CHINOOK JARGON AS A BC ABORIGINAL LANGUAGE: The following is an argument I wrote up as a grad student, a few years back. It’s keenly relevant now, eh?
From the Grand Ronde Tribes 2012 dictionary of Chinuk Wawa, you can learn a word for ‘turtle’, íɬaqwá.
I remember folks, years ago, asking me if there was information about BC’s old residential schools for Indigenous kids in the Kamloops Wawa newspaper, and telling them “nope”.
I just put up a post here about the “Ave Maria” (Hail Mary) prayer as preserved in H-T Lempfrit’s notebook, and it included an odd use of mank-.
My specialized book report on “Edward Ermatinger’s York Factory Express Journal: Being a Record of Journeys Made Between Fort Vancouver and Hudson Bay in the Years 1827-1828″ (published by the Royal Society of… Continue reading →
I’ve just been in Chilliwack, BC, at the 60th ICSNL (International Conference on Salish and Neighbouring Languages), which led to my becoming aware of a new study that discusses Chinook Jargon.
I try to read what’s said about Chinook Jargon in the scholarly literature — so you don’t have to!
Definitely in the Northern Dialect of Chinook Jargon is song #12 from Myron Eells’s little book, “Hymns in the Chinook Jargon Language“, 2nd (expanded!) edition (Portland, OR: David Steel, 1889):
Most people’s grasp of Chinook Jargon was pretty out of practice by 1919.
We’ve seen H-T Lempfrit’s manuscript dictionary; and now for some rare old Chinook Jargon texts on its following pages!
You won’t find texts in the Northern Dialect using the word chúp for ‘grandfather’.
