new article on CJ

[David Lewis]

Internet maintains link to past with Chinook jargon
Simplified language helped Northwest tribes in efforts to talk with early
U.S. fur traders and settlers
Sunday, June 28 1998
By Courtenay Thompson of The Oregonian staff
Chinook jargon, the Native American trading language that once linked
Northwest tribes and early U.S. fur traders and settlers, is finding a new
life -- on the Internet.
Several non-Native American Web users interested in the language and the
history of the Northwest have created Web sites that post jargon history
and dictionaries on the Internet. Some e-mail one another in jargon and are
planning a Chinook jargon language conference in the fall.
"There are several goals for our work," said Jeffrey Kopp , 43, a
Portlander of pioneer heritage who created one of the Web sites last year.
"Bringing attention to the Northwest is good. I think the Native Americans
deserve recognition and appreciation of their culture."
Chinook jargon is a simplified language derived primarily from Chinookan
languages once spoken by Native Americans living near the mouth of the
Columbia River, said Henry Zenk , a scholar living in Portland who wrote
his 1984 dissertation at the University of Oregon on Chinook jargon on the
Grand Ronde Indian Reservation.
The language was used by fur traders in the early 19th century and later by
settlers. French and English words became part of the Chinook lexicon; for
example, the jargon word labooti is from the French la bouteille for
"bottle," and the jargon word doctin is from the English "doctor."
Tony Johnson, language specialist for the Confederated Tribes of Grand
Ronde, whose ancestors were Chinook, says Native Americans throughout the
Northwest used Chinook jargon long before whites arrived as a way to
communicate among tribes that did not speak the same language. He said that
some academics have disputed this but that he thinks it was used
extensively in the Pacific Northwest by his ancestors, who were avid traders.
Johnson is helping the Grand Ronde tribe teach Chinook jargon to a new
generation of tribal members. Jargon became the predominant Indian language
spoken on the Grand Ronde reservation in the mid-19th century. The Native
Americans moved to that reservation came from a number of different bands
and tribes and spoke at least eight different languages, so people used
Chinook jargon.
He said he's glad to see interest from non-Native Americans in jargon. "In
the long run, getting them to understand the original version of it,
they'll benefit from it, too," Johnson said. "Seeing that it is a
contribution from Native Americans, it is an unusual thing in the history
of the Northwest."
Words like Skookumchuk, a Washington river, or Tukwila, a city near
Seattle, are Chinook jargon words.
Or the word for "chief": Tyee. "Everywhere you go there's a Tyee Motel,"
Johnson said, "and that's Chinook."
Zenk said the use of Chinook jargon began to dramatically drop around the
turn of the century, as English became the predominate language on and off
the reservation. Today, just a few elders speak jargon at Grand Ronde.
The Internet address for a gateway to the Chinook jargon Web sites is:
http://www.geocities.com/~tenaswawa/ The site has links to other Chinook
jargon-related Web sites.


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               David Gene Lewis
         P.O. Box 3086
Eugene, OR 97403, USA
Home 541.684.9003  Cell 541.954.2466
Fax 541.346.0668

talapus at kalapuya.com, coyotez at darkwing.uoregon.edu,
http://gladstone.uoregon.edu/~coyotez
http://www.kalapuya.com
http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~coyotez

Confederated Tribes of the Grand Ronde Community, Oregon
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