hot, but it’s quite a revealing variation on a popular frontier-era joke about sociolinguistic expectations.

Pioneer Nig Saul

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At points offensive, but well worth quoting in full, is this nationally circulated rare biographical remembrance of a very early African-American settler and Jargon speaker on the Lower Columbia.

Florida Man writes “Tenderfeet in Alaska, or, Scared by Miner’s Yarns”

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What an odd find!

Johny English

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An untranslated post-frontier new article brings a bit of attempted humor in Chinuk Wawa.

H.M. Ball letter, 1871

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You’ve seen Henry Maynard Ball recently on this website, as a judge absentmindedly misspeaking in Jargon to an Indigenous lady. Now you can read an entire letter he wrote to another Canadian woman… Continue reading

Oregon CPE: Struck It in Hops (and linguistic “silos”)

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In this website we’ve looked at reports of how Indigenous people and Chinese immigrants crossed paths… 

Ducks yaka chaco!

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Humor! A post-frontier reminiscence of frontier days on the north coast of British Columbia…

Another reason why it should be called “Chinúk-T’səx̣élis Wáwa”

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A modest proposal I want to make about Salish-looking words of Lower Chinookan, many of which became Chinuk Wawa…

Union is accomplished! On y parle Chinook!

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“Chinook spoken here,” that is.

Correspond in Chinook: how to say ‘sandwiches and clam chowder’

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Pioneer Thomas Prosch of Seattle adds to a string of Chinuk Wawa-rich appearances in this space…