Category Archive: Uncategorized

Fictional Chinook Jargon isn’t always atrocious…

by

From the author of the New York Times bestseller “The Jane Austen Book Club”, some high-class fictional Chinook Jargon.

El Comancho’s “copo” is copacetic

by

The other day I mused about Chinuk Wawa dictionary writer WS “El Comancho” Phillips’s weird pronunciation-spelling of k’áynuɬ ‘tobacco’ as < chinoos >.

BACK.2 the Salish past?

by

Or a comedy of eras?

More early Chinuk Wawa grammaticalization: chaku-

by

One of the early and omnipresent grammatical formations in the Jargon seems Native in its inspiration, while it may reflect universal tendencies coming together also.

“Chinoos” for “tobacco”

by

  I have questions, dear readers.

Cultus cod

by

You learn a lot when you think about who borrowed what…

Influence going the other way: Salish lexical suffixes FROM Chinuk Wawa

by

I think at least one lexical suffix each in Lower & Upper Chehalis comes from Chinuk Wawa.

Linguistic archaeology: half-dimes, Chinuk Wawa, and covert evidence

by

In Klallam Salish (north end of Washington’s Olympic Peninsula, opposite Canada’s Vancouver Island), the word ɬčəx̣-mít means ‘nickel’.

Antedating “Chinook wind”…back to Chinuk Wawa?

by

One of those “I thought I’d already written about this” moments…

“Savash soap” & valuable new old phrases

by

A little-known manuscript by early Chinook Jargon expert George Gibbs opens our eyes to some actual usages…