13 Facts About Chinook Jargon

Chinook Jargon is a language originating as a pidgin trade language in the Pacific Northwest.

Many words from Chinook Jargon remain in common use in the Western United States and British Columbia today, and it has been described as part of a multicultural heritage shared by the modern inhabitants of the Pacific Northwest.

Whether Chinook Jargon was a post-contact or pre-contact language has been the subject of debate.

The Chinook Jargon acquired English loanwords and its written form is entirely in the Duployan Shorthand created by French priest Emile Duploye.

In Oregon, Chinook Jargon was widely used by Natives, trappers, traders, employees of the Hudson's Bay Company, missionaries, and pioneers who came across the Oregon Trail from the 1830s-1870s.

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Chinook Jargon is influenced by individuals' accents and terms from their native languages; as Kanakas married into First Nations and non-native families, their particular mode of the Chinook Jargon is believed to have contained Hawaiian words or Hawaiian styles of pronunciation.

Chinook Jargon naturally became the first language in multiracial households and in multiethnic work environments such as canneries and logging camps and ranches, where it remained the language of the workplace well into the middle of the 20th century.

Chinook Jargon was the language of instruction in the school for Indian children that Hills established near Victoria in 1860.

Heavily creolized form of Chinook Jargon is still spoken as a first language by some residents of Oregon, much as the Metis language Michif is spoken in Canada.

Many believe that something similar to the Chinook Jargon existed before European contact — without European words in its vocabulary.

Mentions of and phrases of Chinook Jargon were found in nearly every piece of historical source material before 1900.

Chinook Jargon is relatively unknown to the rest of the population, perhaps due to the great influx of newcomers into the influential urban areas.

British Columbian English and Pacific Northwest English have several words still in current use which are loanwords from the Chinook Jargon, which was widely spoken throughout the Pacific Northwest by all ethnicities well into the middle of the 20th century.