Race and ChInUk Wawa

[David Robertson]

LaXayEm, kanawi-Laksta,
Klahowya, konaway klaksta,
Hi, everyone,

It's good to see these issues discussed.  They can teach us a lot in the
context of this inter-cultural language we're studying.  If your
assumptions get questioned in this forum, that's dreht Lush (delate
kloshe) (very good) by me.

About one point that I have brought up lately:  It's very ironic, but not
necessarily racist, to claim that the presence of non-Indian missionaries
is a major factor which stabilized Chinook Jargon (made it a language with
regular rules, essentially).

The language certainly existed before any of the Christian missionaries
showed up in these parts.  And certainly it's not only missionaries
and their work that caused the language to crystallize.  As I've noted,
also the coming together of numerous unrelated tribes in e.g. the Grand
Ronde and the Siletz Reservation settings in Oregon had the same effect.
(This was due to "whites", too, of course.)  :-)

Let me just emphasize that it was local and regional conditions that
determined the development and fate of the Jargon.  Around Kamloops, BC,
there's no more likely suspect than Father Le Jeune to explain the wide
knowledge of an apparently standardized variety of CJ.  In the Oregon
coastal reservations, it was the Indian people themselves who developed
the Wawa to let's say a creole state.  Around Puget Sound, I daresay it
was relatively dense settlement by non-Indians that did the trick; ditto
for southern coastal BC.

To suggest that I'm proposing "whites" as the "cause" of Chinook Jargon's
becoming a "real language" is to infer more than is useful from my words.

Lush pulakli, shixs, pus mEsayka shawash, tkop, pi Xluwima!
Dave

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