"My BC First Nations language is...:" Chinook Jargon

[David D. Robertson]

Thanks to Dr. Maggie Warbey here at UVic, our undergrad linguistics
students last week were treated to a guest lecture by Dixon (K'esu)
Taylor, a hereditary chief of the Kwakw'ala.  Mr. Taylor was hired by the
First Peoples Cultural Foundation to conduct a survey among BC First
Nations communities of attitudes toward and maintenance of their
indigenous languages.

In outlining the results of that survey, he mentioned that "two or three
people" self-identified as having "Chinook" as their Indian language.  Mr.
Taylor didn't recall where those people lived -- there were thousands of
respondents so that's not surprising -- but I was fascinated that people
answered the questionnaire that way.  It's unclear whether these
respondents meant that they know no other Indian language but Jargon (and
whether they've known it their whole lives), whether they were joking, or
whether another explanation is due.

The returned questionnaires are now in the hands of the FPCF, so if
somebody feels like sifting through 15 or 20 thousand of them to find the
CJ speakers, please let the rest of us know what you find out!

Best from

--Dave