What follows is heartbreaking — in case you needed it proved to you that a pidgin language can communicate emotions — and you might feel like a cleansing, both before and after. But… Continue reading →

This question was passed along to me, and I thought it was worth a discussion: “I’m interested in the difference between the word for clam and the word for cockle, if there is… Continue reading →

*Scroll to the bottom for my Mother’s Day note 🙂 Talk about steampunk!  The guy was a straight-up 1890s geek: Father Le Jeune of the Kamloops Wawa showed his fancy for technology in many… Continue reading →

Getting right to today’s idea, the fur trade and otters were way less important in the Pacific NW by the 1890s era of the Kamloops Wawa newspaper. So the old Chinuk Wawa words for… Continue reading →

And over at the PRI.org site, another interview with that fella named after an early Northwest explorer about an early Northwest language. (David Douglas Robertson PhD.) (Chinuk Wawa.) A fun little read.

Today I’m sharing more humor in Jargon. Via Father Le Jeune’s reporting, Bishop Grouard has told us about life among the Crees and the Inuit; now the Athabaskan Hare Indians of Canada’s Northwest Territories:  … Continue reading →

Jack Nisbet the other day was asking me how early Chinook Jargon was used in the Spokane area. I happened to find Randall Harold Kemp’s book, “A Half-breed Dance, and Other Far Western Stories: Mining… Continue reading →

Yay, more donkeys! Sometimes in his Kamloops Wawa newspaper, Father Le Jeune would try to teach people who knew “Chinuk pipa” shorthand some English. Like any teacher, L.J. gave some lessons that we have to… Continue reading →

I promised this when I showed you “Life among the Crees, in Chinuk Wawa“, and I deliver. Visiting Kamloops Indian Reserve, Monsignor Grouard OMI of Athabasca is lecturing about his business trips. Now… Continue reading →

So this linguist guy showed up on the radio all over the place again, yesterday.  It was on Public Radio International. The show called “PRI’s The World” is running a series, “Name Tag”, about… Continue reading →