For fun: Visual Thesaurus

[David Robertson]

I came across the Visual Thesaurus (www.visualthesaurus.com/?vt) by chance 
today.  It's a useful tool for understanding how some words' meanings 
relate to each other in a given language.  There's no Chinook Jargon 
version...yet...but I did search on the term "pidgin".  The only result was 
a connection to "artificial language"!  In contrast, "creole" linked in one 
direction to "natural language" and "tongue", and in another direction 
to "American" and a passel of other words.  Interesting assumptions are 
built in there.  

On a more scholarly note, I suggest that once we have a dictionary of 
Jargon that works like an average English dictionary, defining each word 
*in Jargon*, a Visual Thesaurus could be created.  It'd be a huge powerful 
teaching tool, kind of like immersion lessons that don't require you to be 
around other speakers.  

Let's backtrack for a second, though...who the heck is going to build that 
Jargon-only dictionary?!  Did I hear someone say "get a grant," or was 
it "get a job"?  My first contribution is to point out that you often find 
Kamloops Wawa defining newly introduced words in Jargon.  It makes really 
interesting reading.  I think the usual wording involves "iaka ukuk," a 
phrase that functions like "that is____".  

--Dave R

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