Editing Chinook Jargon (section)

=== Evolution ===
There is some controversy about the origin of the Jargon, but the consensus is that the pidgin peaked in use during the 19th century. During this era, many dictionaries were published to help settlers interact with the [[First Nations in Canada|First Nations]] people living in the Pacific Northwest. Local settler families exchanged communiqués that were stylishly composed entirely in "the Chinook." Many residents of the [[British Columbia]] city of [[Vancouver]] spoke Chinook Jargon as their [[first language]], even using it at home in preference to English. Among the first Europeans to use Chinook Jargon were [[merchant|traders]], [[animal trapping|trappers]], [[voyageurs]], [[coureur des bois|coureurs des bois]], and [[Catholic missionaries]].<ref>[http://www.metismuseum.ca/media/document.php/149202.Chinook%20Jargon.pdf Goulet, George and Terry Goulet.]</ref><ref>{{cite web|last=Barkwell|first= Lawrence J.|url=https://www.scribd.com/document/142973621/Chinook-Metis-Trade-Language|title=Chinook: Metis Trade Language|website=[[Scribd]]}}</ref>

The original Jargon was a pidgin, originally used as a second language by speakers of other Native American languages in the area. It had sentence-initial negation, which is atypical of regional languages, and also had no typical [[Polysynthetic language|complex morphology]]. It had an [[Subject–verb–object word order|SVO structure]], while [[Chinookan languages|Chinookan]] and [[Salishan languages]] were VSO. However, local [[Athabaskan languages]] were SOV, so this was probably a result of contact — a cross-language compromise. Only later did Chinook Jargon acquire significant English and French lexical items.

The 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 Jargon is believed to have contained [[Hawaiian language|Hawaiian]] words or Hawaiian styles of pronunciation. In some areas, the adoption of further non-aboriginal words has been observed. During the [[gold rush]], Chinook Jargon was used in British Columbia at first by gold prospectors and [[Royal Engineers, Columbia Detachment|Royal Engineers]]; as industry developed, Chinook Jargon was often used by cannery workers, hop pickers, loggers, fishermen, and ranchers. It is possible that, at one point, the population of British Columbia spoke Chinook Jargon more than any other language, even English.<ref name="Barman 1991">{{cite book |last1=Barman |first1=Jean |title=The West Beyond the West: A History of British Columbia |date=2007 |publisher=University of Toronto Press |location=Toronto |isbn=9780802093097 |pages=180–181 |edition=3rd}}</ref> Historian Jane Barman wrote:<ref name="Barman 1991" />
{{Blockquote|text=The persistence of everyday relationships between Natives and Europeans is embodied in Chinook. Emerging out of early contact and the fur trade, the Chinook jargon possesses at most 700 words derived in approximately equal proportions from the powerful Chinook Indians of the lower Columbia, from the Nootka people of Vancouver Island, and from French and English... jargon provided 'an important vehicle of communication for trading & ordinary purposes.'&nbsp;... <p>Chinook was the language of instruction in the school for Indian children that Hills established near Victoria in 1860.&nbsp;... Chinook entered the mainstream.&nbsp;... It was only after mid-century, when almost all Indian adults had learned basic English in school, that everyday use of Chinook died out in British Columbia.</p>}}

A heavily creolized form of Chinook Jargon is still spoken as a first language by some residents of [[Oregon]], much as the [[Métis people (Canada)|Métis]] language [[Michif]] is spoken in [[Canada]].{{Clarify|reason=Much as in?|date=March 2024}} Hence, Chinuk Wawa, as it is known in Oregon, is now a [[creole language]], distinct from the varied pronunciation of the Chinook Jargon. There is evidence that in some communities (e.g., around [[Fort Vancouver]]) the Jargon had become creolized by the early 19th century, and that would have been among the mixed French/Métis, Algonkian, Scots and Hawaiian populations, as well as among the natives around the Fort. At Grand Ronde, the resettlement of tribes from all over Oregon in a multi-tribal agency led to the use of Chinuk Wawa as a common tongue among the linguistically diverse population. These circumstances led to the creolization of Chinuk Wawa at Grand Ronde.<ref name="zenk">{{Cite book |last=Zenk |first=Henry |title=Chinook Jargon and Native Cultural Persistence in the Grand Ronde Indian Community, 1856-1907: A Special Case of Creolization |publisher=University of Oregon |date=1984}}</ref> There is also evidence that creolization occurred at the [[Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians|Confederated Tribes of Siletz]] reservation paralleling Grand Ronde,<ref>{{cite web |url= http://www.livingtongues.org/hotspots/hotspot.siletz.html |title=Siletz Dee-Ni Talking Online Dictionary Project Western North America |publisher=Living Tongues Institute For Endangered Languages |url-status=dead |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20131110013331/http://www.livingtongues.org/hotspots/hotspot.siletz.html |archive-date=November 10, 2013}}</ref> although, due to language revitalization efforts being focused on the [[Tolowa language]], Chinuk fell out of use.{{Citation needed|date=March 2024}}

No studies of British Columbia versions of the Jargon have demonstrated creolization. The range of varying usages and vocabulary in different regions suggests that localization did occur—although not on the pattern of Grand Ronde where Wasco, Klickitat and other peoples adopted and added to the version of the Jargon that developed there. First-language speakers of the Chinook Jargon were common in BC (native and non-native), until the mid-20th century. After 1850, the Wawa was still used in the United States portion of the Chinook-speaking world, especially in wilderness areas and work environments.<ref name="lillard" /> Local creolization's probably did occur in British Columbia, but recorded materials have not been studied as they were made due to the focus on the traditional aboriginal languages.{{Citation needed|date=August 2008}}

There is a belief that something similar to the Jargon existed before European contact—without European words in its vocabulary.<ref>{{cite book |last=Thomas |first=Edward Harper |title=Chinook: A History and Dictionary |location=Portland, Oregon |publisher=Binfords & Mort |date=1935 |page=10 |isbn=0832302171}}</ref> There is some evidence for a Chinookan-Nuu-chah-nulth [[lingua franca]] in the writings of [[John Jewitt]] and in what is known as the Barclay Sound word-list, from the area of [[Ucluelet]] and [[Port Alberni|Alberni]]. Others{{who|date=November 2012}} believe that the Jargon was formed during contact.<ref name="holton" />

Current scholarly opinion{{who|date=November 2012}} holds that a trade language probably existed before European contact, which began "morphing" into the more familiar Chinook Jargon in the late 1790s, notably at a dinner party at Nootka Sound where Capts [[George Vancouver|Vancouver]] and [[Juan Francisco de la Bodega y Quadra|Bodega y Quadra]] were entertained by Chief Maquinna and his brother Callicum performing a theatrical using mock English and [[mock Spanish]] words and mimicry of European dress and mannerisms. There evidently was Jargon in use in Queen Charlotte, but this "[[Haida language|Haida]] [[Jargon]]" is not known to have shared anything in common with Chinook Jargon or with the Nootkan-Chinookan "proto-jargon", which is its main foundation.