Chinook Jargon

Introduction

Chinook

Columbia River The Chinook Jargon was an extinct pidgin language used by Native American tribes on the Northwest Coast of the U.S. and Canada and later by Europeans and Americans who traded with and lived among them. It is named for the Chinook Indians who lived on the lower Columbia River. The Jargon is thought to have developed many centuries ago and by the early 1800s was well established in the Pacific Northwest from the Columbia River to Vancouver Island. It was not an actual language of any of the tribes who used it to communicate with each other. Although the Chinook Jargon took some words from the Chinook language spoken as a first language by the Chinook Indians, it has none of the latter's grammatical and lexical complexity.

Structure

Vocabulary

Siwahs

The Chinook Jargon included words from several Native American languages, as well as English and French words that were added by explorers and fur traders. These words are sometimes difficult to recognize as English or French because their pronunciations was adapted to fit local languages. For instance, the English word rum became lum, and the French word mercie became mahsie. Since the Chinook Jargon had a small vocabulary, each word had a broad range of meanings, as can be seen from the examples below:

Klahawaya	An all-purpose greeting meaning "How are you?", "Good day," or "Good bye."
Muckamuck	food, to eat, a meal, drink
Siwash	From the French word sauvage " savage." This was the general term for Native Americans during the fur trade era.
dakta	doctor
lamotay	mountain (from French "la montagne")
dala	dollar
lapot	door (from French "la porte")

Writing

Sample of Chinook
Below is the first couplet of a song in the Chinook Jargon. As you can see, the words bear no resemblance to either English or French.

Click here to listen to the song performed by Duane Pasco.

"Klootzman kopa Wayhut"

Naika nanitch kloshe klootzman kopa wayhut
Yaka yakso delate klale, sopah pe youtlkut
Moccasin yaka mitlite pe pil tzum sail shut
Hiyu kamosuk pe tkope mowitch skin skut.

"Woman on Road"

Me see good woman on road
Her hair very black, straight and long
Moccasin she have and red calico shirt
Many beads and white deer skin dress

Resources

The Chinook Jargon: Selected references for students and scholars
Chinook Jargon - The HiddenlLanguage of the Pacific Northwest
Directory of online Jargon dictionaries and other references