Tag Archive: cum-tux

Mika tum-tum hyass t’kop (oh brother)

Just to bring alive for you one of the uses we talk about the Jargon having–a “token of pioneer identity”, a “badge of Northwesternness”–I give you the following correspondence, nine letters that were… Continue reading

Sharon Seal guest blogs again: Big John Kitsap & See Oh See Oh

Reader Sharon Seal has contributed more great Chinook Jargon material to share with you all.  These are newspaper articles from Kittitas County, WA.  (Non-Washingtonians: it’s pronounced KITT-ih-tass.) 1) “Big John Kitsap, Kittitas Indian,… Continue reading

“Cumtuxiana”!

I transcribed this jocular musing on rampant borrowings into frontier-era Western US English, from the Daily Alta California newspaper, 3 August 1851, page 2, column 2 (top). There’s quite a trove of what… Continue reading

Alfred Downing, “I Signal an Indian from Opposite Shore”

The superbly readable naturalist-historian Jack Nisbet of Spokane has a column “Boundaries” in the free North Columbia Monthly, out of Colville.  Thanks to Jack for this find… His current (April 2012) column is… Continue reading