Ine other press

Features

November 20, 2002

 

 

 

ite different from Chinook Jargon. Old
hinook was complex and had a guttural
bund structure that was practically
possible for outsiders to learn or speak.
The pidgin was a verbal method of
change between many of the dozens of
rst Nations tribes who only had a few
psely similar tongues. The trading and
aveling activity of the Chinook peoples,
well as their central location on the
arine highway of the Columbia and
illamette, encouraged a trading pidgin
gely based on their language. The
rgon served as the lingua franca,
ployed by immigrants from different
untries as well as by First Nations of dif-
ent tribes to speak with one another.
is mixture of Northwest First Nations
brds with English and French, emerged
on after arrival of Europeans.
e Jargon had very few words, a small
abulary of about 700 words, 800 at

A es ao

Chinook bonnie and her child

most, drawn from half a dozen tongues,
including English and French, as well as
major First Nations languages on the West
Coast. But it was said that someone
skilled in the Jargon could say anything,
or rather, anything that was actually nec-
essary. “If you can’t say it in the Jargon,
it’s not worth saying.”

The grammar of Chinook Jargon is sim-
ple in that there is no conjugation of verbs
or declension of nouns. It has a simplified
grammar that draws its vocabulary from
several languages. The largest parts of its
vocabulary come from Chinook and
Nuu-chah-nulth, followed by French. It
also contains words from other First
Nations languages and from English.
Some Chinook Jargon words have made
their way into British Columbia vernacu-
lar.

There are two main varieties of Chinook
Jargon: First Nations and European.

rying to Survive

  

ving on the street, kids are in

Tina Christopoulos
Quebec Bureau

Settlers and explorers easily learnt
Chinook Jargon, because it had trans-
formed over the years by adding elements
of European and other First Nations lan-
guages. The First Nations languages that
contributed words to Chinook Jargon had
a number of sounds that were unfamiliar
and too difficult for Europeans. When
First Nations people learned Chinook
Jargon from other First Nations people,
they generally preserved these sounds.
However, Europeans usually had great dif-
ficulty pronouncing these sounds and
changed them into more familiar sounds.
In this way, there arose a phonetically sim-
plified version of Chinook Jargon that did
not contain sounds that were unfamiliar
or difficult for speakers of European lan-
guages. Where Europeans _ spread
Chinook Jargon it was the simplified ver-
sion they could pronounce.

Fragments of the old argot still in use in
West Coast, but many who use these gems
remain unaware of the origin of the terms,
despite the innate connection to the place
and its history. The three most prominent
Jargon words that survive in regional
English are skookum “strong” from the
Salish, saltchuck “ocean” (or simply ‘the
chuck’) and muckamuck “food”. Other
words include Ayak “swift” used for the
Hyack festivals in New Westminster, Ayas
“big”, Aiyu “many”, tenas “small”, mowitch
“deer”, moolack “elk”, and klootchman
“woman”. It’s not always obvious even to
those familiar with “the Wawa” when a
word or phrase has Jargon origins.
Familiar words include tyee “chief”,
tillikum “friends” from an Old Chinook
word, klahowyah “greetings”, cheechako
“newcomer”, and potlatch “giving”, a ver-
sion of a Nuu-chah-nulth word.

“The sticks”, “hooch” and “Big Smoke”,

a Vancouver nickname, all have Jargon
roots, or at least roots in the common
speech of frontier society. The words also
survive in the vocabularies of many First
Nation languages, notably those words
adapted from the French and spoken by
the voyageurs of the fur trade.

At the peak of the European migration
over two hundred and fifty thousand
spoke Chinook Jargon. From the turn of
the century to the Great War, somewhere
between 100,000 and 150,000 people
spoke or at least knew some of the Jargon.

One half of the original languages of
North America have died as a result of
eurocentric colonialism. Of the tongues
still in use, over half are spoken by fewer
than 1,000 persons per language. Today,
the total number of surviving Jargon
speakers is unknown, but it is far from
extinct, with a small concentration of
speakers in Grand Ronde, Oregon and a
scattering of relatively isolated individuals
of all ages throughout BC and the Pacific
Northwest.

Used in fragments for colour and
emphasis by West Coast citizens, and
apparently held dear, in many BC places,
lodges, restaurants and taverns, boats and
even ships are named using Jargon words.
There are place names still used today, like
Cultus “Worthless” Lake, or Malakwa
“Mosquito,” BC that have become part of
the homogenous vocabulary. Numbering
in the thousands, people still use pieces of
the old tongue, like hyack, even if they
don’t know their origin.

Sadly, once the language of trade and
the working class, Chinook Jargon is now
seldom heard. So next time you see some-
one, greet him or her in Chinook Jargon,
and say, “Klahowya!”

 

constant struggle to survive

   

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MONTREAL (CUP)—Have you ever wondered what it
would be like to be woken up by police officers?

Your head is resting on the hard pavement, cold and
uninviting. You could probably do with another several
hours of sleep if it weren't for the annoying, incessant
blows from the impact of someone's foot against your
body. So, you grudgingly pull yourself up from the floor.

If this seems far from reality, it wasn’t for Eric Denis,
a.k.a. Roach, who spent most of his teenage years sleep-
ing on the streets.

“The metro cop was my alarm clock,” says Roach, as he
gives some insight on what a typical day was for him.
“Then, you go and panhandle or squeegee your first
meal, depending on the weather. For a long time it was
one subway sandwich a day. “

“By noon, you buy your first dose of coke,” he says very
matter-of-factly. “And then you go back to squeegeeing
or you go sleep in the Metro, if it’s winter.”

“T was a junkie,” he cautions, making sure I understand
that he can only speak for himself. “Everyone's experience
is different.”

Not that different, according to a study released by
Montréal public health officials in September 1998,
which found that 40 percent of street youth are already
injecting drugs on the street and another 10 percent
begin injecting each year. Roach explains the drug issue
by challenging anyone to “live on the street for one
month, two months...you're gonna need something to
help you forget. It’s part of our lives. But were not
garbage, pieces of shit because of it.”

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