Chinook-English Dictionary
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Chinook Jargon originated as a pidgin
trade language of the Pacific
Northwest, and spread quickly up the West Coast from
modern Oregon
to the regions now Washington,
British
Columbia, and Alaska.
It is related to, but not the same as, the aboriginal language
of the Chinook
people, upon which much of its vocabulary is based.
Many words from Chinook Jargon remain in common use in
the Western
United States and British
Columbia and the Yukon,
in indigenous languages as well as regional English usage,
to the point where most people are unaware the word was
originally from the Jargon. The total number of Jargon words
in published lexicons only numbered in the hundreds, and
so it was easy to learn. It has its own grammatical system,
but a very simple one that, like its word list, was easy
to learn.
Overview and history
The Jargon was originally constructed from a great variety
of Amerind
words of the Pacific Northwest, arising as an intra-indigenous
contact
language in a region marked by divisive geography and
intense linguistic diversity. The participating peoples
came from a number of very distinct language
families, speaking dozens of individual languages.[1]
After European contact, the Jargon also acquired English
and French
loans, as well as words brought by other European,
Asian,
and Polynesian
groups. Some individuals from all these groups soon adopted
The Jargon as a highly efficient and accessible form of
communication. This use continued in some business sectors
well into the 20th century[2][3]
and some of its words continue to feature in company and
organization names as well as in the regional
toponymy.
In the Diocese
of Kamloops,
British
Columbia, hundreds of speakers also learned to read
and write the Jargon using the Duployan Shorthand via the
publication Kamloops
Wawa. As a result, the Jargon also had the beginnings
of its own literature, mostly translated scripture
and classical
works, and some local and episcopal
news, community gossip and events, and diaries.[4]
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, making Seattle the last city where the language
was widely used. Writing in 1972, he remarked that at that
later date "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."[5]
Jones estimates that in pioneer times there were about
100,000 speakers of Chinook Jargon.[6]
Name
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, however,
but rather "the Wawa" or "Lelang" (from Fr.
la langue, the language, or tongue). NB Wawa
also means speech or words – "have a wawa" means "hold a
parley" even in idiomatic English today, and 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, or in many areas simply just "the old trade
language".
ISO language code
According to the ISO 639-2 standard, the alpha-3 code chn
denotes the Chinook Jargon.[7]
Origins and evolution
There is some controversy about the origin of the Jargon,
but all agree that its glory days were during the 19th century.
During this era many dictionaries were published in order
to help settlers interact with the First
Nations people already living there. The old settler
families' heirs in the Pacific Northwest sent communiques
to each other, 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
and Catholic
missionaries. Hawaiians and Chinese in the region made
much use of it as well; in some places Kanakas
married into the First Nations and non-native families and
their particular mode of the Jargon is believed to have
contained Hawaiian words, or Hawaiian styles of pronunciation;
similarly the Jargon as spoken by a Chinese person or a
Norwegian or a Scot will have been influenced by those individuals'
native-speaker terms and accents; and in some areas the
adoption of further non-aboriginal words has been observed.
The Chinook Jargon naturally became the first language in
mixed-blood households, and also in multi-ethnic work environments
such as canneries and lumberyards and ranches where it remained
the language of the workplace well into the middle of the
20th Century. During the Gold
Rush, Chinook Jargon was used in British Columbia by
gold prospectors and Royal
Engineers. As industry developed, Chinook Jargon was
often used by cannery workers and hop pickers of diverse
ethnic background. Loggers, fishermen and ranchers incorporated
it in their jargon.
A heavily creolized form of Chinook Jargon (Chinuk Wawa
or Tsinuk wawa) is still spoken as a first language
by some residents of Oregon
State, much as the Métis
language Michif
is still spoken in Canada.
Hence, the Wawa as it is known in Oregon is now a creole
language, distinct from the widespread and widely-varied
pronunciation of the Chinook Jargon as it spread beyond
the Chinookan homeland. There is evidence that in some communities
(e.g. around Fort
Vancouver) the Jargon had become creolized by the early
1800s, but that would have been among the mixed French/Metis,
Algonkian, Scots and Hawaiian population there 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
required the development of an intertribal language, and
so the Wawa was augmented by the addition of Klickitat and
Wasco words and sounds and "more Indian" modifications of
the pronunciation and vocabulary.
