Chinook Jargon

Chinook Jargon
chinuk wawa, wawa, chinook lelang, lelang, chinook
Native toCanada, United States
RegionPacific Northwest (Interior and Coast): Alaska, The Yukon, British Columbia, Washington State, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, Northern California
Native speakers
1 (2013)[1]
De facto Latin,
historically Duployan;
currently standardized IPA-based orthography
Official status
Official language in
De facto in Pacific Northwest until about 1920
Language codes
ISO 639-2chn
ISO 639-3chn
Glottologpidg1254  (pidgin)
chin1272  (creole)
ELPChinook Wawa
Chinook Jargon is classified as Critically Endangered by the UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger

Chinook Jargon (Chinuk Wawa or Chinook Wawa, also known simply as Chinook or Jargon) is a language originating as a pidgin trade language in the Pacific Northwest. It spread during the 19th century from the lower Columbia River, first to other areas in modern Oregon and Washington, then to British Columbia and parts of Alaska, Northern California, Idaho and Montana, sometimes taking on the characteristics of a creole language.[2] It is partly descended from the Chinook language, upon which much of its vocabulary is based.[3] Approximately 15 percent of its lexicon is French, and it also makes use of English loan words and those of other language systems. Its entire written form is in the Duployan shorthand developed by French priest Émile Duployé.

Many words from Chinook Jargon remain in common use in the Western United States and British Columbia, and it has been described as part of a multicultural heritage shared by the modern inhabitants of the Pacific Northwest. The total number of Jargon words in published lexicons is only in the hundreds.[4] It has a simple grammatical system. In Chinook Jargon, the consonant /r/ is rare, and English and French loan words, such as rice and merci, have changed in their adoption to the Jargon, to lays and mahsi, respectively.

  1. ^ Grant, Anthony (2013). "Chinuk Wawa structure dataset". Atlas of Pidgin and Creole Language Structures Online. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. Archived from the original on January 14, 2018. Retrieved October 22, 2023.
  2. ^ Lang, George (2008). Making Wawa: The Genesis of Chinook Jargon. Vancouver: UBC Press. pp. 127–128. ISBN 9780774815260.
  3. ^ "Chinook Jargon". Yinka Dene Language Institute. Retrieved December 2, 2009.
  4. ^ Gibbs, George (1863). "Dicionary of the Chinook Language, or, Trade Language of Oregon" (PDF) (Abridged ed.). New York: Cramoisy Press. Archived from the original (PDF) on September 4, 2012. Retrieved July 13, 2012 – via University of Washington Library.