| Chinook Jargon | |
| Nativename: | chinuk wawa, wawa, chinook lelang, lelang, chinook |
| States: | Canada, United States |
| Region: | Pacific Northwest (Interior and Coast): Alaska, The Yukon, British Columbia, Washington State, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, Northern California |
| Speakers: | 1 |
| Date: | 2013 |
| Ref: | [1] |
| Familycolor: | pidgin |
| Family: | Mainly Wakashan (Nootka Jargon), Chinookan, and Indo-European (Germanic and Italic) |
| Iso2: | chn |
| Iso3: | chn |
| Glotto: | pidg1254 |
| Glottoname: | (pidgin) |
| Glottorefname: | Pidgin Chinook Jargon |
| Glotto2: | chin1272 |
| Glottoname2: | (creole) |
| Glottorefname2: | Creolized Grand Ronde Chinook Jargon |
| Script: | Latin: De facto Latin, historically Duployan; currently standardized IPA-based orthography |
| Nation: | Latin: De facto in Pacific Northwest until about 1920 |
| Map: | Lang Status 20-CR.svg |
Chinook Jargon (Chinook jargon: Chinuk Wawa or Chinook jargon: 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.[2] It is partly descended from the Chinook language, upon which much of its vocabulary is based.[3]
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.[4] It has a simple grammatical system. In Chinook Jargon, the consonant pronounced as //r// is rare. Such English and French loan words as rice and French: merci, for instance, have changed after being adopted to the Jargon, to Chinook jargon: lays and Chinook jargon: 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., the language, or tongue). 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.[5]
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).[6]
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.[7]
The pre-contact hypothesis states that the language developed prior to European settlement as an intra-indigenous contact language in a region marked by divisive geography and intense linguistic diversity. It eventually expanded to incorporate elements of European languages, with approximately 15 percent of its lexicon derived from French.[8] [9] The Jargon also acquired English loanwords, and its written form is entirely in the Duployan shorthand created by French priest Émile Duployé.[10] [11]
The post-contact hypothesis suggests the language originated in Nootka Sound after the arrival of Russian and Spanish traders as a means of communicating between them and indigenous peoples. It eventually spread further south due to commercial use. University of Ottawa linguist David Lang has argued for this conclusion.[12]
Linguist Barbara Harris suggests a dual genesis, positing that both origins probably have some legitimacy and that the two varieties eventually blended together.[13]
By 1840, Chinook Jargon had creolized into a native language for some speakers.[14]
In the Diocese of Kamloops, British Columbia, hundreds of speakers learned to read and write the Jargon using Duployan shorthand via the publication Kamloops Wawa. As a result, the Jargon had the beginnings of its own literature, mostly translated scripture and classical works, some local and episcopal news, community gossip and events, and diaries. Marah Ellis Ryan (c. 1860–1934), an early Native American activist and novelist, used Chinook words and phrases in her writing.[15]
In Oregon, Chinook Jargon was widely used by natives, trappers, traders, employees of the Hudson's Bay Company, missionaries, and pioneers who came across the Oregon Trail from the 1830s to the 1870s. In Portland's first half century (1840s–1890s), there were frequent trade interactions between pioneers and Native Americans. Many Oregonians used Jargon in casual conversation. Jones estimates that in pioneer times in the 1860s[16] there were about 100,000 speakers of Chinook Jargon.[17] It peaked in usage from approximately 1858 to 1900, and declined as a result of widespread deaths from the Spanish flu and World War I.[18]
As late as the 1940s, native children were born in Tiller, Oregon, who grew up speaking Chinook Jargon as their first language.[19] But by 1962, the Summer Institute of Linguistics (SIL) estimated that only 100 speakers were left.