No studies of British Columbia versions of the Jargon have
demonstrated creolization and 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 in Grand Ronde.
First-language speakers of the Chinook Jargon were common
in BC, both native and non-native, until mid-20th Century,
and it is a truism that while after 1850 the Wawa was mostly
a native language in the United States portion of the Chinook-speaking
world, it remained in wide use among non-natives north of
the border for another century, especially in wilderness
areas and working environments. Local creolizations probably
did occur in British Columbia, but recorded materials have
not been studied since they were made due to the focus on
the traditional aboriginal languages. Most Chinookology
ignores non-native use of the Jargon, and there is a current
in Jargon studies to purge or otherwise creolize the English
and French words out of it, to "Indianize" it.
Some believe that something similar to the Jargon existed
prior to European contact, but without European words in
its vocabulary. There is some evidence for a Chinookan-Nuu-chah-nulth
interlingua
in the writings of John
Jewitt and also in what is known as the Barclay Sound
word-list, from the area of Ucluelet
and Alberni.
Others believe that the Jargon was formed within the great
cultural cauldron of the time of Contact, and cannot be
discussed separately from that context, with an appreciation
for the full range of the Jargon-speaking community and
its history.[8]
Current scholarly opinion holds that a trade language of
some kind probably existed prior to 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 a Jargon of some kind in use in the Queen Charlotte,
but this "Haida
Jargon"
is not known to have shared anything in common with Chinook
Jargon, or with the Nooktan-Chinookan "proto-jargon" which
is its main foundation.
Many words in Chinook Jargon clearly had different meanings
and pronunciations at various points in history, and continued
to evolve into interesting regional variants. A few scholars
have tried to improve the spelling, but since it was mostly
a spoken language this is difficult (and many users tend
to prefer the sort of spelling they use in English).
Use
Pacific
Northwest historians are well acquainted with the Chinook
Jargon, in name if not in the ability to understand it.
Mention of Chinook Jargon, and sometimes phrases of it,
were found in nearly every piece of historical source material
before 1900. For everyone else, the fact that Chinook Jargon
ever existed is relatively unknown, perhaps due to the great
influx of newcomers into the influential urban areas. However,
the memory of this language is not likely to fade entirely.
Many words are still used and enjoyed throughout Oregon,
Washington,
British
Columbia, and Alaska.
Old-timers still dimly remember it, although in their youth,
speaking this language was discouraged as slang.
Nonetheless, it was the working language in many towns and
workplaces, notably in ranching country and in canneries
on the British
Columbia Coast where it was necessary in the strongly
multiethnic workforce. Place names throughout this region
bear Jargon names (see List
of Chinook Jargon placenames) and words are preserved
in various rural industries such as logging and fishing.
The Chinook Jargon was multicultural
and functional. There was no Official Chinook Jargon, although
the past (and present) publishers of dictionaries would
have had you believe otherwise. To those familiar with it,
Chinook Jargon is often considered a wonderful cultural
inheritance. For this reason, and because Jargon has not
quite died, enthusiasts actively promote the revival of
the language in everyday western speech.
On the Grande Ronde reservation in Oregon there is a full
immersion head start that conducts itself entirely in Chinuk
Wawa. They are doing a wonderful job of reviving their language.
An art installation featuring Chinook Jargon ("Welcome
to the Land of Light" by Henry Tsang, translated into Chinook
by Duane
Pasco) can be viewed on the Seawall
along False
Creek in Yaletown,
in Vancouver,
British
Columbia (at the foot of Drake Street).
English-language speakers
Pacific
Northwest English and British
Columbian English have several words still in current
use which are loanwords from the Chinook Jargon. Skookum,
potlatch,
muckamuck, saltchuck, and other Chinook Jargon words are
widely used by people who do not speak Chinook Jargon.
Vocabulary
Jargon placenames are found throughout the Pacific
Northwest and Mountain
States, although the source language for a given place
name is difficult, since Chinook Jargon borrowed many of
its words from the Salishan
languages.
A small collection of Jargon words:
- nika or naika — I, mine or anything first-person
(spellings are optional, pronunciation is the same. In
Grand Ronde Chinuk-Wawa the 'k' is unaspirated, unlike
in British
Columbia versions of the Jargon.
