A measure of how much Chinook Jargon had penetrated into British Columbia folks’ English by the turn of the century:

An overly enthusiastic translator a generation after the frontier era needs a fact-check…

Very precious words: A southern interior BC Salish chief’s speech against the government is quoted on the front page of the newspaper.

A Chinook Jargon vocabulary previously unknown to us beckons from a faded 1862 newspaper published in a forgotten California gold rush town.

Today, some Chinook Jargon humor from eastern Washington on the cusp of the frontier period’s end…

British Columbia has a history of greeting the royals in Chinuk Wawa.

Our old buddy, pioneer Judge Joseph A. Kuhn, strikes again…

Here’s a funny memory of one of the last known speakers of the Nicola Dene (Athabaskan) language, south of Kamloops, BC.

To add to our voluminous “Improved Order of Red Men” files…

dret hayu masi kʰapa chup henli / nawitka ayu naika wawa mirsi kopa olman hinri! Among the many reasons why the following document is perhaps the most valuable item ever written in Chinuk… Continue reading →