Access to Chinook

[Morgan]

While feeling many of the same frustrations as the other non-linguists,
I am not so hard on the linguists.

I would imagine the wawa is a fairly usual case in North America, a
pidgin which is simultainously an endangered creole. I think this is a
tension which needs to be acknowledged. We're learning wawa for
whatever reasons, in GR its about a survival of a particular culture. I
think we non-linguists (tending to be 'white') need to be sensitive to
any special needs of the GR people.  One place I've seen this happen is
with the slow disuse of mamook for munk in deference to GR usage.

Perhaps we kingchautsh pi boston need to stop feeling second rate and
just do it. the chinook-wawa list has some conversations happening,
mainly Nadja and I, but its fairly low key. Maybe we just work on the
pidgin while a simultanious rebirth of the GR creole parallels ours. I
don't think they're that far apart, despite words for rabbit, but GR
has special needs/uses and the tribe and linguists can work on those.

That said, one place I would like to see the wider wawa become closer
to GR is in spelling. I find the Gibbs/Thomas too lacking in this area.

I *like* to try and figure out what the linguists are talking about.
It's replaced the daily crossword in my house. ;-)

Morgan