Access to Chinook Jargon materials

[Tony Johnson]

LaXayEm khanawi-Laksta (Hello everyone),

I am regretful that my current workload does not allow me to respond to posts on our list as often as I would like.  However, I read with great interest everyone's posts, and am thankful for this forum.  On the other hand, I feel a need to take the time to respond to this ongoing thread specific to Grand Ronde.  Please forgive the large number of topics covered below, and understand that this is a hastily written response.

This thread is perpetuating a number of things which are simply not true.  My primary reason for responding at this point is to make sure that these do not become fact.  Unfortunately, they already exist, and are being responded to as though they are just that.  

At the year 2000 Chinuk Wawa lu7lu held in Grand Ronde a number of folks from the Warm Springs reservation were present.  They included a non-Indian man who has had very interesting experiences with the language, as well as several elder speakers of the Warm Springs language (Sahaptin).  These folks came on a personal invitation from myself, and are friends of mine and the community of Grand Ronde.  They remain that.  It seems that a few individuals who were present at the time have come to, what I would contend is, a distorted picture of what occurred here.  No one at that conference was "slapped in the face" either literally or figurative.  Furthermore, none of the individuals mentioned from Warm Springs were fluent Chinuk Wawa speakers.  Despite this, there have been assertions on this list that these individuals were fluent speakers of Chinuk.  Furthermore, these assertions has been used to bolster peoples arguments regarding their opinion of the language. 

Save for a very limited group of people with their own agendas, I believe all who have attended past Chinuk Wawa lu7lu would agree that there has been great consideration for individuals of all levels.  The assertion that there has been complaints thrown at people regarding their speaking ability is preposterous.

Contrary to the opinions of some the community of Grand Ronde is not closed.  We want new speakers of Chinuk Wawa.  I personally am wholly committed to the survival of the language.  Our involvement in the Chinuk Wawa lu7lu is one example of this committement.  Anyone wishing to learn Chinuk Wawa as we use it is welcome to attend classes in Grand Ronde.  We have for several years consistently held classes, sponsored by the University of Oregon, here in Grand Ronde.  These classes are available to anyone who wishes to attend.  

I believe that the language "materials" that Nadja speaks of is our draft dictionary.  This draft has been distributed to a very limited number of people based on their ability to comment on some aspect or another of the dictionary.  We realize that all of you have an interest in the dictionary, and that you all would have comments of interest.  For a number of reasons we have chosen to limit its distribution.  On the other hand individuals, both Native and non-Native who attend our classes constantly receive access to these materials on a "not to be reproduced" basis.  Our future plans are to develop Chinuk Wawa language learning resources other than our current dictionary and grammar plans that again will be available to everyone for purchase.

An aside to this is that my personal priority is with our new immersion preschool program.  Given the limited number of staff and speakers here it is often impossible to meet everyone's demands.

For those of you who don't know I am from Willapa Bay in SW Washington.  My earliest exposure to Chinuk Wawa was through elders in my own tribe, Chinook.  This experience is in fact what qualified me for my work here in Grand Ronde.  As you all know there are a variety of words common in one location that are not common in another.  This is true in my own experience as well.  Pronunciation also varies, although, I will argue to the end that the level of variation within Chinuk Wawa is not nearly as great as some propose.  Nadja's issue with "k'wichEti" is an example of this.  This is perfectly straight Chinuk Wawa for "rabbit," but it is not typical in Grand Ronde where we typically use "yuLqat-q'wElan (long ears)."  References to that fact, or a preference for that form here, does not equal "k'wichEti" being "incorrect."

The issue of the Chinuk Wawa lu7lu being too academic is something easily changed by its participants.  For what it is worth the Chinuk lu7lu has had many problems.  In fact, this year's conference only occurred because we felt a need to have it even though it's scope would obviously be limited.  In response to Nadja's frustrations I believe many would have found the "academic" conversations to be of great interest.  If I am not mistaken Nadja left this year's conference (apparently out of frustration) prior to its conclusion.  It is also my understanding that the activities after she left were the type of language learning activities that she felt were missing.

It seems to me that the record of Chinuk Wawa without Grand Ronde's contribution is lacking.  I believe that "reconstruction" of the language without this material would be difficult if not impossible.  Some individuals (including academics) seem to have invested themselves in opinions based on limited data that is contradicted by what we know in Grand Ronde or even from other Native speakers.  I would hope, however, that those individuals, rather than being frustrated, would be pleased with the thought of more thorough data being available.

