British Columbia Magazine, Summer 2008

The Chinook jargon should be learned by everyone contemplating a trip to the Fraser River gold mines, as it is the language used by all the different Indian tribes in British North America west of the Cascade Mountains, as the means of conversation with the whites, and a knowledge of it has in many instances saved the wandering traveller.”
—Agricultural engineer Duncan George Forbes Macdonald in his book, British Columbia and Vancouver’s Island (Longman, Green, Longman, Roberts & Green, 1862).

In 19th-century British Columbia, you didn’t get far without at least a rudimentary understanding of Chinook jargon, which combined English, French, and various First Nations languages. Whether they were prospectors, hop pickers, politicians, or missionaries, all speakers of Chinook jargon were united by one thing: the need for easy communication in one of the world’s most linguistically diverse regions.

Linguists are divided about the genesis of Chinook. Some believe it began with trading relationships between West Coast tribes; others trace its origins to the arrival of Europeans. All agree that it evolved rapidly and gained prominence during the early 1800s, as the North West Company and Hudson’s Bay Company established trading posts throughout the region. By the end of the century, Chinook jargon was spoken by at least 100,000 people—and perhaps as many as 250,000—living along the Pacific coast from northern California to southern Alaska.

Although it is called a jargon, Chinook is a pidgin language, technically—a hybrid of two or more languages, with its own small but distinct vocabulary and unique, simplified grammar. More than half the Chinook lexicon comes from the Chinook peoples who lived along the lower Columbia River—their language is known as “Old Chinook” to distinguish it from Chinook jargon.

Another important source language was Nuu-chah-nulth from Vancouver Island’s west coast, which supplied about 7 percent of the vocabulary. Salishan languages were also significant contributors, and a handful of words were borrowed from several other First Nations languages.

About 30 percent of Chinook jargon is derived from English or French, with each language contributing about equally by way of explorers, traders, missionaries, and settlers. As with First Nations words, some—such as “salt” and “man”—retained their original form, though most were altered. The Chinook version of many French words incorporated some form of the article “le” or “la.” For example, la tête became “latet” (head) and le loup became “lilu” (wolf).

Chinook pronunciation evolved in such a way that anyone could get his or her tongue around the words. French and English speakers generally had difficulty negotiating the guttural sounds of West Coast indigenous languages, so these were softened or eliminated. The “f” and “r” sounds in English and French, which most First Nations speakers could not articulate, morphed into “p” and “l” sounds.

Chinook jargon caught on because it was easy to learn yet surprisingly versatile. Simple conversation is possible with a basic vocabulary of 200 Chinook jargon words, and the total vocabulary consists of just 500 to 800 words. These include useful modifiers that provide information, such as verb tense, quantity, quality, gender, relationships, similarities, and differences. The handy word “mamuk” (to do, to make) can be attached to virtually any other word to make it causative, as in “mamuk wawa” (to make a speech).

Chinook jargon’s many idioms—expressions greater than the sum of their parts—also enhance communications. There is no word for “sorry” in Chinook, but the phrase “Nika sik tumtum” (I have a sick heart) makes an eloquent apology.

During its heyday in the 19th century, Chinook was used in law court proceedings, treaty negotiations, royal commissions, and church sermons, as well as for conducting everyday business. Upon arriving in B.C., most visitors and new immigrants purchased a Chinook jargon dictionary, choosing from a selection printed by various publishers, from the Smithsonian Institution to Victoria bookseller and stationer Thomas Hibben.

British adventurers Walter J. Clutterbuck and James Arthur Lees apparently neglected this essential preparation for their “ramble” through the colony in 1887. One morning while camped in the Kootenays, Clutterbuck and Lees met a Ktunaxa man.

“[He] gave us quite a turn,” they later wrote, “by making a long speech ending unmistakably with the ominous words, ‘Income tax.’ To gain time in these distressing circumstances we got him to repeat it, and there could be no doubt of it; he was the tax collector, and wanted us to pay.”

Unwilling to submit to any local taxation scheme, the pair bombarded their interlocutor with excuses in English, until finally he “arose and fled with a howl of dismay.” An acquaintance later assured them the man was merely asking if they could understand—“kumtuks” in Chinook.

Although Chinook jargon developed to facilitate communication between natives and non-natives, many newcomers embraced the language because it connected them to each other and to their new home. Like a secret handshake that identified fraternity members, Chinook words were exchanged in greetings, tossed into conversations, and sometimes used in full-length discourse.

In 1926, when the Conservatives were trying to convince Simon Fraser Tolmie to become party leader, veteran member Robert Henry Pooley finally broke Tolmie’s resistance by haranguing him in Chinook jargon. To everyone else in the room, Pooley’s speech was incomprehensible, but Tolmie, who had learned Chinook from his fur trader father, got the message and accepted the position. Two years later, he was elected premier.

Another notable Chinook-speaking politician was James Douglas. He became fluent in the jargon during his career in the fur trade and continued to use it after being appointed as British Columbia’s first governor in 1858.

European settlement dramatically disrupted First Nations societies, prompting many natives to leave their traditional homelands temporarily or permanently. Until the late 1800s, most farm labourers hired in the region were First Nations. Many travelled widely for seasonal jobs, such as hop picking in B.C. and Washington. Others moved to work in canneries and sawmills and on ranches. Thrown together with members of other tribes—whose languages might be as different from one another as English from Mandarin Chinese—they often relied on Chinook jargon for communication.

Although Chinook was very much a working person’s language during this period, it was also the language of pleasure and entertainment, especially for itinerant First Nations labourers. People gambled, sang songs, and told jokes and stories in Chinook jargon; someone even wrote a Chinook-language opera, which was performed in Washington’s Port Townsend in the 1890s.

Christian missionaries also found that Chinook jargon served them well. Various denominations translated hymns, prayers, and catechism into Chinook, but the language’s most enthusiastic proponent was Father Jean-Marie Rafael LeJeune, a Catholic priest stationed in Kamloops. From 1891 to 1923, LeJeune published the Kamloops Wawa, a parish newspaper that incorporated Chinook jargon using a shorthand version he developed.

LeJeune considered Chinook jargon an excellent candidate for a universal language. Yet even as he was encouraging its wider adoption, Chinook already had begun to fade away. As more and more immigrants made their way to B.C. and the western U.S. after the turn of the century, English became firmly established as the dominant language, and the incentive for finding a linguistic middle ground was lost.

Of all the places where Chinook jargon was spoken, it held on longest in B.C., particularly in remote parts of Vancouver Island and the Interior. As late as the 1950s, some fishermen and Canadian Coast Guard crews apparently spoke in Chinook jargon when they wanted to keep radio transmissions secret. And, in 1967, it was used during a court case in Campbell River. By then, perhaps 100 Chinook speakers remained in North America—all of them more than 50 years old.

Today, echoes of this distinctive language are heard in such B.C. expressions as “salt chuck” and “skookum,” and in place names such as Cultus Lake and Malakwa. By learning the origin and meaning of these words, we help to keep Chinook jargon alive.