Some deeper background for you on a well-known basic word of Chinook Jargon.

A discovery? Leave it to the extravagant Roman emperor Heliogabalus (the dangerous transgender Syrian immigrant, not to be confused with the friendly Martian autism-whisperer of that name) to show us something new under the… Continue reading →

Chinook Jargon’s connection with the Northwest fur trade is proverbial.  But until now, we’ve had extremely little documentation of how people talked in CJ about the trapping side of that equation.

A constant source of sustenance for your curiosity:  The motherlode of Chinook Jargon words that nobody seems to have researched before.  Here’s a new one.  (Warning: offensive language, to some.)

I’ve written about several recent (circa 1891-1904) loans from the Salish languages into Kamloops (BC)-area Chinook Jargon.  They come from two main regions …

  Can you help me find the tune to this Ten Commandments hymn in Chinook Jargon?

An excellent document of Chinook Jargon use — especially in the underdocumented northern end of its range — from a fella who put real effort into learning it, at a time when the pidgin… Continue reading →

For sheer humour & bizarre, possibly unintentional, homage to some of the Indigenous traditions that were insulted earlier in the same issue of Kamloops Wawa, my favourite advertisement in Chinook Jargon is the following:

Yesterday the priest mocked traditional “wailing like Coyote” in mourning.  Today, ritual bathing comes under fire.

The priest tries to kill the Indian to save the person, or at least their soul…