Thank you for your time, and I am sorry that my latest post comes in response to a negative issue, as opposed to one of the other interesting issues currently being discussed.

Tony A. Johnson
Cultural Education Coordinator
sawash-ili7i
Grand Ronde, OR



>>> Nadja Adolf <yakimabelle at YAHOO.COM> 11/24/02 10:12PM >>>
Thank you for being open to listening.

Let me clarify my position a bit.

> From:    "David D. Robertson" <ddr11 at COLUMBIA.EDU>
> Subject: Access to Chinook Jargon materials
> (was...Re: Thanks Linda!)
>
> Nadja and Jeff,
>
>
> Both of you have written excellent observations &
> raised questions that
> need lots of thought from all of us involved with
> CJ.  It's interesting
> that much of our disagreement boils down to views of
> the Grand Ronde
> tribes' role as the most active & dedicated
> disseminator of Jargon
> knowledge.  In consequence of this, I find my
> remarks below will sound like
> defenses of Grand Ronde, a sort of puzzling
> development; it's not incumbent
> on GR to defend itself, any more than I'm the person
> to defend GR.

My issue is less with the GR tribe - who in the past
seemed to have been quite willing to devote the Lu?lu
time to teaching all comers.

My issue is with the fact that the Lu?lu seems to have
turned into YAAC - "Yet Another Academic Conference."
And nothing else has arisen to take its place for
those who are not academics.

Digging into the notes of the first Lu?lu I attended
it seems that most of the time was dedicated to
actually conveying knowledge of the language - and, in
review I found that the the word "kwitshadie" was
actually *used* in a story written in a class exercise
and no objection was recorded.

Two years ago I attended the conference, and watched
my once interested husband become disgusted. First, an
elderly trader was interrogated as if he were an Iraqi
spy and comments were made, where they could be
overheard by his family and friends, by some of the
"professionals" at the conference that implied his
mind was going. My husband and I spoke to him, and his
dialect and my dialect were quite similar. He and his
family and friends left the conference early. I don't
know if they ever returned, but the web pages at Warm
Springs don't seem to discuss the Wawa anymore.

This last year I came again and witnessed the
"professionals" lead off into tangents on issues that
were too complex to be resolved in the time allotted
for the Lu?lu - but were useful for shifting attention
from the language to the professional careers of those
making the statements.

> Many of your ideas about access to information on
> Jargon are ones I
> wholeheartedly agree with.  But to the extent that
> an accusatory tone rings
> in both of your postings on this topic, I find
> myself strongly disagreeing
> with you.

To understand our position, I invite you to come with
me to the next professional software specialty
conference I attend. After a few hours of listening to
people discuss arcania to which you have had no chance
of prior exposure to, and know nothing about, and have
no chance of obtaining any useful depth of information
about, you would perhaps have some sense of what we
have experienced.

> ***Is anyone trying to turn Jargon into a secret
> language?  Not to my
> knowledge!  ;-)

Really - then how come so much discussion is devoted
to resources that are available to only a small subset
of the attendees? In the business world we call this
"corporate confidential" and only those considered to
be involved in the project are permitted access - and
those not offered access are considered to be
completely external to the project at hand.

> ***Is anyone trying to keep Jargon from the public?
> Only, I think, insofar
> as it's considered a tribal heritage language &
> common property of Grand
> Ronde members--thus any elders' words of Jargon need
> to be treated with
> appropriate care.

Which seems to include keeping anyone who isn't a
professional linguist or a member of the tribe from
access.

> ***Is anyone trying to call inferior or wrong any
> Chinook Jargon that
> diverges from the so-called "best" Jargon of
> Chinookans at Grand Ronde?  On
> the contrary, for its own purposes (which are
> clearly identified as such),
> GR seems to want primarily to teach Jargon, and
> since you've got to have
> some structure in language classes, or else face
> disastrously uneven
> results,

Unfortunately for the validity of this statement,
there are no such language classes external to GR.

Until Jeff wrote, I was accepting of the idea that
there was a canonical dialect that might survive. At
this point my conclusion is that the survival of the
Wawa is more unlikely than before the project began.
There isn't enough of a base to make the language
sustainable at GR - and others have been withdrawing
in frustration.