- hyak — fast, swift. This word, in its variant
spelling hyack, is the nickname for the New Westminster
regiment of the Canadian Forces, who annually set off
a 21-anvil salute during the Victoria
Day weekend every year. It was also the name of one
of the Vancouver Aquarium's orcas.
- hyas — big, important.
- hyas tyee — king, high chief (see tyee
below).
- cultus — bad, worthless, inconsequential, unimportant.
Or just "ordinary" or "nothing special", and also "idle".
Cultus Lake is the name of a large and popular resort
lake near Chilliwack,
British Columbia; the meaning comes from the bad spirits
native tradition says live in the lake.
- cultus klatawa — going for a walk, ambling
about, wandering.
- cultus mitlite — not doing much, hanging
out (e.g. in response to watcha doin?).
- cultus ikta —
- cultus iktas — junk, "common stuff", garbage,
offal/feces, something broken or useless.
- cultus potlatch — just a trifle, a gift (i.e.
with no debt of prestige or obligation attached, as
with some potlatch give-outs).
- iwash — penis[9]
- kloshe or kloosh — good, correct, right.
- kloshe nanitch — a byword meaning "watch
yourself", "take care", literally "watch well". It
was the official motto of the Kamloops-based
militia regiment the Rocky
Mountain Rangers during World
Wars I and II.
- kloshe mamook — to fix, to mend, to heal,
to become healed, to get better, and a host of other
potential meanings. If followed by another noun or
verb which makes mamook into an auxiliary,
kloshe in that case gives the sense of the
conditional or obligational - "you should do this....".
Kloshe mamook klatawa - "you'd better go".
Kloshe serves the same function with other verbs as
well: Kloshe chako — "please come", "it'd be
good if you come".
- mahsh — send, throw, put, eject, get on with
it, get out (command). Thought to be from the French marcher
via an expression used by the voyageurs
to move goods on and off their boats and in and out of
storehouses, but the meaning of the verb was misconstrued
and is used in the Jargon with the altered meanings listed.
It can also be used to mean sell, especially when
used in combination with mahkook which means to
trade.
- hui-hui — a sealed bargain or a done deal (from
Fr. oui-oui). NB difference from mahkook,
which is to sell (or buy, depending on context).
- memaloose — dead, corpse, or death.
- memaloose illahee — graveyard, cemetery ("death
land").
- mamook memaloose — kill.
- puss-puss — cat, house cat. In the Puget
Sound area puss-puss was rendered "pish-pish".
- kamuks or comox — dog. This would have
originally referred to a now-extinct breed of domestic
dog once common in the region, which was raised for its
wool and meat. This breed is often depicted in drawings
and paintings from the earliest eras.
- talapus — coyote. In Grand Ronde Chinuk-Wawa
the initial t is plosive.
- hyas talapus — wolf, "big coyote"
- leloo or lelu — wolf. Presumably from
Fr. le loup.
- hyas leloo — timberwolf, "big wolf", (also
hyas talapus).
- lemolo — wild, dangerous, from the backcountry.
From Fr. le marron, a runaway slave or renegade
(as in French, accent on last syllable). Lemolo
infers savagery as well as rebellion, but an animal may
also be lemolo, with the sense leaning towards
loco as well as dangerous.
- cayuse — a horse
or pony,
in some areas also a coyote;
the variant cayoosh is found in British
Columbia and has special meaning there as a bloodline
of Indian mountain pony. Originally from the Spanish caballo.
The more usual word for horse was kiuatan:
- kiuatan — horse. This was the more usual word
for horse than cayuse, and is also an adaptation
(via Sahaptian)
of the Spanish caballo.
- stone kiuatan — stallion ("horse with testicles")
- klootchman kiuatan — mare ("female horse")
- burdash kiuatan — gelding ("neutered horse")
- tenas kiuatan — colt, pony ("young horse")
- lemolo stone kiuatan — stallion gone loco
(i.e. not just a mustang,
which was lemolo kiuatan or, in west-central
BC, lemolo cayoosh).
- moos-moos — cattle. This word may be a corruption
of the Cree Mistah' moostoos for buffalo (it is
not believed to be onomatopoeic).
