258 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



respect, is like the lingua franca of the Mediterranean coast, and 

 the " pidgin " English of the East Indies and China. 



A century ago, in the year 1787, two vessels, the Columbia, 

 commanded by John Kendrick, and the Washington, by Robert 

 Gray, left Boston on a voyage to the northwest coast of America, 

 to open up a fur trade, and, if possible, to trade with China. At 

 the rendezvous in Nootka Sound, to the westward of Vancouver 

 Island, which latter is a part of what is now British Columbia, 

 the people on the vessels acquired a number of words used by the 

 natives. The expedition going afterward up the Columbia River 

 to Oregon, they carried these Indian words with them there, 

 which, added to some common and easily pronounced English 

 words, formed the beginning and basis of Chinook. Its vocabu- 

 lary, however, was scant until the coming of the Astor expedition 

 and the settlement of Astoria. It was then enlarged by numerous 

 English words, together with many of French origin, or of the 

 Canadian patois. The dialects of the Chinook and Chehalis tribes, 

 which ranged about southeastern Oregon, furnished many words 

 for its development. The Hudson Bay and Northwest Companies, 

 and the early settlers in Oregon, further added to it ; it came into 

 use between Indians of different tribes, and even between Ameri- 

 cans and Canadians ; it spread to Puget Sound, and found its way, 

 with trade, up the Pacific coast and rivers, as explorers and settlers 

 advanced, gradually spreading until its use reached its present 

 extent. 



Chinook is not a written language, and the spelling given here 

 is purely phonetic. Ot the five or six hundred words in common 

 use, about one third are of English and French derivation ; a few 

 can not be traced to any source, and the rest are taken from the 

 Chehalis and Chinook dialects. 



No words beginning with the letter r are used ; the sound of 

 that letter is modified into that of I or p, the pronunciation of 

 which is the easier. This matter of pronunciation, and not the 

 impression made upon the ear, seems in all tongues to be the true 

 foundation of euphony. There are no words in Chinook which 

 begin with the letters /, .;, q, u, v, x, or z ; but two begin with g, 

 "get up," and "glease" (grease). 



Turning to the words derived from the English, we find " bit," 

 meaning dime, the bit being the general designation on the Pacific 

 coast for a ten-cent piece, and " tea," "sun," "short," " papa," "ole- 

 man/' "musket," "smoke," "man," "soap," "paint," "spoon," etc., 

 all of which need no translation. Rice becomes "lice"; fish, 

 "pish"; fire, "piah"; rum, "lum"; rope, "lope"; cry, "cly"; 

 dry, " d'ly." A cat is " puss-puss." 



The first white men with whom the Indians in Oregon asso- 

 ciated intimately being those of the expedition under Gray and 



