“I traveled to Squamish & Sechelt” (part 1)
Here is a travel story that’s so detailed and awesome, I want to share a whole lot of it. Due to its length, I’ll do it in installments. So now, from Kamloops Wawa #146… Continue reading
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Memoirs of Philip Henry Sheridan (buried lede: wood rats know Chinook)
General Sheridan, that is. He of US Civil War fame. We have already encountered him (in “Talk Strange Language“) as one of what we could call the Civil War Chinuk Wawa “code talkers”.… Continue reading
How to say to yourself “Don’t kill yourself” in Chinook Jargon?
A very important message: Wik maika mamuk mimlus maika itluil: Please don’t kill yourself. Much less important is today’s grammar note. Metaphorically, you can now stop knocking yourself out trying to express reflexive verbs in Chinuk… Continue reading
A council, a hanging, a witness: government words
Chinuk Wawa was used in frontier courts, in making treaties, in dealing with the cops — all the functions of the Official White-Aboriginal interface. (The image is not Chinuk Wawa. It’s graffiti in… Continue reading
“Carryall”, Jargon sleighs, & French influence
It seems that I’ve written and written about newfound Chinuk Wawa words for “sleigh”. In a current project of databasing Father Louis-Napoléon St-Onge‘s handwritten dictionary, I encounter his entry under an English word… Continue reading
Highbush cranberry, a Thompson “Chinuk Wawa” word
Annie Zíxtkʷu York said, in “Thompson Ethnobotany” and the “Thompson River Salish Dictionary”: kʷúkʷns ‘highbush cranberry’ is a Chinook Jargon loan into this southern interior BC language. This is new to me. Any… Continue reading
“Shadow” in Chinuk Wawa
From time to time I’ve wondered how to say “shadow” in the Jargon. I haven’t found it in the best dictionary, the one from Grand Ronde. Some authorities have included “shade” and “shadow”… Continue reading
This is what a map in Chinook Jargon looks like
It occurs to me that Iʹve never seen a map in Chinuk Wawa. So this was a good find. Itʹs meant to show how the house that the Virgin Mary was born in, and… Continue reading
Whiskey ravages Kamloops Indian Reserve
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
Silver bells we can do, but cockle shells?
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