One guy noticed the Jargon, one didn't

[Dave Robertson]

- Symons, Thomas William.  1967 [1882].  The Symons report on the upper 
Columbia River & the great plain of the Columbia.  Fairfield, WA: Ye 
Galleon.  

One of you asked me off-list whether Symons reports any other contact 
language in use.  As far as I can tell, he doesn't.  He seems to have 
registered only the French of "Old Pierre", the 70-year old Iroquois 
former voyageur who was guiding the expedition.  

- Downing, Alfred.  1980 [1881].  The region of the upper Columbia River 
and how I saw it.  Fairfield, WA: Ye Galleon.  

Downing's nonstandard spellings of CJ, and the fact that he seems to have 
noticed Jargon being spoken (Old Pierre "could talk Chinook like an 
Indian") while Symons didn't, suggest he's relaying actually observed 
usage.  I love when that happens.  

Downing (p. 33) quotes the phrase "skoo-kum hyas kloshe tsum" for a letter 
of recommendation written by a non-Indigenous person in a position of 
authority to vouch for the character of an Indigenous person.  This is 
what was called a "skookum paper" in Alaska in the same period.  

- The overall picture I get is that Jargon was current on the upper 
Columbia & tributaries circa 1881.  Local Indigenous people (mostly Salish 
up there) seem to have used it with non-local ones like Old Pierre, and 
with non-Indigenous people.  

---Dave R

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