In the 2000s, Lane Community College in Eugene, Oregon, started a three-semester university program teaching Chinook Jargon.[20] [21]
In 2013, it was reported that there was one native speaker of Chinook Jargon (specifically the Grand Ronde variety). An estimated 1,000 people had oral or written knowledge of Chinook Jargon as a second language. In 2015, the U.S. Census Bureau estimated based on the self-reported American Community Survey that around 45 people (with a margin of error of 25) spoke Chinook Jargon at home in the period 2009–2013.[22]
According to Nard Jones, Chinook Jargon was still in use in Seattle until roughly the eve of World War II, especially among the members of the Arctic Club. Seattle was the last city where the language was widely used. Writing in 1972, Jones remarked that "Only a few can speak it fully, men of ninety or a hundred years old, like Henry Broderick, the realtor, and Joshua Green, the banker."[23]
There is some controversy about the origin of the Jargon, but the consensus is that the pidgin peaked in use during the 19th century. During this era, many dictionaries were published to help settlers interact with the First Nations people living in the Pacific Northwest. Local settler families exchanged communiqués that were stylishly composed entirely in "the Chinook." Many residents of the British Columbia city of Vancouver spoke Chinook Jargon as their first language, even using it at home in preference to English. Among the first Europeans to use Chinook Jargon were traders, trappers, voyageurs, coureurs des bois, and Catholic missionaries.[24] [25]
The original Jargon was a pidgin, originally used as a second language by speakers of other Native American languages in the area. It had sentence-initial negation, which is atypical of regional languages, and also didn't have typical complex morphology. It had an SVO structure, while Chinookan and Salishan languages were VSO. However, local Athabaskan languages were SOV, so this was probably a result of contact — a cross-language compromise. Only later did Chinook Jargon acquire significant English and French lexical items.
The Jargon is influenced by individuals' accents and terms from their native languages; as Kanakas married into First Nations and non-native families, their particular mode of the Jargon is believed to have contained Hawaiian words or Hawaiian styles of pronunciation. In some areas, the adoption of further non-aboriginal words has been observed. During the gold rush, Chinook Jargon was used in British Columbia at first by gold prospectors and Royal Engineers; as industry developed, Chinook Jargon was often used by cannery workers, hop pickers, loggers, fishermen, and ranchers. It is possible that, at one point, the population of British Columbia spoke Chinook Jargon more than any other language, even English.[26] Historian Jane Barman wrote:
A heavily creolized form of Chinook Jargon is still spoken as a first language by some residents of Oregon, much as the Métis language Michif is spoken in Canada. Hence, Chinuk Wawa, as it is known in Oregon, is now a creole language, distinct from the varied pronunciation of the Chinook Jargon. There is evidence that in some communities (e.g., around Fort Vancouver) the Jargon had become creolized by the early 19th century, and that would have been among the mixed French/Métis, Algonkian, Scots and Hawaiian populations, as well as among the natives around the Fort. At Grand Ronde, the resettlement of tribes from all over Oregon in a multi-tribal agency led to the use of Chinuk Wawa as a common tongue among the linguistically diverse population. These circumstances led to the creolization of Chinuk Wawa at Grand Ronde.[27] There is also evidence that creolization occurred at the Confederated Tribes of Siletz reservation paralleling Grand Ronde,[28] although, due to language revitalization efforts being focused on the Tolowa language, Chinuk fell out of use.
No studies of British Columbia versions of the Jargon have demonstrated creolization. The range of varying usages and vocabulary in different regions suggests that localization did occur—although not on the pattern of Grand Ronde where Wasco, Klickitat and other peoples adopted and added to the version of the Jargon that developed there. First-language speakers of the Chinook Jargon were common in BC (native and non-native), until the mid-20th century. After 1850, the Wawa was still used in the United States portion of the Chinook-speaking world, especially in wilderness areas and work environments. Local creolization's probably did occur in British Columbia, but recorded materials have not been studied as they were made due to the focus on the traditional aboriginal languages.
There is a belief that something similar to the Jargon existed before European contact—without European words in its vocabulary.[29] There is some evidence for a Chinookan-Nuu-chah-nulth lingua franca in the writings of John Jewitt and in what is known as the Barclay Sound word-list, from the area of Ucluelet and Alberni. Others believe that the Jargon was formed during contact.