- tenas moos-moos — calf
("young cattle")
- klootchman moos-moos or tatoosh moos-moos
— cow
("female cattle" or "milk cow")
- tenas klootchman moos-moos — heiffer
("young female cattle")
- man moos-moos or man stone moos-moos
— bull
("male cattle" or "male testicle cattle")
- burdash moos-moos — steer
("neutered cattle")
Many equestrian terms are from French:
- lasell — saddle; from Fr. la selle
- lagley — a grey horse. from Fr. le gris
(the grey [horse])
- lekay or lekay — a piebald or appaloosa
horse, from Fr. la caille (the quail).
- leblow or leblau — from fR. le bleu
a chestnut-coloured or sorrel horse. Such a horse may
also be a pil cayoosh or pil kiuatan - a
red horse.
- sandelie or sandalee — a roan-coloured
horse, either from Fr. cendre - ash - or from Engl.
sandy.
- lableed — bridle, from French "la bride"
- Leseeblo — spurs, from French
- Sitlay or sitliay — stirrups, from French
"l'étrier"
- Sitlay, sitliay - stirrups
- lamel — mule
(but note burdash kiuatan).
- burdash — neuter. From Fr. berdache,
this word specifically refers to accidental or incidental
hermaphroditism or lack of gender, such as by castration
or unusual birth. In Chinook, it is not known to have
referred to effeminacy, transsexuality or homosexual tendencies
as other adaptations of berdache did in other aboriginal
languages in North America, or the original French.
- burdash kiuatan — mule,
"neuter horse".
- burdash cayoosh — gelding,
"neuter horse".
- burdash moos-moos — steer,
"neuter cow".
Many religious terms are from French:
- leplet — priest, also used for non-Catholic preacher
or parson
- lekleese — church
- malakwa — mosquito, from Fr. maringouin
(accent on first syllable)
- hooch — homemade liquor. Not found in the Columbia
and Grand Ronde versions of the jargon, this is a northern
word ascribed to the Tlingit
village group the Xootsnoowu which was current throughout
northern and upper coastal usages of the Jargon, and of
course has become part of standard English vocabularies,
at least throughout Canada and the US.
- lapishemo — saddle-blanket and trappings of a
horse. Not from French, but believed to be from Ojibway,
apparently brought to the Northwest via the voyageurs
or other fur company employees.
- eena or ina — beaver
- suwellel
— the mountain
beaver or "boomer". This word for this animal is current
in English (for those who know of its existence).
- nenamooks — otter (but not the sea otter), also
a term of endearment or exasperation for rambunctious
children.
- hum opoots — skunk
(lit. "stinky butt"), also an insult, the same as "you
skunk" in English.
- piu-piu — very stinky (from Fr. piu).
- mowitch — deer, game. Mowitch is extremely
common throughout the Plateau and the Coast in use by
natives as well as non-natives, and is found as far southeast
as Shoshone territory and up into Alaska.
- hyas mowitch — "big game", can be a moose
or an elk,
although elk is usually moolack or moolock.
- moolack or moolock — elk or wapiti. Like
mowitch, the word moolack is fairly well-known,
but not to the same degree.
- lemooto or lemoto — sheep, mutton.
- tenas lemooto — lamb ("young sheep").
- man lemooto — ram ("male sheep").
- klootchman lemooto — ewe ("female sheep").
- cosho or lecosho — pig or swine, also
pork. From Fr. le cochon (accent on second syllable).
- tenas cosho — piglet.
- klootchman cosho — sow.
- siwash cosho — seal
(lit. "Indian pig", i.e. as much a staple of Indian
life as pork was to Europeans and Britons. Note also
olehiyu.
- olehiyu or olhyiu — seal.
- olallie — berry. Olalla,
Washington and the Okanagan
town of Olalla,
British Columbia get their name from this word. The
prevalent common name in British Columbia for the berry-bearing
bush Shepherdia canadensis is soopolallie,
Chinook for 'soap berry' (see Wikipedia entry under prairie
provinces common name for the same plant, Canada
Buffaloberry).
- laboos or labush — mouth (from Fr. la
bouche). This is origin of the name of La
Push, Washington
- illahee, illahie, illahe (GR Chinuk
Wawa ili'i) — land, earth, ground.
- kloshe illahee — good land, bottom land pasture.
