Recent from talks
Chinook Jargon
Knowledge base stats:
Talk channels stats:
Members stats:
Chinook Jargon
Chinook Jargon (Chinuk Wawa or Chinook Wawa, also known simply as Chinook or Jargon) is a language originating as a pidgin trade language in the Pacific Northwest. It spread during the 19th century from the lower Columbia River, first to other areas in modern Oregon and Washington, then to British Columbia and parts of Alaska, Northern California, Idaho and Montana. It sometimes took on the characteristics of a creole language. The contact language Chinook Jargon should not be confused with the Indigenous language Chinook.
Reflecting its origins in early trade transactions, approximately 15 percent of its lexicon is French. It also makes use of English loan words and those of other language systems. Its entire written form is in the Duployan shorthand developed by French priest Émile Duployé.
Many words from Chinook Jargon remain in common use in the Western United States and British Columbia. It has been described as part of a multicultural heritage shared by the modern inhabitants of the Pacific Northwest. The total number of Jargon words in published lexicons is in the hundreds. It has a simple grammatical system. In Chinook Jargon, the consonant /r/ is rare. Such English and French loan words as rice and merci, for instance, have changed after being adopted to the Jargon, to lays and mahsi, respectively.
Most books written in English still use the term Chinook Jargon, but some linguists working with the preservation of a creolized form of the language used in Grand Ronde, Oregon, prefer the term Chinuk Wawa (with the spelling 'Chinuk' instead of 'Chinook'). Historical speakers did not use the name Chinook Wawa, but rather "the Wawa" or "Lelang" (from Fr. la langue, the language, or tongue).[citation needed] Wawa also means speech or words; "have a wawa" means "hold a parley"; even in modern idiomatic English, Lelang also means the physical bodypart, the tongue.
The name for the Jargon varied throughout the territory in which it was used. For example: skokum hiyu in the Boston Bar-Lytton area of the Fraser Canyon. In many areas it was simply "the old trade language" or "the Hudson Bay language".
Whether Jargon was a post-contact or pre-contact language has been the subject of debate among scholars. In 2016, linguist John Lyon studied the word lists collected by Francis Drake and his crew on the 1579 voyage that took them to the Oregon coast. Lyon compared the seven words and phrases found on the Native vocabulary list recorded by Drake and his men with the vocabularies of Native languages on the west coast (Lyon 2016).
Of the five single words on the list, Lyon found that the word petáh, which was the Native word for a root that can be eaten raw or made into cakes called cheepe, were meaning matches for the Jargon words 'wapato' (a root that tastes like a potato) and 'chaplill', the word for the bread cakes made from this root (Lyon 2016:41). The word recorded for 'king' by Drake was 'hióh' (recorded also as 'hioghe'). Lyon thought it was a match for the Wawa word hi-yú, meaning a gathering, or much, plenty. Lyon was not able to conclude whether Drake encountered people of the Northwest Coast.
In 2021, Melissa Darby studied the ethnographic records and the records left by Francis Drake's expedition. She found new evidence that the people Drake met were speaking some Jargon words to Drake and his men.
Hub AI
Chinook Jargon AI simulator
(@Chinook Jargon_simulator)
Chinook Jargon
Chinook Jargon (Chinuk Wawa or Chinook Wawa, also known simply as Chinook or Jargon) is a language originating as a pidgin trade language in the Pacific Northwest. It spread during the 19th century from the lower Columbia River, first to other areas in modern Oregon and Washington, then to British Columbia and parts of Alaska, Northern California, Idaho and Montana. It sometimes took on the characteristics of a creole language. The contact language Chinook Jargon should not be confused with the Indigenous language Chinook.
Reflecting its origins in early trade transactions, approximately 15 percent of its lexicon is French. It also makes use of English loan words and those of other language systems. Its entire written form is in the Duployan shorthand developed by French priest Émile Duployé.
Many words from Chinook Jargon remain in common use in the Western United States and British Columbia. It has been described as part of a multicultural heritage shared by the modern inhabitants of the Pacific Northwest. The total number of Jargon words in published lexicons is in the hundreds. It has a simple grammatical system. In Chinook Jargon, the consonant /r/ is rare. Such English and French loan words as rice and merci, for instance, have changed after being adopted to the Jargon, to lays and mahsi, respectively.
Most books written in English still use the term Chinook Jargon, but some linguists working with the preservation of a creolized form of the language used in Grand Ronde, Oregon, prefer the term Chinuk Wawa (with the spelling 'Chinuk' instead of 'Chinook'). Historical speakers did not use the name Chinook Wawa, but rather "the Wawa" or "Lelang" (from Fr. la langue, the language, or tongue).[citation needed] Wawa also means speech or words; "have a wawa" means "hold a parley"; even in modern idiomatic English, Lelang also means the physical bodypart, the tongue.
The name for the Jargon varied throughout the territory in which it was used. For example: skokum hiyu in the Boston Bar-Lytton area of the Fraser Canyon. In many areas it was simply "the old trade language" or "the Hudson Bay language".
Whether Jargon was a post-contact or pre-contact language has been the subject of debate among scholars. In 2016, linguist John Lyon studied the word lists collected by Francis Drake and his crew on the 1579 voyage that took them to the Oregon coast. Lyon compared the seven words and phrases found on the Native vocabulary list recorded by Drake and his men with the vocabularies of Native languages on the west coast (Lyon 2016).
Of the five single words on the list, Lyon found that the word petáh, which was the Native word for a root that can be eaten raw or made into cakes called cheepe, were meaning matches for the Jargon words 'wapato' (a root that tastes like a potato) and 'chaplill', the word for the bread cakes made from this root (Lyon 2016:41). The word recorded for 'king' by Drake was 'hióh' (recorded also as 'hioghe'). Lyon thought it was a match for the Wawa word hi-yú, meaning a gathering, or much, plenty. Lyon was not able to conclude whether Drake encountered people of the Northwest Coast.
In 2021, Melissa Darby studied the ethnographic records and the records left by Francis Drake's expedition. She found new evidence that the people Drake met were speaking some Jargon words to Drake and his men.
Recent media