Imagine stepping onto the muddy banks of the Columbia River in 1850. You might hear a Nlaka’pamux trader haggling with a French-Canadian voyageur, a Scottish Hudson’s Bay Company factor giving orders to a Hawaiian sailor, and a Methodist missionary trying to converse with a local Clatsop leader. They all speak different mother tongues, yet they communicate seamlessly. The linguistic glue holding this multicultural world together? A remarkable trade language known as Chinook Jargon.
For over a century, from the frost-bound shores of Alaska to the sunny hills of northern California, Chinook Jargon, or Wawa as it was often called, was the true lingua franca of the Pacific Northwest. It wasn’t the native language of any single tribe, but a brilliantly adaptive pidgin that wove together words from dozens of sources to become the language of trade, diplomacy, and daily life in one of the most linguistically diverse regions on the planet.
A Language Born of Necessity
To understand Chinook Jargon, you first need to understand what a pidgin is. A pidgin language is a simplified communication system that develops between groups who don’t share a common language. It’s a classic case of necessity being the mother of invention. Pidgins typically feature:
- A limited vocabulary drawn from the dominant languages of the groups involved.
- Radically simplified grammar.
- A focus on getting the point across, not on linguistic elegance.
Chinook Jargon began this way, likely even before Europeans arrived, as a simplified way for different Salish, Wakashan, and Penutian-speaking peoples to trade along the coast. The real catalyst for its explosion, however, was the arrival of ships from across the globe, all eager for one thing: fur.
The Multilingual Melting Pot
The Jargon’s vocabulary is a fascinating map of the region’s history. Its linguistic DNA reveals the key players who shaped the Pacific Northwest.
The foundation of the language came from Lower Chinookan, spoken by the peoples living near the mouth of the Columbia River, the epicenter of early trade. Words like tikegh (to want), muckamuck (food, to eat), and klahowya (hello/goodbye) all have Chinookan roots. Another crucial early contributor was Nuu-chah-nulth (formerly Nootka), which provided words related to maritime trade, like hiyu (many, a lot) and makook (to buy or sell).
Then came the Europeans. French-Canadian fur trappers, the legendary voyageurs, paddled their canoes up every river, and their language came with them.
La porte (the door) became le-pote.
La bouche (the mouth) became le-boos.
Le mouton (the sheep) became le-mooto.
Soon after, English-speaking traders and settlers from Britain and the United States arrived, adding their own contributions. Words like man, boat, dollar (as tulla), and stone entered the lexicon, often pronounced with a local flair. The Jargon was a living language, constantly absorbing new words as new people arrived, including terms from Hawaiian (Kanaka), Spanish, and even Chinese.
Simple, Yet Skookum: How the Jargon Works
Chinook Jargon’s beauty lies in its simplicity. With a core vocabulary of only about 500 words, speakers had to be creative. Words were often flexible and took on multiple meanings depending on context.
- Wawa: Could mean “to speak”, “a word”, “a language”, “a sound”, or “to ask”.
- Tumtum: Literally “heart”, but it meant so much more: the mind, will, opinion, or feelings. “Nika tumtum” means “I think” or “I feel”.
- Tenas: Meant “small”, “a child”, or “a little”. To say “very small”, you’d simply repeat it: tenas-tenas.
This use of reduplication for emphasis or pluralization was a common feature. Grammar was stripped to the bare essentials. There were no difficult verb conjugations. Tense was indicated with adverbs: alki for the future (“by and by”) and ahnkuttie for the past (“long ago”).
A few sample phrases show its direct and expressive nature:
“Kloshe mika chako”. (It is good that you have come.)
“Mika tiki muckamuck”? (Do you want food?)
“Hyas kloshe”! (Very good!)
“Nika potlatch chok”. (I will give you water.)
The word skookum, meaning strong, powerful, or brave, is one of the few Jargon words that has survived in the regional English dialect of the Pacific Northwest, a testament to the language’s former influence.
Beyond Trade: A Language of Culture and Change
Chinook Jargon quickly evolved beyond a simple trade language. It became the language of work in salmon canneries, logging camps, and on ranches. It was used to negotiate treaties (often with disastrous results for Indigenous peoples due to misunderstandings), preach sermons, and tell stories around the campfire. Missionaries even printed prayer books and Bibles in the Jargon, and a French priest, Jean-Marie Le Jeune, developed a shorthand writing system for it called Kamloops Wawa.
In some unique communities, like the multi-tribal reservation at Grand Ronde, Oregon, Chinook Jargon went through a process called creolization. Children began learning it from birth as their first language, developing it into a more complex and grammatically rich creole that served as a unifying tongue for people from dozens of different linguistic backgrounds.
The Fading of the Wawa and Its Modern Revival
By the early 20th century, the Jargon was in steep decline. The forces that had created it were disappearing. The fur trade was over, and a flood of English-speaking settlers made English the dominant language of power and commerce. Crucially, brutal assimilationist policies, particularly the residential and boarding school systems in both the U.S. and Canada, punished Indigenous children for speaking their native languages, and the Jargon was suppressed along with them.
But the language never truly died. Today, Chinook Jargon is experiencing a powerful revival. The Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde have been at the forefront of this effort, running language immersion programs and creating new generations of speakers. Dictionaries, apps, and online classes are making the Wawa accessible to anyone interested in this vital piece of Pacific Northwest heritage.
Chinook Jargon is more than a historical curiosity. It’s a powerful story of connection and adaptation, a testament to the human drive to communicate across vast cultural and linguistic divides. It is the sound of an entire era, a shared language that, for a time, bound a region together.