Can be used to mean a plot of land, a farm or a ranch.
- tatoosh
— milk, butter. Also means breasts, or the chest.
- tupso — grass, greenery.
- tupso illahee — pasture (grass land).
- tsee tupso — sweet grass (good grazing grass
for horses)
- yakso — hair.
- lapel — a fur, from Fr. la pelle
- labooti — bottle, from Fr. la bouteille
(pron labooTAI, not laBOOtee)
- lapool — chicken, fowl, poultry
- lacock, lekok — rooster, cock
- lezep, lesap — eggs
- lasac or lazack — sac, bag
- itliwillie — flesh, meat, muscle
- lakalat— carrot;
- lamonti — mountain, from Fr. la montaigne
(pron lamonTAI).
- hyas lamonti — the high mountains
- hyas hyas lamonti — the deep mountains, remote
faraway mountain country.
Note hyas hyas stone illahee, meaning the "greatest
and biggest land of stones", or "the great barren high country"
in Paul
St. Pierre's novella Breaking Smith Quarter Horse.
The context of the title is the vast and diverse inland
alpine areas of the Coast
Mountains, flanking the Chilcotin
district where the action of the novella takes place. The
possible subreference stone, "testicles", may be
to the power and ruggedness of the lands described by the
phrase.
- stone — in orthodox Chinook Jargon is usually
"testicles"
Speakers from Grand Ronde consider stone a rude
word, unless in combination forms like stone kiuatan
- "stallion" (horse still with its testicles, i.e. not a
burdash kiuatan, which is a gelding). In British
Columbia usages, stone can also simply mean rock,
or stony country.
- pepah — paper, book, something written
- law — the law, authority, judges. Law man
is not a policeman, but a lawyer or judge.
- sojer — one of several adaptations of the English
word soldier;
The term sojer was mostly used on the American side
of the border, as troops in BC were known (in English) as
Marines and Voltigeurs, and military deployments to quell
native populations were virtually unknown (the Lamalcha
War of 1863 being one of the exceptions, and it involved
marines and sailors, not soldiers).
- skookum
— big/strong, powerful, awe-inspiring; monster or monstrous
(obsolete). Opposite of cultus. Used as a verb
auxiliary for "can" (to be able) or "powerful at". In
names for individuals skookum is sometimes shortened
to skook, as in Mount Skook Jim in the Lillooet
Ranges, or Mount Skook Davidson west of Lake
Williston.
- skookum
house — prison, jail ("the strong house").
- skookum
lakasett — strongbox.
- skookum
tumtum — brave, strong-hearted, loyal.
- skookumchuck
— rapids, whitewater, rough water.
- skokomish
— compounded from skookum
ish, "brave people" (known in their original language
as the Twana).
The word skookum
remains a common component of English for long-time residents,
for whom it means something strongly-built, or someone genuine,
honest, reliable. It can also simply mean "impressive",
as in "That's a pretty skookum bicycle you've got there!"
(British
Columbia). Also "I think that this rope isn't quite
skookum" (southwest Washington).
- hyas muckamuck(s) — the chief, the big boss,
management (modern usage). In modern blue-collar usage,
this word is one of many mildly sarcastic slang terms
used to refer to bosses and upper management (British
Columbia). Var. "High Mucketymuck".
- chuck — water or river. This word is still well
remembered, though less frequently used (except by weathermen
giving sailing reports and marine forecasts).
- saltchuck — "salt water", ocean, fijord,
inlet.
- skookumchuck
— rapids, whitewater, rough water.
- mitwhit — to stand erect.
- stick — stick, wood, firewood, tree.
- hyas stick — big tree or log, big/great woods/forest.
- mitwhit stick — ship's mast, spar ("standing
tree/timber")
Some have suggested the North American phrase "out in the
sticks" may have originated in Chinook Jargon usages, adopted
by Klondike-era travellers and transmitted to other parts
of the continent, as were hooch and hyas muckamuck
(or high muckamuck; usually high mucketymuck
if heard outside the Northwest,
however).
- mitlite — to be, to exist, to rest. Cultus
mitlite — jes' hanging out.
- tillikum
— friend; also means people, kin (emphasis on first syllable),
sometimes pluralized but not required.
