A Northwest Language of Contact, Diplomacy, and Identity: Chinuk Wawa / Chinook Jargon

Abstract

 OHQ vol. 111, no. 4 Henry Zenk with Tony A. Johnson A Northwest Language of Contact, Diplomacy, and Identity© 2010 Oregon Historical Society Chinuk Wawa / Chinook Jargon On an 1841 visit to the Hudson’s Bay Company’s regional center of operations at Fort Vancouver on the lower Columbia River, pioneer linguist HoratioHalecommentedontheprominenceof“averysingularphenomenon in philology”: a true hybrid language (in modern terms, a contact or pidgincreole language), composed of words from several foreign (European) and local (indigenous) languages, but fundamentally different in type from any of the source languages contributing to it.1 This was “‘the Jargon’, or trade language of Oregon,”often termed“Chinook”but more properly“Chinook Jargon”inEnglishor“ChinukWawa”in“theJargon”itself (wherewawameans ‘speech,language’).2 Observingthismediumnotonlyingeneraluseatthepost butalsotakingrootinethnicallymixedfamiliesfoundedbyfur-companymen (predominantly French-Canadian and French-Indian or Métis voyageurs) and local Native women,Hale speculated that were this lower Columbia furtrade society to persist into the future, the eventual result would be a wholly new “race” or ethnic identity, one of whose emblems would be a language that defies conventional classification.It would be impossible to say to which family this language belongs, in the way that English, for example, is said to be a Germanic language belonging to the Indo-European family.As we now know, fur-company hegemony on the lower Columbia was on the verge of dissolution in 1841, rendering Hale’s thought experiment moot. But Chinuk Wawa / Chinook Jargon, far from disappearing, continued to play a crucial  Zenk with Johnson, Chinuk Wawa / Chinook Jargon Besides providing the first comprehensive record of Chinook Jargon, Horatio Hale also collected vocabularies in most of the indigenous languages recognized at Fort Vancouver. Only the Takelma language of southern Oregon is conspicuously absent from his 1841 sketch-map, reproduced above. Languages most relevant to the focus of this article are Tshinuk (Lower Chinook), Walawala (Sahaptin), Watlala (Upper Chinook), Kalapuya (a family of three languages), Umpkwa (Umpqua), Saste (Shasta), Molele (Molala), and Lutuami (Klamath). role in the subsequent transformation of the greater lower Columbia region. Our purpose here is to shed light on this aspect of lower Columbia history, precious little of which has been told in the history books. Our focus will be Chinuk Wawa / Chinook Jargon in the lives of Native people of interior western Oregon following the arrival of Euro-American settlers.We explore the language’s role as a lingua franca during a time when few Natives could speak English,while Euro-American proficiency in local tribal languages was H. Hale’s “Ethnographical Map of Oregon, 1841,” in Ethnography and Philology; OHS Collections  OHQ vol. 111, no. 4 almost unheard of; its implications for assessing the effectiveness and quality of inter-ethnic communication during the negotiation of treaties, whose provisions have had profound consequences for local Native people; and the perhaps surprising significance that the language acquired in the reservation community to which most of these people were relocated,a significance that resonates down to the present day. The Euro-Americans’ Chinook Jargon differs in certain respects from the Natives’ Chinuk Wawa, although the two tended to converge during the act of inter-ethnic communication. The two mediums are most clearly distinct with respect to pronunciation. According to the French Canadian missionary priest Fr. Louis-Napoléon St. Onge, whose knowledge of the language came through close contact with lower Columbia Native people, historical precedence goes to Native pronunciation: BeforeOregonwassettled,thewhitesof allnationsmadeitapointtopronounceChinook [ChinukWawa] just as the Indians do; but since the country has been settled,the whites, usually,learnt it more or less,but now do not take the trouble,or are unable to pronounce it. This carelessness, inability to learn, or whatever it may be, has alone made it possible for a gentleman to say that he is going to publish a Chinook dictionary according to Webster’s pronunciation.Nonsense!! Where will he find in Webster’s . . .equivalents for the gutturals, the clucks and the explosives, let alone the Hebraic and Gaelic gutturals you find in almost half of the Chinook words as pronounced by the Indians? It is to be deplored that there is such a tendency to pronounce Chinook with the American twang. . . .3 Early travelers and settlers often commented on...