RIP Martha Clayton of Puget Sound and Alaska, 1858?-1948

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One of the first Settler kids born on Puget Sound in Washington Territory went on to work in Alaska as an interpreter.

The Mission Field and “Chinhook” (Part 6 of 6)

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The last installment in this mini-series about British Columbia’s Protestant missionaries in the frontier period…

‘Pinning’ down a Lower Chehalis trace in early-creolized Chinuk Wawa

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From their Fort Vancouver experience starting in 1838, Catholic missionaries Demers and Blanchet published (with the editing help of L.N. St. Onge) a wonderful little Chinuk Wawa dictionary in 1871.

Blankenship, “Early History of Thurston County, Washington” (Part 2)

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Settlers not uncommonly pidginized the pidginized northern-dialect version of Chinook Jargon; today we’ll see reminiscences from two fellas who did so.

1911: “Slings Chinook like pitching quoits”

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Funnest simile for talking good Jargon that I’ve seen…

Kamloops Wawa pictures, Part 6: Chapel at North Bend

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Our latest vintage photo of Chinook Jargon-speaking country shows an important little village in British Columbia…

Crowdsourcing challenge: a Lingít Chinuk Wawa song!

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My reader Alex Code shared a Chinook Jargon song that I don’t think I ever knew about…

Boas 1892: Many discoveries in a short article (Part 8: ‘grandchild’)

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In Franz Boas’s neglected masterpiece, the one-page article “The Chinook Jargon“, we learn another Salish-sourced word…

1876: “Snass” in the classical Chinook

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Kind of unusual to see “cole snass” ‘snow’ abbreviated to “snass” (‘rain’)!

Didactic dialogues in CW dictionaries, Part 4F (Gibbs 1863 ex phrases/sentences) — a deep dive!

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The sixth part our mini-mini-series on George Gibbs’s 1863 example sentences of Chinuk Wawa takes you to the water, and drops you in. Let’s go deep!