Z. Vrzic contra supposed differences among CJ varieties

[zenk at USWESTMAIL.NET]

Hello Dave and all,.

I had some thoughts to contribute to this latest exchange about what makes correct "Chinook," if there is any such thing, but have been too busy to sit down and compose them.  Just a few words of attempted clarification, perhaps.

.>
> Any discussion of "the best" Chinook Jargon that I've been privy to has pivoted upon the notion of the *perceived* best, rather than on any quixotic desire to *prescribe* the best way to talk Chinook.  This means, among other metrics, the use of the values noted as having (formerly) existed in the Grand Ronde, Oregon, community, where people who were either native speakers of Chinookan proper, or members of their families, were felt to speak the most elegant and expressive Jargon.  (I hope that I will be corrected by Henry Z. if I'm missing the point of his findings here.)

In designing our alphabet and teaching materials for the language program at Grand Ronde we have taken the pronunciation and usages of the oldest most fluent Grand Ronde speakers as model.  While we have incorporated all speakers in the dictionary, we have tried to spell consistently according to how the most fluent of those speakers pronounced.  Now, one of those speakers had been a Chinookan speaker, and another was from one of the Grand Ronde Chinookan families (though he didn't speak Chinookan, only Chinuk Wawa), but the rest weren't.  While I have indeed heard some elders say that the local "real Chinook" families had the "best" Chinuk Wawa, others appeared never to have thought about it in those terms.  Anyway, for the language program, the key word here is "fluent," not "Chinookan":  we want to model the Chinuk Wawa we are teaching on the Chinuk Wawa of people who actually spoke the language--FLUENTLY.  Does that strike people as reasonable?

Which brings me to the dismay I felt on learning that some people have felt that we were trying to impose a Grand Ronde "standard" on everyone.  The intention of the workshops at the conference was to introduce a form of real, spoken Chinuk Wawa to anyone interested.  That doesn't mean that other people can't introduce other forms, or teach something that isn't exactly "real, spoken" in our terms.

Well, there's my attempt at clarification.  Now it's off to the day job.  Henry



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