A Native American language still echoes in our culture Parlez-vous Chinook Jargon? Thousands of people used to, and a diverse group of Native Americans, linguists and historians will meet in mid-May to showcase this largely bygone language and see what can be done to preserve it.
To be specific about it, the Sixth Chinook Jargon Workshop will take place May 14 to 16 at the Native American Center at Portland State University in Portland, Ore. The program will include language classes, discussion groups and presentations intended to encourage the use and preservation of Chinook Jargon in the Pacific Northwest.
Tony Johnson, cultural education coordinator for the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde in western Oregon, uses the language's term for itself, Chinuk Wawa, when referring to Chinook Jargon. "Chinuk Wawa is not merely a jargon, a simple collection of words with no grammar," Johnson said. "It was instead a language that served as a powerful communication tool in a variety of environments from bare-bones communication between different ethnic groups to a language used daily by many Native Americans in their homes and communities. The language as we know it has a Native sound system and grammar, and was used as an important vehicle for communication, artistic expression and cultural transmission."
Chinuk Wawa was the primary language of many Native Americans along the Northwest coast. This is especially true for the Grand Ronde community.
In addition to running a Chinuk Wawa immersion preschool for tribal youth and a university-sponsored adult education class, Johnson is busy passing the language on to his 4-year-old son.
"Chinook Wawa is an important part of my heritage and the heritage of Grand Ronde," Johnson explained. "As a second-language speaker of this language, I am bound to its being passed along to a new generation." Johnson serves as a resource to the tribe where efforts from the preschool to new construction, roads and tribal departments continue to utilize Chinook Jargon.
According to Dave Robertson, a linguist from Victoria, B.C., who runs an Internet group dedicated to the study of this language, "A hundred thousand people spoke Chinook Jargon in Oregon, Washington, British Columbia and Alaska before the turn of the century. Like Cajun French in Louisiana or Hawaiian in Hawai'i, Chinook Jargon lost out in favor of English. And like these other languages, there are people looking to change that.
"Chinook Jargon," Robertson continued, "is based on the language of the Chinook people whose homeland is along the lower Columbia River. It has loan words from English and French, as well as other Native American languages."
During the 1800s, the Northwest was an area where more than 100 different languages were spoken, Robertson said. The various groups - Native Americans, fur traders, settlers - needed to communicate with one another, so they adopted the Chinook Jargon.
"Today people still use Chinook Jargon when they refer to many places in the Northwest," he said, "but most people don't know they are using it. Alki, Skookumchuck, Tumwater, and Olallie are all Chinook Jargon. So is the expression 'high muckamuck' or 'big muckamuck' when referring to a big shot."
High muckamuck - who knew?
Workshop details are available at www.adisoft-inc.com/lulu or by contacting Jim Holton at 510-483-3725.[[In-content Ad]]
