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Astoria, Oregon · AstoriaWe’ve seen H-T Lempfrit’s manuscript dictionary; and now for some rare old Chinook Jargon texts on its following pages! The 25th pair of pages (mis-numbered as “24” on the original page) from this precious document again brings us plenty of stuff worth knowing about Chinook Jargon — this time moving from lists of words into texts. (Here’s a link to the other posts in this mini-series.) “[SIC]” shows that someone mis-wrote a word. It wasn’t neces…Read Article
Lempfrit’s legendary, long-lost legacy (Part 25a, Ave Maria) (Part 25b, Credo)

New Westminster · New WestminsterYou won’t find texts in the Northern Dialect using the word chúp for ‘grandfather’. In my 30 years of experience, that word is unknown in places like British Columbia. You’re always safe with the descriptive expressions mama yaka papa (‘mother’s father’) or papa yaka papa (‘father’s father’). (In the same way, Northern Dialect speakers just say tənas yaka tənas for a ‘grandchild’. That’s your ‘child’s child’.) There are further ways to express…Read Article
Proof of concept: How to say ‘grandfather’ in Northern Chinook Jargon

Sequim · SequimWell beyond the frontier era, locals in the still-remote northern Olympic Peninsula of Washington state were likely to understood Chinook Jargon… Image credit: Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe So likely that we often find untranslated Jargon stuff in the Sequim [skwιm] newspaper, like the following. Locals understood it, even with the oddball spellings and typographical errors…
JAMESTOWN ITEMS By the Jamestown Correspondent of the Press Delate ancutie…Read Article