644 PHILOLOGY. 



The latter term was used by a native who saw the geologist collecting specimens of that 

 description ; whether it was composed on the spot, or was already in use, is not known. 

 Haiu-haus (many houses) is the common term for town; kol-ilehi, wam-ilehi, (cold 

 country, warm country,) mean summer and winter ; kolsik-ivamsik (cold sickness warm 

 sickness) pronounced as one word, is the term for fever and ague ; kwapet-kumataks (no 

 longer know) means to forget. Tanas-man (little man) is the term for boy ; tanas-kliitsh- 

 man, for girl. The usual expression for God is sdkali-taie, lit., above-chief, or the chief 

 on high. Turn, heavy noise, and water, make tum-w&ta, a cataract ; tul-Udk (heavy 

 water) is ice. 



The place at which the Jargon is most in use is at Fort Vancouver. At this establish- 

 ment five languages are spoken by about five hundred persons,-^namely, the English, 

 the Canadian French, the Tshinuk, the Cree or Knisteneau, and the Hawaiian. The 

 three former are already accounted for; the Cree is the language spoken in the families 

 of many officers and men belonging to the Hudson's Bay Company, who have married 

 half-breed wives at the posts east of the Rocky Mountains. The Hawaiian is in use 

 among about a hundred natives of the Sandwich Islands who are employed as labourers 

 about the fort. Besides these five languages, there are many others, the Tsihailish, 

 Walawala, Kalapuya, Naskwale, &c., which are daily heard from natives who visit the 

 fort for the purpose of trading. Among all these individuals, there are very few who 

 understand more than two languages, and many who speak only their own. The 

 general communication is, therefore, maintained chiefly by means of the Jargon, which 

 may be said to be the prevailing idiom. There are Canadians and half-breeds married 

 to Chinook women, who can only converse with their wives in this speech, and it is the 

 fact, strange as it may seem, that many young children are growing up to whom this 

 factitious language is really the mother tongue, and who speak it with more readiness 

 and perfection than any other. Could the state of things which now exists there be 

 suffered to remain for a century longer, the result might be the formation of a race and 

 idiom whose affinities would be a puzzle to ethnographers. The tide of population, how- 

 ever, which is now turning in that direction, will soon overwhelm and absorb all these 

 scattered fragments of peculiar lineage and speech, leaving no trace behind but such as 

 may exist on the written page. It has, therefore, seemed advisable, at this time, to 

 preserve these details in regard to a subject of some interest in itself, from its singularity, 

 and which may be of no slight value from its bearing on certain points of philological 

 investigation. 



In addition to the examples of construction given in the foregoing pages, the following 

 colloquial phrases, written down as they were heard from the natives and others versed 

 in the idiom, will show the manner in which it is employed as a medium of ordinary 

 intercourse. 



Na, sites ! Ho ! friend ! 



Klahaweam How do you do? (the common salutation.) 



Kith maifca haus ? Where is thy house 1 



Kah maika klatawa ? Where art thou going? 



