Whoa Haw, God Dam: How they talked Chinook in Idaho
Those of you who are saying “That’s no surprise” are duly noted, but let’s read on…
Those of you who are saying “That’s no surprise” are duly noted, but let’s read on…
Indians are people too! This had to be pointed out in 1906!
Part of our Pacific Northwest language heritage is the names of places here.
With the help of some friends, I’d like to hark back to a reported Chinuk Wawa conversation.
Subtitled, thoughtfully, “And the Causes That Led to It”.
…because it’s happily snarled up.
I’m curious what my readers will think about the Chinook Jargon quoted here…
It can’t be a coincidence that post-frontier Pacific Northwest settler society, preoccupied with building up the mythic greatness of its earliest arrivals, borrowed Chinuk Wawa’s word for “old times” into English…
The unavoidable Chinuk Wawa word “chako” (cháku) is typically explained as having come to us originally from Nuuchahnulth (“NCN”, of Vancouver Island, Canada)…but it may have as many as three sources.
One of the topics that keeps intersecting with my unifying theme of Chinook Jargon is the use of multiple pidgin languages here in the West.