FAQ / was Re: Jargon Web mail

[David Robertson]

On Sun, 31 Oct 1999, Jeffrey Kopp wrote:

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> Dear Mr. Kopp,
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> Your website is informative and very useful for those of us just
> discovering the Chinook language. I have a few questions for you:
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> 1. Why is Chinook called a "jargon" and not a "pidgin" or a "creole"?

That's an accident of history.  There's been some tendency in the past to
label as "jargons" languages seen as primarily vehicles of trade.  I feel
that the label "pidgin" is most often used disparagingly -- of certain
speech varieties used by socially inferior populations.  "Creole" seems to
me to have a customary usage as a term for an acknowledged, longstanding,
distinct population known generally to have derived from mixed ancestors
-- and as a term for their language, when it has been a distinct one.  In
each of these 3 cases I'm emphasizing the contemporary perception of these
sorts of languages by speakers of other, especially colonizing, languages.
The use of the 3 terms by e.g. linguists has been very distinct from the
preceding.


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> 2. What is the geographical distribution of the Chinook language? I
> understand it was widespread throughout the Pacific Northwest. Is it
> still in use today? Are Native peoples actively involved in using or
> preserving it?

Chinook Jargon was pretty well known from the territory of the Klamath
people (about the current boundary line between Oregon and California) up
into the Tlingit and possibly Tsimshian country (about the boundary line
between British Columbia and Alaska).  People along the Columbia River
apparently had a pretty good command of the Jargon, at least as far
upstream as the Nez Perces' territory.  And many people in the interior of
southern British Columbia, especially radiating from the area of Kamloops,
knew the language.  Also, wherever Whites went in the Northwest, they
tended to take the Jargon with them, probably thinking that it was a way
of "talking Indian" and would be understood by natives wherever they
traveled -- This is my idea of why Chinook Jargon was imported to the
Yukon and Alaska during the Klondike Gold Rush in the late 1890's, and to
parts of Idaho, for instance.

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> 3. Can you please suggest some good texts for more research into
> Chinook?

That's not easy at this time.  The older dictionaries and studies are out
of print, and the newer ones are mostly in the form of (forgive me)
obscure articles in linguistics journals.  However, as I understand,
Barbara Harris is writing a grammar of the Jargon for publication as a
book; Zvjezdana Vrzic has published a book with a selection of texts in it
for reading; and the Confederated Tribes of the Grand Ronde Community are
preparing what I feel will be the first really good and useful dictionary
of the language.  More stuff will be coming along, too, but for the time
being, I suggest spending time at Jeff Kopp's websites; joining the
CHINOOK list; and obtaining copies of the older Jargon materials via your
helpful local library.