>GR's chosen this variety as a standard
> metric.  If we turn to
> Grand Ronde for instruction in CJ, we predictably
> need to be prepared to
> follow GR's standards.  Otherwise we'll wind up as
> semi-speakers, not the
> fluent perpetuators that this language needs.

But this is a vicious circle. The dialect is kept
private, so others cannot learn it, and then the
speakers of the GR dialect complain because others are
semi-speakers and not fluent - especially since they
are denied any real opportunity to study the dialect
unless they are tribe members - or professional
linguists.

> On the other hand, as at least one CHINOOK list
> member has written
> privately to me, it's effortless to understand the
> frustration of those who
> want to be speakers of Chinook Jargon & have put a
> good amount of effort
> into becoming such.  Pedagogical resources are
> highly limited.
> Standardization of pronunciation, of word choice,
> and to some extent of
> grammar is nonexistent.  The materials I consider
> most useful for the
> learner, i.e. texts in Jargon, are a finite body of
> material, and are
> usually available only if you can xerox them at a
> good library or archive,
> or are willing to spend significant money at an
> Internet used-book
> company.  (I'm thinking of Jacobs' CJ Texts & Le
> Jeune's _Kamloops Wawa_
> newspapers.)  Infinite distracting, petty confusions
> are rampant among
> learners of Jargon, for all these reasons, and
> predictably emerge by the
> dozens per every attempted posting in CJ online.

> (This applies, I think, to any Jargon group that's
> existed -- CHINOOK,
> Chinuk Illahee, Chinookgroups at yahoo.com, Skookum-L.
> I predict the
> formation of new online groups may not resolve the
> issue, but only
> intensify it.)

Unfortunately, if a need isn't met, there are only two
realistic outcomes. The end user moves on to something
else, or groups attempt to fulfill the need.

In simple English, the Wawa becomes extinct, or people
find other ways to preserve it.

And there is also the matter that there is no de facto
canon at GR. Once again, the word "kwitshadie" comes
to mind - three years ago it was considered legitimate
at Lu?lu. This year it was incorrect. What will it be
next year? Four years from now?

There simply is no basic agreed upon canon.

> What's needed is patience & dedication -- as well as
> grant money.  I will
> gladly write the benchmark grammar, dictionary, &
> complete annotated
> edition of the 1,000 pages of _Kamloops Wawa_ if
> someone, perhaps the
> Foundation for Endangered Languages, will kindly
> underwrite me!  :-)  And I
> guarantee that the existence of such a reference
> standard will be of solid
> practical use in creating fluent speakers & readers.

Unfortunately, my perception is that grant money seems
to add to problems as individuals become more inclined
to expand projects beyond the original scope in order
to obtain more grant money. B^) This is why zero-based
budgeting is popular in many businesses that are in
highly competitive industries.

> A last note:  I love to see Jeff's & Nadja's passion
> in their postings
> about Chinook Jargon, a passion I share and which,
> again, an off-list
> message to me has discussed.  Let's bear in mind
> that everyone who's trying
> to learn, teach, & preserve this language has such a
> passion of their own,
> and not fault them for it.  In each case, I see good
> intentions.  To
> quibble over individuals' wishes to use CJ would be
> to miss the forest for
> the trees.

Translation: business as usual.

> Practical suggestions for improving our situation,
> beyond eventually
> getting reference & instructional materials into
> print, can include "live"
> online teaching sessions using a specially created
> chat room.  (If we can
> persuade teachers of Jargon to give this a try.)
> Since our CJ community is
> so scattered, conferencing ideas like this may be a
> big step forward.  We
> also need to continue, expand, and improve the
> annual Chinuk Lu7lu,
> probably by creating a permanent, year-round
> committee to replace our usual
> last-minute, ad-hoc setup!
>
> That's how I think.  --Dave

I think that we do *not* need more academics finding
new ways to debate the proper usage of hyphens. I
think we need to work on developing fluent speakers
before the darn thing goes extinct. I would recommend
also that the Wawa may go the way of Norman French if
groups like those from Warm Springs are routinely
slapped in the face as they were at that one
conference. When the mainland French ridiculed the
Normans, well, they just decided to get interested in
English. B^)

A language needs a base large enough that people will
use it - and preferably not in isolated pockets. A
population of two-three thousand appears to be
absolutely *minimal.* (Witness the almost complete
disappearance of the Yakama language in my own
lifetime. In the 1950s-1960s it was often heard, now
it is extremely rare and endangered if not actually
extinct for any practical purpose.)

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