nayka wáwa drét háyú mási kʰapa David Gene Lewis, PhD, for inspiring this mini-series.

All 3 examples of “siwashed” today come from a single newspaper, and all have the same meaning.

Charles G. Leland inserted fake cussin’ in his otherwise fairly accurate 1888 article “Der Chinook-Jargon“.

In our Facebook “Chinook Jargon” group the other day, Greg Cleveland quoted his late grandfather as addressing him and other kids decades ago with “Howh klat’-a-wa.”

Languages of the northern Pacific Northwest coast have an odd form of word for ‘cat’, in all 3 unrelated language families:

In BC, Chinook Jargon stayed in use more vigorously and longer than it did south of the border.

My thanks go to reader Darrin Brager for inspiring this post.

As a seasonal bonus for you folks, here’s a look back at the Chinook Jargon of Christmas past!

Here’s another fun Christmas-related bit of Chinuk Wawa, courtesy of reader Darrin Brager!

“It is Christmas Day on the cattle ranch at the Malheur agency…” So starts Part IV of a serially published piece of post-frontier cowboy fiction by the renowned Owen Wister.