“Houn’ Dawg” song originated in Oregon
Today’s post was one of my favorites to write. It started with finding a Chinook song I hadn’t known before (always a thrill!), and it only got better as I followed the historical… Continue reading
Tag Archive: tenas
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Wah-Kee-Nah and her people, including James Clark Strong
“Wah-Kee-Nah and Her People“ by James Clark Strong New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1893 In places, a solidly interesting piece of Northwest Americana. New Yorker J.C. Strong lived in the PNW starting in… Continue reading
Mencken on Chinook Jargon’s influence
H.L. Mencken‘s famous 1945 book on “The American Language” (Supplement 1) gets into the subject of Chinook Jargon’s influence on our English, on pages 310-311. I hear a wisely skeptical voice in his… Continue reading
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
Blazing the way, by Emily Denny
Blazing the Way: Or, true stories, songs and sketches of Puget Sound and other pioneers. By Emily Inez Denny. Seattle: Rainier Printing Company, Inc. 1909. I enjoyed noticing on page 33 of this… Continue reading
Caroline Leighton, Life at Puget Sound
“Life at Puget Sound: With Sketches of Travel in Washington Territory, British Columbia, Oregon, and California, 1865-1881″ Boston: Lee and Shepard / New York: Charles T. Dillingham, 1884 The title and subtitle tell you… Continue reading
Chinook Jargon realia I
Chinook Jargon realia I, shown twice life size: A Chinuk Wawa ribbon from my archive with the text on front, WASHINGTON Quanisum pechugh illahee, tenas alta, delate hyas kloshe, alki. Kloshe nanitch. And… Continue reading
A trip to Metaline
To paraphrase Daniel Johnston, have you been to Metaline? If you had visited that mining camp on the BC border in Washington’s first year of statehood, you might have found Chinook Jargon useful.… 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
Andy Brown sings a Chinook Jargon drinking song
At the Alaska Native Language Center online archives site, you can listen as “Andy Brown sings a Chinook Jargon drinking song.” In the 1975 Ahtna Noun Dictionary by Mildred Buck and James Kari, Andy… Continue reading