READER CHALLENGE: read on to see if you have ideas about some of the French source words!

Even more stuff to back-translate into Chinuk Wawa; we can do this!

When you’re looking through a dictionary or other document about an Indigenous language of the Pacific Northwest, beware of remarks intended to be helpful, but that are often misleading.

Sometimes you hear people say there’s a word in Chinook Jargon for ‘can’t’, but not for ‘can’…

George Francis Train’s large head looms in California, and you can see it from my house!

One of my readers, Darrin Brager, was kind enough to send along a really interesting article that some condescending newspaper editor gave an unfortunate headline to.

Really truly and for sure, I recommend Geo. Gibbs’s 1877 “Tribes of Western Washington and Northwestern Oregon” as a phenomenal, fun ethnographic read.

In memory of the late Thom Hess.

On page xv of Robert Emmett Hawley’s book “Skqee Mus, or Pioneer Days on the Nooksack” (Bellingham, WA, 1945) is the following letter to the reader.

Like a number of other highly important cultural terms that Geo. Gibbs reports in his 1877 ethnography, I take it that the phrase “tamahno-ūs boards” was definitely Chinuk Wawa.