Editing Chinook Jargon (section)

===Origins===
Whether Jargon was a post-contact or pre-contact language has been the subject of debate among scholars.<ref name="harris" /> In 2016, linguist John Lyon studied the word lists collected by [[Francis Drake]] and his crew on the 1579 voyage that took them to the Oregon coast. Lyon compared the seven words and phrases found on the Native vocabulary list recorded by Drake and his men with the vocabularies of Native languages on the west coast (Lyon 2016).<ref>"Francis Drake's 1579 Voyage: Assessing Linguistic Evidence for an Oregon Landing", ''Anthropological Linguistics'' 58, no. 1.</ref>

Of the five single words on the list, Lyon found that the word ''petáh,'' which was the Native word for a root that can be eaten raw or made into cakes called ''cheepe'', were meaning matches for the Jargon words 'wapato' (a root that tastes like a potato) and 'chaplill', the word for the bread cakes made from this root (Lyon 2016:41). The word recorded for 'king' by Drake was 'hióh' (recorded also as 'hioghe'). Lyon thought it was a match for the Wawa word hi-yú, meaning a gathering, or much, plenty. Lyon was not able to conclude whether Drake encountered people of the Northwest Coast.

In 2021, Melissa Darby studied the ethnographic records and the records left by Francis Drake's expedition. She found new evidence that the people Drake met were speaking some Jargon words to Drake and his men.<ref>Melissa Darby, "New Light on the Antiquity of Chinook Jargon (Chinuk Wawa) from Francis Drake's Exploration of the Northwest Coast", ''Journal of Northwest Anthropology'', Fall 2021, Vol. 55 No. 2.</ref>

The pre-contact hypothesis states that the language developed prior to European settlement as an intra-indigenous [[contact language]] in a region marked by divisive geography and intense linguistic diversity. It eventually expanded to incorporate elements of European languages, with approximately 15 percent of its lexicon derived from [[French language|French]].<ref>{{cite web |last1=Zenk |first1=Henry |title=Chinook Jargon (Chinuk Wawa) |url= https://www.oregonencyclopedia.org/articles/chinook_jargon/#.YEWynZ1KhPY |website=Oregon Encyclopedia |publisher=Oregon Historical Society |access-date=March 7, 2021}}</ref><ref name="holton">{{cite book |last=Holton |first=Jim |date=1999 |title=Chinook Jargon: The Hidden Language of the Pacific Northwest}}</ref> The Jargon also acquired [[English language|English]] loanwords, and its written form is entirely in the [[Duployan shorthand]] created by French priest [[Émile Duployé]].<ref>{{cite book |title=Early Vancouver |first=J. S. "Skit" |last=Matthews |publisher=City of Vancouver Archives |date=1936}}</ref><ref name="lillard">{{Cite book |last1=Lillard |first1=Charles |author1-link=Charles Lillard |first2=Terry |last2=Glavin |title=A Voice Great Within Us |publisher=New Star Books |date=1998 |location=Vancouver |isbn=0921586566 |url= https://archive.org/details/voicegreatwithin0000lill}}</ref>

The post-contact hypothesis suggests the language originated in Nootka Sound after the arrival of Russian and Spanish traders as a means of communicating between them and indigenous peoples. It eventually spread further south due to commercial use.<ref name="harris" /> [[University of Ottawa]] linguist George Lang has argued for this conclusion.<ref name="lanngg">{{cite book |last1=Lang |first1=George |title=Making Wawa: The genesis of Chinook Jargon |date=2008 |publisher=UBC Press |ref=langg}}</ref>

Linguist Barbara Harris suggests a dual genesis, positing that both origins probably have some legitimacy and that the two varieties eventually blended together.<ref name="harris">{{cite journal |last1=Harris |first1=Barbara |title=Chinook Jargon: Arguments for a Pre-Contact Origin |journal=Pacific Coast Philology |date=September 1994 |volume=29 |issue=1 |pages=28–36 |doi=10.2307/1316345 |jstor=1316345 |url= https://www.jstor.org/stable/1316345|url-access=subscription }}</ref>

By 1840, Chinook Jargon had [[creolization|creolized]] into a native language for some speakers.<ref>{{Cite book |url= https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_yRvZM3mN-U4C |title=United States Exploring Expedition: During the Years 1838, 1839, 1840, 1842 Under the Command of Charles Wilkes, U.S.N.. Ethnography and philology |last=Hale |first=Horatio |date=1846 |publisher=Lea and Blanchard}}</ref>