- Skookum tillikums — hard to translate efficiently,
but a certain "grand old man" of the high frontier
and great old days, someone capable of hiking from
northeastern BC to Wyoming if they wanted to, and
able to defend himself in the bar, or in the bush.
Used in Paul
Saint Pierre's novella Breaking Smith's Quarter
Horse.
- tyee — leader, chief, a really big chinook
salmon (Campbell
River area) (emphasis on second syllable).
- hyas tyee — king, big boss, important ruler.
e.g. "He was the undisputed hyas tyee of all the country
between the Johnstone
Strait and Comox"
This was also the common title used for the famous
chiefs of the early era, such as Maquinna.
- Hyas Klootchman Tyee — "Great Woman Ruler",
roughly "Her Majesty".
The word tyee was commonly used and still occurs
in some local English usages meaning "boss" or someone in
charge. Business and local political and community figures
of a certain stature from some areas are sometimes referred
to in the British
Columbia papers and histories by the old chiefly name
worn by Maquinna and Concomly
and Nicola.
A man called hyas tyee would have been a senator,
a longtime MP or MLA, or a business magnate with a strong
local powerbase, long-time connections, and wealth from
and because of the area.
The title Hyas Klootchman Tyee was used to refer
to Queen
Victoria in public proclamations during her reign. In
theory, this title also applies to Queen
Elizabeth II but it is no longer used by the BC
government. Conceivably, Lieutenant-Governor
Iona
Campagnolo may be styled that way, since she speaks
Chinook Jargon, but the proper form of address in English
for a Lieutenant-Governor is "Your Honour". A possible Chinook
equivalent might be Hyas Chutch (great judge/authority),
or in Campagnolo's case, Hyas klootchman chutch.
- tenas or tenass — child, small, little,
young. In Grand Ronde Chinuk-Wawa, the distinction between
ten'-ass and dun'-uss (not GR spellings, just approximations
of pronunciations) is between small/little and child/young.
Klootchman tenas — little girl, young woman. Tenaschuck
— lake, pond.
- cheechako — newcomer (emphasis on second syllable).
This word is relatively common, especially in frontier
regions and historically throughout (Alaska,
Yukon
and northwestern B.C.
in particular. Chee means "new" and chako
means "come". Ko means "arrive" (although when
doubled it means "knock"). An example comes from Fairbanks
hostess Eva
McGown: "I never had any children of my own, but as
someone once said, I am the mother of all the cheechakoos."[1]
- saghalie — up, high place, above.
- saghalie tyee — God. This term was coined
by evangelists and as a result of its use saghalie
also came to mean "sacred" and "holy".
- saghalie illahee — sacred ground, but not
a graveyard, which is memaloose illahee.
- potlatch
— in ordinary Jargon usage this means "to give", or anything
given, a present. It became the standard word used to
describe the great gift-feasts which underlay the Pacific
Northwest Coast people's economic and political systems.
Potlatches were ceremonials of giving away or destroying
one's possessions to gain social status, often accompanied
by lavish theatricals and conspicuous consumption (and
destruction, to show more wealth could always be acquired).
The goal was to earn prestige, as well as humiliate one's
rivals into poverty by forcing them to spend more on a
feast to outshow your own. In Chinook Jargon, the word
potlatch simply meant "give" or "a gift", although a gift
with no reciprocal obligation expected at all is a cultus
potlatch - just an ordinary gift.
- alki
— (rhymes with "pie) "someday", "whenever", "In the by
and by", i.e. the future or near future. Alki is
the state motto of Washington
and a neighborhood
in West Seattle. In ordinary use somewhat equivalent
to the Mexican mañana, meaning sometime in
the near future, or an indeterminate time away, perhaps
never. It can be used as a verb auxiliary indicating the
indefinite future tense.
The present, the here-and-now, is alta, the past
ahnkuttie or ankate (emphasis on first syllable
in all these words). Another, perhaps in a more immediate
sense, word for "soon" is winapie. Ahknuttie
and alki can all be changed in meaning by the lengthening
of the initial vowel, and by the addition of the auxiliary
laly (LAH-ly) and the lengthening of its initial
vowel, e.g. laly ahnkuttie, meaning "long ago" becomes laaaaa-ly
ahnkuttie, the ancient past, mythical times. Aaaahnkuttie
would mean more something like "a considerable while ago",
either by hours, days, weeks, or months, i.e. as in a recent
or relatively recent event, or perhaps in response to Klatawa
latleh elip? (has the train gone already?) Aaaahnkuttie
- "yep, it's long gone". Laly by itself can also
mean "soon", and tenas laly means "in just a little
while", if not quite "right away", which would be alta
(said with emphasis to add the exclamation point).
- klahanie
— Outside, outdoors. This became the name of a longtime
popular program on the CBC's
TV service.
- konaway — everything, all, the whole shebang
- kunamoxt or konamoxt — both, together.
Contracted from konaway moxt (all two).
- hiyu konamoxt — a big gathering, as does
big hiyu or hyas hiyu, though those
tend to infer a party as opposed to a conference or
other parley or rendezvous, which may be the case
with chako kunamoxt and hiyu kunamoxt.
Tenas hiyu means "several, a few", and in BC
may also mean a small party or gathering. Both "big
hiyu" and "tenas hiyu" were common in frontier English,
as were many other Chinook borrowings.
- kumtux — "think" in the sense of to understand,
know, comprehend. Apposite to tumtum.
- tumtum — heartbeat, or heart. Tumtum also
means to think, but more in the sense of finding out how
you feel about it, or what you believe.
- cooley — "run" spelled that way to distinguish
it from "coolie", but pronounced the same way. Used in
the construction kiuatan yaka kumtux cooley, most
easily translated "fast horse", but literally "that horse
he really knows how to run well", "that horse he understands
running"
- klahowya — the common and universal greeting,
identical in sound to "I'm hungry", which for differentitation
in print is klahowyum. Klahowya sikhs -
"hello, friend"; Klahowya tillikums (Hello, people;
greetings, my friends/family).
- kopa — nearly all-purpose preposition meaning
in, at, of, to, from, by way of. Generally used only when
not implied.
- ikt — "one"; while ikta is "it, that thing,
this", and iktas is "stuff" or belongings, as in
"my stuff", naika iktas.
- tumwater
— a waterfall, "heartbeat-water" (tum is shortened
from tumtum, q.v. above). Note that this would
be expected to be tumchuck instead, and indeed
that form is found in Grand Ronde Wawa.
- house — a room or any building (from Eng. house).
- smoke — could mean fog or cloud, as well as smoke
(from Eng.).
The English plural form was sometimes applied in Jargon
formations, hiyu tillikums but also cultus Boston
mans or cultus Bostons (rough translation: "Damned
Yankees"), or hiyu whitemans. The use of the plural
form is, however, not mandatory or regular.
- man — can mean a man, of any origin, but also
indicates the male of anything — tenas man lemooto,
baby ram.
- klootchman — woman or female, long common throughout
the Northwest to mean a native woman, but without the
derisive sense of "squaw".
- tenas klootchman — girl, "young woman".
- klootchman mowitch — female deer, doe.
- klootchman itswoot — female (sow) bear.
References
- ^
Holton, Jim. 1999. Chinook Jargon: The Hidden Language
of the Pacific Northwest.
- ^
Early Vancouver, Maj. J.S. "Skit" Matthews, City
of Vancouver, 1936.
- ^
A Voice Great Within Us, Charles
Lillard with Terry
Glavin, Transmontaus
Books, Vancouver
- ^
Holton, Jim. 1999. Chinook Jargon: The Hidden Language
of the Pacific Northwest.
- ^
Jones,
Nard (1972). Seattle. Garden City, New York:
Doubleday. p. 94 et. seq.. ISBN
0385018754. .
Quotation is from p. 97.
- ^
Jones, op. cit., p. 97.
- ^
Library
of Congress search results page
- ^
Holton, Jim. 1999. Chinook Jargon: The Hidden Language
of the Pacific Northwest.
- ^
64
Years as a writer. http://books.google.com.mx/...result#PPA102,M1.
See also
External links
Note: The Incubator link at right will take you
to the Chinuk Wawa test-Wikipedia, which is written in the
modern creolized Grand Ronde OR-derived of the Jargon, not
the normal historical forms encountered outside of Lower
Oregon as is not relevant to or reflective of the Jargon
as used at Warm Springs, Colville, or in British Columbia:
Published - February 2009
This
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