Here’s an early western Washington settler’s recollection of his first trip “down” Puget Sound — meaning northwards — in 1848, and of pretending not to understand Chinuk Wawa once.

Here’s the staff of the Kamloops Catholic mission, who ran the “Industrial School” —

An ad in frontier-era Washington Territory didn’t have to explain its use of Chinook Jargon.

With a couple of characters speaking mixed Chinook Jargon & Chinese Pidgin English, none of it translated, thus probably lifelike.

From an evening of Bible stories told in Chinook Jargon (“Kamloops Wawa” February 1916, No. 259):

This particular idea of a “court language” doesn’t refer to speaking in the courts, with a judge.

A neat example of untranslated Chinook Jargon in a local newspaper!

From “Kamloops Wawa” #124 (January 1895), page 2, the local news in Chinuk Wawa!

Here’s one of the earliest mentions of Chinook Jargon being in use in British Columbia…

I infer that “Brother Foster” — who was he? — is himself the “Oregon Man”, so I’ve added speculative punctuation here.