Chinook Jargon in the wild: Elep Avenue

Chinook Jargon in the wild: Elep Avenue

I was talking with an older lady who lives in Colville, Washington, who told me of an “Amish” street name there… I’d driven through that town any number of times, and noticed  Avenue. For want of a more relevant illustration (image credit: Amazon) I always inferred that that’s a classic Settler use of Chinook Jargon: our íləp means ‘first’ and it means ‘forewards’. Both fit the White colonizer mindset The latter is more likely, since Colville a…