Current scholarly opinion holds that a trade language probably existed before European contact, which began "morphing" into the more familiar Chinook Jargon in the late 1790s, notably at a dinner party at Nootka Sound where Capts Vancouver and Bodega y Quadra were entertained by Chief Maquinna and his brother Callicum performing a theatrical using mock English and mock Spanish words and mimicry of European dress and mannerisms. There evidently was Jargon in use in Queen Charlotte, but this "Haida Jargon" is not known to have shared anything in common with Chinook Jargon or with the Nootkan-Chinookan "proto-jargon", which is its main foundation.
There are a few main spelling variations of Chinook Jargon but each individual writer also had their own spelling variations.
| , | pronounced as /link/ | uh Ɂoh (glottal stop) | ||||
| pronounced as /link/ | ejective (comes after the ejective consonant) | |||||
| ʰ | aspiration (comes after the aspirated consonant) | |||||
| pronounced as /link/ | rounded (comes after the vowel/consonant to be rounded) | |||||
| pronounced as /link/ | father | |||||
| , | pronounced as /aɪ/ | s k y , b i t e | ||||
| , | pronounced as /aʊ/ | cow, mouth | ||||
| pronounced as /link/ | bill | |||||
| pronounced as /link/ | pots | |||||
| ,,, | pronounced as /link/ | church | ||||
| , | pronounced as /link/ | bet | ||||
| ,, | ,, | pronounced as /link/ | but, mutt | |||
| , | pronounced as /eɪ/ | say | ||||
| pronounced as /link/ | dog | |||||
| pronounced as /link/ | f a t | |||||
| pronounced as /link/ | g e t | |||||
| pronounced as /link/ | happy | |||||
| pronounced as /link/ | b i t | |||||
| pronounced as /link/ | beat | |||||
| pronounced as /link/ | cow, anchor (unaspirated) | |||||
| pronounced as /link/ | queen (unaspirated) | |||||
| pronounced as /link/ | l o v e | |||||
| , | pronounced as /link/ | c l o c k (lateral fricative) | ||||
| , | pronounced as /link/ | lateral affricate | ||||
| pronounced as /link/ | mom | |||||
| pronounced as /link/ | no (note that in some native languages and thus CJ dialects, "n" and "l" were pronounced so similarly they would switch between one and the other) | |||||
| pronounced as /oʊ/ | no | |||||
| pronounced as /link/ | spit (unaspirated) | |||||
| pronounced as /link/ | deep "queen" (uvular "k" with lips rounded) (unaspirated) | |||||
| pronounced as /link/ | r o b (note that most northern dialects pronounce "l" in place of "r": e.g. "rob" and "lob" are said the same) | |||||
| pronounced as /link/ | sink | |||||
| pronounced as /link/ | shoot | |||||
| pronounced as /link/ | style (unaspirated) | |||||
| , | pronounced as /link/ | moon | ||||
| pronounced as /link/ | book, put | |||||
| pronounced as /uɪ/ | buoy (depending on dialect) | |||||
| pronounced as /link/ | water | |||||
| pronounced as /link/ | velar fricative (Scottish English "loch") | |||||
| pronounced as /link/ | uvular fricative | |||||
| pronounced as /link/ | year |
Jargon Chinook Alphabet (Grande Ronde):[31]
Many words are still used throughout Oregon, Washington, British Columbia, the Yukon, and Alaska. It was the working language in canneries on the British Columbia Coast. Place names throughout this region bear Jargon names and words that are preserved in various rural industries such as logging and fishing. Linguist David Douglas Robertson and others have described Chinook Jargon as part of the shared cultural heritage of modern inhabitants of the Pacific Northwest.[32]
, the Confederated Tribes of the Grand Ronde Community of Oregon was taking steps to preserve Chinook Jargon use through a full immersion head start/preschool that was conducted in Chinuk Wawa.[33] [34] The Confederated Tribes also offer Chinuk Wawa lessons at their offices in Eugene and Portland.[35] In addition, Lane Community College offers two years of Chinuk Wawa study that satisfy the second-language graduation requirements of Oregon public universities.[36] In March 2012, the tribe published a Chinuk Wawa dictionary through University of Washington Press.
