Grand Ronde Jargon being perhaps the only one we should teach

[Dave Robertson]

Dear khanawi-lhaksta,

Although I don't want to weigh in on any of the issues that are controversies on this list in the last week or two, let me comment on the notion that Grand Ronde Jargon may be the only variety suitable to be taught.

I find Grand Ronde Chinuk-wawa by far the most interesting variety as a grammatical system, and this is indeed due to the expressively elaborate structure it shows, as well as to the extensive documentation we have of its use in many milieux.

However, my opinion remains unchanged that _Kamloops Wawa_ represents maybe the largest single corpus of Chinuk now in existence, and that it shows us a very eloquent other variety of the language--a "dialect", if you want.  So at least for me, it's really well worth the effort to become familiar with this other Chinuk, when I see the creative use of idioms and of distinct words from BC Salish languages.  There are tantalizing hints scattered throghout KW's pages of the social environment in which CJ was used in that region a hundred years ago, which may shed valuable light on the evolution of CJ overall.  That said, I don't advocate the teaching of KW CJ, or "ahnkuttie" CJ as the, er, whiter varieties often get called, as any kind of useful standard!

Grand Ronde Jargon (to put it broadly) contains everything you'd ever need to understand any other variety of Chinuk-wawa I've ever encountered.  The reverse relation is not true.  Thus it seems naturally economical to teach GR talk.  Furthermore, Tony and Henry and the Grand Round community in general are doing us all a favor in voluntarily sharing their language.

Khakwa na tEmtEm.
Dave