The earliest, and effectively the only, occurrence of “wahpoos” as a word for a snake in Chinuk Wawa is found in George Coombs Shaw’s 1909 dictionary, published in Seattle.

Further Chinook Jargon reading practice, in the Northern Dialect, from“Kamloops Wawa” #125, page 18.

Today’s piece is dedicated to friend of Chinuk Wawa and Francophone extraordinaire, George “La” Lang 😁

I credit Leo Barker for this find.

Definitely in the Northern Dialect of Chinook Jargon is song #11 from Myron Eells’s little book, “Hymns in the Chinook Jargon Language“, 2nd (expanded!) edition (Portland, OR: David Steel, 1889):

“Trade language”, as Chinuk Wawa has often been called, also means exchange of services, as well as goods…

Chinook Jargon has always been a rapidly changing language.

Readers of the Chinook paper loved to see pictures in it, we’re always told; here’s one of a missionary priest.

This is a somewhat impressionistic point: Chinook Jargon’s rather free use of conjunction(s) may come from its Indo-European “parent” languages.

In a Chinook Jargon invitation, we once saw a mysterious word “wapsina“…