Chinook Jargon - Origins and Evolution

Origins and Evolution

There is some controversy about the origin of the Jargon, but all agree that its glory days were during the 19th century. During this era many dictionaries were published in order to help settlers interact with the First Nations people already living there. The old settler families' heirs in the Pacific Northwest sent communiques to each other, stylishly composed entirely in "the Chinook". Many residents of the British Columbia city of Vancouver spoke Chinook Jargon as their first language, even using it at home in preference to English. Among the first Europeans to use Chinook Jargon were traders, trappers, Voyageurs, Coureur des bois and Catholic missionaries. Hawaiians and Chinese in the region made much use of it as well; in some places Kanakas married into the First Nations and non-native families and their particular mode of the Jargon is believed to have contained Hawaiian words, or Hawaiian styles of pronunciation; similarly the Jargon as spoken by a Chinese person or a Norwegian or a Scot will have been influenced by those individuals' native-speaker terms and accents; and in some areas the adoption of further non-aboriginal words has been observed. The Chinook Jargon naturally became the first language in mixed-blood households, and also in multi-ethnic work environments such as canneries and lumberyards and ranches where it remained the language of the workplace well into the middle of the 20th Century. During the Gold Rush, Chinook Jargon was used in British Columbia by gold prospectors and Royal Engineers. As industry developed, Chinook Jargon was often used by cannery workers and hop pickers of diverse ethnic background. Loggers, fishermen and ranchers incorporated it in their jargon.

A heavily creolized form of Chinook Jargon (Chinuk Wawa or Tsinuk wawa) is still spoken as a first language by some residents of Oregon State, much as the Métis language Michif is still spoken in Canada. Hence, the Wawa as it is known in Oregon is now a creole language, distinct from the widespread and widely-varied pronunciation of the Chinook Jargon as it spread beyond the Chinookan homeland. There is evidence that in some communities (e.g. around Fort Vancouver) the Jargon had become creolized by the early 19th century, but that would have been among the mixed French/Métis, Algonkian, Scots and Hawaiian population there as well as among the natives around the Fort. At Grand Ronde, the resettlement of tribes from all over Oregon in a multi-tribal agency required the development of an intertribal language, and so the Wawa was augmented by the addition of Klickitat and Wasco words and sounds and "more Indian" modifications of the pronunciation and vocabulary.

No studies of British Columbia versions of the Jargon have demonstrated creolization and the range of varying usages and vocabulary in different regions suggests that localization did occur, although not on the pattern of Grand Ronde where Wasco, Klickitat and other peoples adopted and added to the version of the Jargon that developed in Grand Ronde. First-language speakers of the Chinook Jargon were common in BC, both native and non-native, until mid-20th Century, and it is a truism that while after 1850 the Wawa was mostly a native language in the United States portion of the Chinook-speaking world, it remained in wide use among non-natives north of the border for another century, especially in wilderness areas and working environments. Local creolizations probably did occur in British Columbia, but recorded materials have not been studied since they were made due to the focus on the traditional aboriginal languages. Most Chinookology ignores non-native use of the Jargon, and there is a current in Jargon studies to purge or otherwise creolize the English and French words out of it, to "Indianize" it.

Many believe that something similar to the Jargon existed prior to European contact, but without European words in its vocabulary. There is some evidence for a Chinookan-Nuu-chah-nulth Lingua franca in the writings of John Jewitt and also in what is known as the Barclay Sound word-list, from the area of Ucluelet and Alberni. Others believe that the Jargon was formed within the great cultural cauldron of the time of Contact, and cannot be discussed separately from that context, with an appreciation for the full range of the Jargon-speaking community and its history.

Current scholarly opinion holds that a trade language of some kind probably existed prior to European contact, which began "morphing" into the more familiar Chinook Jargon in the late 1790s, notably at a dinner party at Nootka Sound where Capts Vancouver and Bodega y Quadra were entertained by Chief Maquinna and his brother Callicum performing a theatrical using mock English and mock Spanish words and mimicry of European dress and mannerisms. There evidently was a Jargon of some kind in use in the Queen Charlotte, but this "Haida Jargon" is not known to have shared anything in common with Chinook Jargon, or with the Nooktan-Chinookan "proto-jargon" which is its main foundation.

Many words in Chinook Jargon clearly had different meanings and pronunciations at various points in history, and continued to evolve into interesting regional variants. A few scholars have tried to formalize the spelling, but since it was mostly a spoken language this is difficult (and many users tend to prefer the sort of spelling they use in English).