Dictionary of the Chinook gon

Dictionary of the Chinook Jargon

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Trade
Language of Oregon, by George Gibbs This eBook is for the use of
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Title: Dictionary of the Chinook Jargon, or, Trade Language of Oregon
Author: George Gibbs
Release Date: April 20, 2005 [EBook #15672]
Language: English and Chinook
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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SHEA'S
LIBRARY OF AMERICAN LINGUISTICS.

XII.
DICTIONARY
OF THE
CHINOOK JARGON,
OR,
TRADE LANGUAGE OF OREGON.
BY GEORGE GIBBS.
NEW YORK:
CRAMOISY PRESS.
1863.

PREFACE.
Some years ago the Smithsonian Institution printed a small vocabulary
of the Chinook Jargon, furnished by Dr. B.R. Mitchell, of the U.S.
Navy, and prepared, as we afterwards learned, by Mr. Lionnet, a
Catholic priest, for his own use while studying the language at Chinook
Point. It was submitted by the Institution, for revision and preparation
for the press, to the late Professor W.W. Turner. Although it received
the critical examination of that distinguished philologist, and was of
use in directing attention to the language, it was deficient in the number
of words in use, contained many which did not properly belong to the
Jargon, and did not give the sources from which the words were
derived.
Mr. Hale had previously given a vocabulary and account of this Jargon
in his "Ethnography of the United States Exploring Expedition," which
was noticed by Mr. Gallatin in the Transactions of the American

Ethnological Society, vol. ii. He, however, fell into some errors in his
derivation of the words, chiefly from ignoring the Chihalis element of
the Jargon, and the number of words given by him amounted only to
about two hundred and fifty.
A copy of Mr. Lionnet's vocabulary having been sent to me, with a
request to make such corrections as it might require, I concluded not
merely to collate the words contained in this and other printed and
manuscript vocabularies, but to ascertain, so far as possible, the
languages which had contributed to it, with the original Indian words.
This had become the more important, as its extended use by different
tribes had led to ethnological errors in the classing together of
essentially distinct families. Dr. Scouler, whose vocabularies were
among the earliest bases of comparison of the languages of the
northwest coast, assumed a number of words, which he found
indiscriminately employed by the Nootkans of Vancouver Island, the
Chinooks of the Columbia, and the intermediate tribes, to belong alike
to their several languages, and exhibit analogies between them
accordingly.[A] On this idea, among other points of fancied
resemblance, he founded his family of Nootka-Columbians,--one which
has been adopted by Drs. Pritchard and Latham, and has caused very
great misconception. Not only are those languages entirely distinct, but
the Nootkans differ greatly in physical and mental characteristics from
the latter. The analogies between the Chinook and the other native
contributors to the Jargon are given hereafter.
[Footnote A: Journal Royal Geographical Society of London, vol. xi.,
1841.]
The origin of this Jargon, a conventional language similar to the Lingua
Franca of the Mediterranean, the Negro-English-Dutch of Surinam, the
Pigeon English of China, and several other mixed tongues, dates back
to the fur droguers of the last century. Those mariners whose enterprise
in the fifteen years preceding 1800, explored the intricacies of the
northwest coast of America, picked up at their general rendezvous,
Nootka Sound, various native words useful in barter, and thence
transplanted them, with additions from the English, to the shores of

Oregon. Even before their day, the coasting trade and warlike
expeditions of the northern tribes, themselves a sea-faring race, had
opened up a partial understanding of each other's speech; for when, in
1792, Vancouver's officers visited Gray's Harbor, they found that the
natives, though speaking a different language, understood many words
of the Nootka.
On the arrival of Lewis and Clarke at the mouth of the Columbia, in
1806, the new language, from the sentences given by them, had
evidently attained some form. It was with the arrival of Astor's party,
however, that the Jargon received its principal impulse. Many more
words of English were then brought in, and for the first time the French,
or rather the Canadian and Missouri patois of the French, was
introduced. The principal seat of the company being at Astoria, not
only a large addition of Chinook words was made, but a considerable
number was taken from the Chihalis, who immediately bordered that
tribe