Today’s lesson: learn how to apologize for a mistake in your writing, and how to say “Indian reserve”.      Ukuk Disiyus nsaika wawa, wik This Decius we were [I (Father Le Jeune)… Continue reading →

“Impressions of a Tenderfoot: During a Journey in Search of Sport in the Far West” by Mrs. Algernon St. Maur (London: John Murray, 1890).  It’s said that this was quite a popular book… Continue reading →

“Trottings of a Tenderfoot: Or, a Visit to the Columbian Fiords” by Clive Phillipps Wolley (London: Richard Bentley and Son, 1884). To read more about Mr Phillipps-Wolley‘s b. (1854, d. 1918) whack-a-mole ubiquity in frontier… Continue reading →

The Heroine of ’49: A story of the Pacific Coast.  By Mrs. M[ary] P. Sawtelle, MD.  San Francisco, CA: Francis, Valentine & Company, 1891. The author was an emigrant of 1848 to Marion… Continue reading →

“You’d better go and cut some wood for your clutchman [squaw]. As I came by I saw her chopping and splitting that old log in front of the house,” replied Maurice. — “Camp-Fires… Continue reading →

“The Thunder Bird ‘Tootooch’ Legends” (Seattle, WA: Ace Printing Co.): what is the story on this quirky 1936 book that I’ve been reading online?   In some ways it reminds me of Alfred… Continue reading →

Thanks to the wonderful language-themed radio series A Way With Words, who give a justified hat tip to Atlas Obscura, we’re led to an article by Robert E. Johnson about “An Extension of… Continue reading →

Once in a while I reencounter this rarish Chinook Jargon word that has always caused my brain a mild itch that I’ll get to momentarily: lapikwo “frock; short-coat” (as given in Father St Onge’s… Continue reading →

A strangely unsung figure in Chinook Jargon history writes from his deathbed, in Jargon, in 1898. Father Louis-Napoléon St Onge, OMI (b. 1812), had apprenticed as a young missionary with the now better-known… Continue reading →

This looks like quite good Chinook Jargon information (it might help answer a recent question about how Scandinavians pronounced their CJ), but I’ll need a friend to translate it from this Swedish: The… Continue reading →