contest

[Mike Cleven]

Jim Holton wrote:
>
> wik hayak. Aug 10th Lush. LaXayem, Jim
>
> Christopher Schindler wrote:
>
> > LaXayem, Jim.  nayka tIki kEmtEks - pus nayka munk Latuwa e-mail khapa c'Em
> > pipa contest,  qhanchi mayka tIki IskEm ukuk?  July 25, July 31?
> > Lush nanich,

quoted from Jim's draft:

ome old settlers occasionally used Chinook
     Jargon as a group identifier. In one instance
     Chinook Jargon was used to persuade Simon
     Fraser Tolmie, who had learned Chinook Jargon
     from his father, to run for premier of British
     Columbia in 1928. Tolmie refused to consider the
     job even though citzens were hounding him to run.
     On the eve of choosing a party candidate, the
     debate was fierce. Henry Pooley, a veteran
     politician, stood up and aggressively lectured
     Tolmie in Chinook Jargon. Nobody else in the
     room understood, but Tolmie went on to become
     the twenty-first premier.


Damn!  I wish someone had transcribed Pooley's speech.  Sounds like a
good'un.  This is a case in point of the Jargon having importance to
non-natives in BC long after its decline began in OR-WA.  In fact, Jim,
I'd have to say that this story demonstrates that the Jargon was hardly
"limping" in BC until the Great War; this is at variance from what I've
heard in Major Matthews and elsewhere; and given that Tolmie and Pooley
were fluent in 1928 suggests that it had wide utility among non-natives
in the decades previous (i.e. before the Great War).

Mike