Wilson on Chinook [fwd from J Ross]

[David Robertson]

[Dr. John Ross kindly contributed the following via Tina Wynecoop.  Hayu
masi!  --  Dave R]

[Yhis] may be obscure since the author, Captain Charles Wilson, I have
found is obscure.

     The following quote is from a paper he read before the Ethnological
Society of London on 27 June 1865, and later published in 1866 as: Report on
the Indian Tribes inhabiting the country in the vicinity of the 49th
Parallel of North America: Transactions of the Ethnological Society of
London, (4):275-332).

     Nothing strikes the traveller on the western coast of North America
more
than the wonderful diversity of language amongst the Indians; on Vancouver
Island alone, there are no less than five distinct languages, besides
dialects innumerable, and it is the same on the coast line.  To obviate the
inconvenience of this, the "Chinook jargon' is usually spoken by the whites
in all transactions with the natives, and it is not unfrequently used by the
Indians of different tribes as a ready means of intercommunication.  This
jargon, consisting of words derived from the English, French Canadian, and
chinook proper, originated with the early traders at Astoria, and Vancouver,
on the Columbia, but gradually spreading over the whole country, and
receiving new words from each tribe, it has now come into universal use, and
may almost lay claim to the dignity of a separate language.  A vocabulary of
words, and a few sentences to show the usual style of composition are given
[pg. 322-332], with a note on the language from which each word is derived,
where traceable (Wilson 1866:277).

     I am certain that you and Dave know all of this, but as with much of
what Ross Cox, J. K. Lord, Chas. Wilson, et alli have written is most often
very original and perceptive.  And, as we were discussing, quite refreshing
when one considers their natural science training; seeing total
environmental systems and the dependence and even reciprocal behaviors and
needs of animals, plants, and of course humans -- often overlooked, or at
least the significance is not always apparent to professionals who spend
their lives "in the stacks."

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