Chinook Jargon

[Mike Cleven]

Pleased to know you, Mike.

By "native speaker" I mean I learned Jargon "live," rather than from
books. I thought it was something my grandfather invented until I ran
into a book on it when I was a teenager. That was the first time I ever
saw Jargon in print. Took a moment for me to realise it was the same
language my grandfather taught me.

I don't know what kind of copyright angst posting the True West article
online might cause, but my Suite101 online column for next Tuesday is on
Jargon. It'd be easy to link to that.

I'm quite happy to hear about the 80-year old Delta speaker. Somebody
should get out there with a tape recorder fast. (You? Me?) I'm also very
heartened to hear about the Sto:lo women who are interested in Jargon.
The Sto:lo res is right in my neighbourhood. Since my grandfather died, I
haven't met another Jargon speaker. In fact, until this week I didn't
know anybody but me still knew how to speak it. I did once cause a
90-year-old Nisqually woman to about die laughing when I addressed her in
Jargon. She didn't answer, but I had the impression she at least knew I
was speaking Jargon, and may have understood part or all of it. Seeing
Jargon come out of a 12-year-old white kid in 1972 just floored her. I
don't even know if she spoke English, but she sure chattered about it in
Nisqually to her daughter, between laughing fits.

I wonder if other Jargon speakers find its interjections creeping into
their other languages. Whenever something unpleasantly surprises me, I
involuntarily say "Hwah!" There just isn't any other way to express that
emotion. Another one is "Eh-heh!" for "Head's up," "I'm here," "Yo!" etc.
 I actually had to teach my wife how to respond to that one ("Wa-heh!"),
because she hears it so often. There is no response in French, our
household language, nor English for that matter.

Feel free to forward my message to the others if you wish. I tried to
subscribe to the listserv but my e mail server won't let me confirm. I
don't know why. Something about having to "POP," whatever that is. I'll
go to the address it lists and see if I can figure it out. If you have a
way to subscribe me directly, I'd be obliged if you did so.

Well, it's a real hoot to find out I'm not the last human on earth who
speaks Jargon.

Talk to you later,





Robin Henderson
Writer and Photographer

Check out my biweekly column on world languages:
http://www.suite101.com/welcome.cfm/human_languages