At her swearing-in as lieutenant governor in 2001, Iona Campagnolo concluded her speech in Chinook, saying "Chinook jargon: konoway tillicums klatawa kunamokst klaska mamook okoke huloima chee illahie"Chinook for "everyone was thrown together to make this strange new country [British Columbia]", .
An art installation featuring Chinook Jargon, "Welcome to the Land of Light" by Henry Tsang, can be viewed on the Seawall along False Creek in downtown Vancouver, British Columbia, between Davie and Drake streets.[37] Translation into Chinook Jargon was done by Duane Pasco.[38]
A short film using Chinook Jargon, Small Pleasures by Karin Lee, explores intercultural dialogue between three women of different cultural and linguistic backgrounds in 1890s Barkerville in northern British Columbia.[39]
In 1997, the Grand Ronde reservation in Northern Oregon hired Tony Johnson, a Chinook linguist, to head its language program. Chinuk Wawa was chosen due to its strong connection to native identity on the reservation as well as being the only indigenous language still spoken at Grand Ronde. Prior to this, there were formal Chinuk Wawa classes taught by Eula Holmes from 1978 until her death in 1986. Eula Holmes' sister, Ila, held informal and sporadic classes to teach the language to the public.[40] Henry Zenk was brought onto the project in 1998 after having previous experience with the language, documenting it in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Community classes were started in the summer of 1998, and a dictionary was released in 2012. This dictionary was compiled from the Chinuk Wawa of Grand Ronde elders, chiefly from the Hudson, Wacheno and Riggs families.[41] The dictionary features a section on Chinuk Wawa recorded by natives of the lower Columbia but not used by the elders at Grand Ronde.[42] In 2014, the tribe made an app spanning traditional and modern vocabulary.[43]
In 2001, with funding from the Administration for Native Americans, the tribe started an immersion preschool. A kindergarten was started in 2004 by Kathy Cole, a tribal member and certified teacher, which has since expanded to a half-day immersion K–4 with slots for 25 students at Willamina Elementary School.[44] Cole also started Chinuk Wawa elective classes at Willamina High School in 2011. Students there and at Willamina Middle School can earn high school and college credit for completion of the course. Lane Community College also teaches a two-year course of Chinuk Wawa.[45]
By 2012, it was discovered that there was only one person left in British Columbia who had learned Chinook Jargon from Elders. That person was Jay Powell, a University of British Columbia anthropological linguist who had dedicated himself to the revitalization of Indigenous languages. A small group led by Sam Sullivan formed around him, organizing learning sessions and starting the BC Chinook Jargon initiative website.[46] Sullivan's efforts to expand public awareness of Chinook Jargon have included an interview with Powell conducted entirely in that language. The interview was organized through Kumtuks, a British Columbia focused educational video series whose name comes from the Chinook word for knowledge.[47]
The online magazine Kaltash Wawa was founded in November 2020 using BC Chinook Jargon and written in Chinuk Pipa, the alphabet based on Dupoyan shorthand.[48]
British Columbian English and Pacific Northwest English have several words still in current use which are loanwords from the Chinook Jargon,[49] which was widely spoken throughout the Pacific Northwest by all ethnicities well into the middle of the 20th century. These words tend to be shared with, but are not as common in, the states of Oregon, Washington, Alaska and, to a lesser degree, Idaho and western Montana.
See also: List of Chinook Jargon placenames.
Note: The Incubator link at right will take you to the Chinuk Wawa test-Wikipedia, which is written in a variation of the standardized orthography of the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde which differs significantly from the orthographies used by early linguists and diarists recording other versions of the Jargon: