Interesting little notes on the spread of Chinook shorthand

[David Robertson]

klahawiam!

For those of you interested in the _Kamloops Wawa_ newspaper, here are a
few small notes touching on the phenomenal popularity that the Chinook
Jargon shorthand seems to have had for a while.

>From "Preces ante et post communionem in variis linguis sylvicolarum
Columbiae Brittannicae in dioecese Vancouverensi excerptae ex [variarum]
tribuum approbatis ab ordinario; Auctore J.M. Le Jeune O.M.I. ministrans
supradictis sylvicolis ab anno D. 1879; Kamloops B.C. anno jubilei 1925"
(whew!), page 18:

	'Most of the Indians in the district learned it from the
	following:
	
		Hymn to St. Joseph
		
		O tlus Sin Shosif!  Maika drit tlus nanich
		Shisi pi Mari naika drit tlus tayi [...]'

>From "Studies on Shuswap" [by J. M. R. Le Jeune], 1925, page 1:

	'...the Shuswap Indians have been using the [shorthand] phonetics
	since 1890, without any objection or any difficulty...'

>From "The Wawa Shorthand Instructor...or...the Duployan stenography
adapted to English...", 1st edition, Kamloops, BC, 1896, Introduction:

	'[A]n effort is being made to make our phonography read the same
	way exactly in English as in French, and so also for all other
	languages.'  [Father Le Jeune seems to have wanted everyone to be
	able to read and write their own language in the most efficient
	way, if not to understand each other well, though possibly also
	that was in his mind.]

Cheers,
Dave


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