Minto, “Rhymes of Early Life in Oregon, and…”
No, thankfully, this is not all doggerel…
Category Archive: Uncategorized
1 Comment
More humor in Chinuk Wawa: 1859, northern California — Conversion of an Oregonian damsel
A variation on some of the oldest PNW folkloric jokes —
What Nez Perce láwtiwa• makes us think…
Haruo Aoki’s high-quality dictionary of the Sahaptian-family language that most of us casually call Nez Perce, which is Ni•mi•pu•tímt in the language itself, contains another word that makes us think about the history… Continue reading
Aspiration: non-distinctive in Northern CW, distinctive in Southern CW
One of the big differences between the 2 living dialects of Chinook Jargon: ± aspiration.
February 1895: “Our Monthly Budget”, Part B (the Canadian messed up; that monsignor who gave you communion; pen pal pix)
More reading practice in Chinook for you, from the news of 1895!
Pidgins are all endangered
Pidgins are by definition endangered languages. Northern Chinook Jargon is a pidgin.
1894: A child prodigy of Chinook Writing, tattling at Spahomin, BC
In the northern dialect, we have this account of an anonymous kid who just couldn’t resist expressing himself in Chinook Writing:
Myron Eells’s hymn book (Part 10: Prayer)
Song #10 from Myron Eells’s little book, “Hymns in the Chinook Jargon Language“, 2nd (expanded!) edition (Portland, OR: David Steel, 1889):
1912: Eine Indianer-Zeitung
Published after the Chinook Jargon newspaper “Kamloops Wawa” had stopped regular publication, this newspaper article in German (from the USA!) is nonetheless interesting.
Final answer? There are (actually, were) 3 dialects of Chinook Jargon.
Ever since my research showed that there’s a very distinct dialect of Chinook Jargon that’s historically spoken north of the Columbia River, I’ve been talking about a 2-way split, of a “Northern” versus… Continue reading