Talk:Chinook Jargon use by English-language speakers

Confusing

This article seems to be written from a B.C.-centric point of view. Most of the examples seem to be only common in B.C. I'm not sure about this, but where I live at least, which is in the Pacific Northwest, words like siwash or skookum are used far less e.g., "tolo", which isn't even on this list.

;-) Welllll, that's refreshing. Nearly all other materials on the Chinook Jargon are written from an Oregon-centric point of view ;-) Not meaning to snipe, but even your use of "Pacific Northwest" in a context exclusive of British Columbia is a decidedly USPOV (BC is in the Pacific Northwest, not outside of it, and it's not exclusively American, just like the continent...). But yeah, I wrote the core text here (a long time ago) but it was originally in the main Chinook Jargon article, and neither this article nor that one were meant to turn into lexicons; it's good you've pointed out the confusing text and I'll try and work it up and de-POV it; if you can come up with more examples such as "tolo" from your own area that would be great; in the Yukon they use "masi" (thanks) as part of regular English, and there's Chinook-style words and names that are around different parts of BC (and languages of BC, like Carrier or Nuxalk) but that are not part of "standard Chinook". All this is dicey stuff for Wikipedia because of the citability norms here, as the drawback with CJ is that there has been very little documentation or analysis of non-native CJ use, or of the hybridization of CJ and English; the focus in chinookology is on advancing pan-native and native-pov based on the modern CJ creole spoken/cultivated in Oregon; I could rant about that for a while but suffice to say that reverse discrimination is in operation in that particular academic culture and "white" usage of Jargon is looked upon as inferior and degraded ("white" is particularly inappropriate in BC because of the polyracial nature of the place since before colonial times; Metis, Hawaiians, Iroquois, West Indians...a famous example of CJ use, probably mentioned on the other page, is from Duane Pasco, about a Swede and a Chinese - he uses the CJ word, chinaman, also common in FN languages); but the "white-ified" pronunciation and style that was widely spoken still existed, and was in fact a medium that "native" pronunciation users could and did understand, and the "white-ified" usages were equally understood by native-pronunciation users (the Oregonian point of view is that all natives pronounced things the same, and there was no real variation in the Jargon's lexicon, or if there was it was a corruption or degradation of "real" Jargon...). Didn't mean to go on about this; just backgrounder and it's my nature to explore details/thoughts while answering things ;-).

So, anyway, I'll respond to some of your questions/criticisms below on an individual basis; this wasn't meant to be a BCPOV page, and I haven't given it any attention since it was split off from the main article. If there are other examples to add, please add them or expound them here - and please tell me which part of the Pacific Northwest you're in, as it seems that regional variation in English-Chinook Jargon usage has to be accounted for; in Jim Holton's book, or its original draft (I haven't seen the revised version lately), he makes the bald statement that CJ use among non-natives fell off after the Oregon partition and the Stevens Treaties and became exclusively native in usage after 1846, other than stray words. But in BC, CJ became even more widespread after the creation of the colony in 1858, and remained in steady use in rural/ranching/wilderness communities and coastal areas until the mid-20th Century, including among non-natives. "Tolo" is also known/used on the BC coast, or was, by the way. Other terms that should definitely be here are moolack and especially mowitch, but I'll get to that...Skookum1 20:07, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

The following paragraph is very confusing:

"Granted these originally came from the lower Columbia River (for the most part) but the Jargon came to B.C. before the mainland colony was declared and the development of the Jargon in the form it spread to here as is the direct result of British influence (the HBC's activity) in the region. These words tend to be shared with, but are not as common in, the states of Oregon, Washington, Alaska and, to a lesser degree, Idaho and western Montana."

First of all, why does it say, "Granted these originally came from the lower Columbia River...", which implies that this is somehow surprising, even though the lower Columbia River is in the middle of the area under discussion? And why does it matter that the development of the Jargon is the result of Hudson Bay Co.'s influence? That point doesn't even make sense, and should be clarified.

