Chinook Language

The Chinook nation was a group of Native Americans that inhabited the Pacific Northwest of the United States, residing in the Lower Columbia River Valley in Washington and Oregon. The nation of Chinook are comprised of the Clatsop, Cathlamet, Multnomah, Watlala, Clowwewalla, Clackamas, Chilluckittequa, and Wasco tribes. The Chinook language was made up of several different dialects. Chinookan, as it is referred to, is a small family of 3 languages that contain these different dialects. The three Chinook languages are known as Kathlamet, Lower Chinook (spoken by the Clatsop), and Upper Chinook (spoken by the Clakamas, Multnomah, and Wasco tribes). Many of these languages are now extinct, or highly endangered. The Coastal Chinook language has died out, both the language dialect Wasco and Wishram are in danger of extinction, with 6 and 2 speakers respectively.

The Chinook language evolved through the years, taking influence from European settlers' languages, and providing the ability for the groups to communicate with one another, and establish communities that could work together. This new language, known as Chinook Jargon, is related to, but the same as, the original native language of the Chinook people. It does take a good bit of its vocabulary from the original Chinook language. The Chinook Jargon is an agglutinous language, in which words are formed of morpheme (the smallest unit of language which carries meaning) chains.

The Chinook Jargon was used mainly as a trade language. It spread quickly up the west coast of the United States from Oregon to Washington State to British Columbia, and as far as Alaska. It was used by the native groups and European settlers who worked in various industries, including as traders, trappers, and Catholic missionaries. It was also used by gold prospectors, loggers, fisherman, and ranchers. The height of its use was the 19th century. There were even dictionaries published in order to assist the settlers in communication with the native groups in this Chinook language. However, there was no official language, written or spoken, and eventually its use was discouraged, and considered to be slang (in the early 20th century).

This reinvented Chinook language of Chinook Jargon, whether a proper language or not, was still the working language of the region for a long while. It help bridged the cultural and language gap among the hugely multiethnic workforces. Today, Chinook Jargon is considered a piece of the region's cultural fabric and it has thus remained alive to some small degree. It's multicultural consideration and functionality make it worth remembering at the very least.

Some believe the origin of the Chinook Jargon occurred even before the Europeans settled in the region. Perhaps this was to bridge the communications gap among the native tribes and their varying dialects. In any event, a trade language of some kind more than likely existed. Others, however, believe that this Chinook language formed out of European contact with the native groups. A testament to this theory could be the heavy influence of the French language on much of the vocabulary of the Chinook Jargon.

The Chinook Nation, comprised of several groups of native peoples, was a group accustomed to the rigors of living in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States who spoke varying versions of a common Chinook language, and might not have been able to communicate among each other. Their lifestyle, which included hunting, fishing, and trapping, would have necessitated a common language (or jargon) in order to communicate with one another. Thus, the Chinook Jargon might have been born, out of this need to communicate and trade with each other. When the Europeans settled in the region, their need to survive would have required some immersion into the native way of life, through hunting, trapping, fishing, and language. Therefore the Chinook Jargon evolved into a working language that allowed the many ethnic groups to communicate with each other and work together. The Chinook language developed from an array of native tongues into a multicultural and highly functional working language that is still recognized today.