OK, I was trying to pastiche a complicated history into a couple of sentences. The scenario is that CJ's development on the Lower Columbia in the days of Forts Astoria and Vancouver had a certain flavour/context to it; decidedly based on Old Chinook and Nuu-chah-nulth (Nootka) plus some Chehalis and Klickitat and I think a bit of Kalapuya, maybe some Wasco and Yakama, also of course the French-English overlay brought in by the fur companies (which is also why there's Algonquian and other non-PacNW language words here and there). Some Jargon seems to have been used along the Brigade Trail route to and through the Rockies from Fort Vancouver, i.e. up the Columbia and some of its tributaries, and also in the outer-coastal marine fur trade, where some of the original English-French hybridization seems to have begun long before Astoria or Ft Vancouver were founded. Anyway, it was when Fort Langley was founded in the later 1820s that CJ came into regular usage on the BC Mainland, and comprised some of the staff from HBC, including their native wives and offspring (generally Chinook rather than from another people...many/most of the staff were themselves already Metis or Kanaka); some staff wound up marrying locally, particularly Kwantlen (who still live right next to Fort Langley), and the Kwantlens were probably the first to learn CJ on the mainland of BC; it's known not to have penetrated the Interior until much later, and despite the rampages of miners for a few brief years during the Fraser Canyon Gold Rush, it wasn't spoken much in the Fraser Canyon until the coming of the railway, when it was widely learned by both sides to facilitate construction (natives worked on the railway as well as Chinese, paritcularly on bridging, but you won't find that in Chinese-centric histories); add onto this its use in evangelization (and not just by Catholic priests intent on pushing it as a liturgical language, hence all the ceremonials and biblical/classical texts that have been translated into CJ). By the end of the 19th Century it had become standard in native communities, but also in working environments such as canneries, ranches, mills, logging camps, and as noted somewhere in the article it was commonly used in court proceedings as well as, in differing style, social events and even political meetings (cf Richard McBride's 1902 or 1903 nomination story). With the Klondike Gold Rush, hordes of men half-learned it to prep for the Yukon - where it was barely used hitherto - and just peppered their English with words like "cheechako" and "hyak, hyak!" (faster, faster), and apparently native peoples locally also learned it as the newcomers all seemed to want to talk in it (a similar thing happened during the Fraser Canyon Gold Rush; everyone prepped for the language supposedly spoken in the goldfields, but it's more likely the incoming miners more brought the CJ with them as the local Nlaka'pamux and St'at'imc spoke, if anything, a different Jargon, at least one with a different range of words; the farther north you go the more hybridization in CJ there is; in Kamloops Wawa, the Columbia-based "cole chuck" is simply "ice", for instance; But in the US, according to Holton, other than a few words here and there, non-natives didn't speak the CJ after settlement; but that's only in the United States, not in BC/Canada....

The point of this seeming digression, is that there's going to be differences between English-CJ hybridization on one side of the border vs the other, given the differnet cultural/political/social history that should be obvious; and I'd expect there to be wide variation in English-CJ usage from region to region, as I know there to be between the BC Interior and the BC Coast. I don't have any direct knowledge of usage in places like Montana or Idaho, or Alaska, so if you can provide some please do so. I need a break but will come back for more later sometime; sorry for the ramble; I'm actually just trying to be precise and no doubt making things more complicated than need be ;-0.Skookum1 20:07, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Also, the passage "the development of the Jargon in the form it spread to here as is the direct result of British influence" sounds like it has an extra word or some kind of grammatical error. And where is "here"? It seems like that word shouldn't even be used in an encyclopedia article. ("there" makes a lot more sense) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 152.157.78.172 (talk) 17:15, 8 March 2007 (UTC).

I'm not sure "British" was in my original text; if it was me who used it, I didn't mean British-culture but the culture of hte British fur trade, and the peculiar culture of the Gold Colony (as the Mainland Colony was called even after BCjoined confederation), which was very mixed of different kinds of Brit, American, European and others...the reference here is also to the different treatment native peoples received from the HBC and the Colony and the Province than what took place state-side. I'll see if I can find a better wording/description.Skookum1 21:51, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

re the "here" thing - I think some of htis article was from Talk:Chinook Jargon, where I might have used such phrasing; I would never use it in an article; or it may be that my 't' key stuck, which it often does (I eat at my keyboard too much...).Skookum1 21:52, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Idea for article expansion/improvement

In regards to other topic-edits I came across the article on Sperry Cline, which mentions his own particular brand of CJ usage. There are other cases like his, already on Wikipedia some of them, and there are also descriptions I've run across of the hybrid forms, mixed with more English but also French and Hawaiian and Gaelic, as spoken in the forts (depending on who was around, you'd expect maybe), which could be trotted out as example cases, and there are bits and pieces of mixed Chinook-English usage which typify "Chinook Jargon usage by English speakers". So far this page was split off, it seems, to provide a home for, so far, the discussion of CJ words that are or were current in regional English; actual examples of English-language speakers/users and samples of their usages and mention of the varying styles of usage is where this article can go.Skookum1 19:37, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Style/refs and title

I'm not at all liking this title, which was coined when breaking this material off from Chinook Jargon; Scandinavian, German, Hawaiian and other non-native users are not included in it, though most spoke English as well. As far as style goes, I'll have a go at it in the next while, and try to add at least book if not page cites for some items, and add others as well. Academic citations are problematic because of the bias against non-native users/use of the Jargon by academic linguists and their following; "we" are just not studied, even though "we" were part of the culture of this language, and the bulk in fact of its one-time users. The range of waht they've missed may reveal itself as I compile the various cites/refs...Skookum1 (talk) 18:05, 22 April 2008 (UTC)