THE CHINOOK LANGUAGE OR JARGON. 259 



Kendrick, from Boston, Americans have always been termed in 

 Chinook "Boston men," while "Boston Illahee" ("illahee," the 

 ground, or earth) stands for the "United States." An English- 

 man is " King George." 



With few exceptions, the words of French origin begin with 

 the letter I, that is, the article " le " or " la " ; there is no article in 

 Chinook except as found joined or prefixed with these French 

 words. The following are some of the most common : " La pome," 

 apple ; " la chaise," chair ; " la chandelle," candle ; " la table " ; " la 

 bal," bullet, ball ; " la messe," mass ; " la pote," door ; " la pois," 

 peas ; " diaub " (diable), devil ; " marsi " (merci), thanks. 



It is impossible, without a knowledge of the two dialects, 

 Chinook and Chehalis, to say what native words in the Chinook 

 jargon belong to each ; the Chinook, however, predominates. 



Many words have two or more equivalents ; as, for example, 

 " chickamen," which means iron, any metal, metallic money ; with 

 " dollar," it is silver ; " chuck " stands for water, river, stream ; 

 " salt chuck " is the sea ; " skookum chuck," a rapid ; " solleks 

 chuck," a rough sea. " Tum-tum " is the heart, will, opinion. 

 " Mamook tum-tum " means to make up one's mind ; " mamook 

 kloshe tum-tum," to make friends or peace. " Polaklie " is night, 

 dark, darkness. "Till" means tired, heavy, a weight. "Wau- 

 wau " is to talk, speak, call, ask, tell, answer, conversation ; " cultus 

 waU-wau " is idle talk, nonsense. 



Onomatopoeia is frequent in Chinook. "Hee-hee," means 

 laughter ; " Kah-kah," a crow ; " moos moos," a cow ; " kal-ak-a- 

 la-ma," a goose ; " shwahkuk," a frog ; all of these are imitations 

 of natural sounds. These words are native, and their origin is 

 due to the disposition to give an imitative complexion to those 

 words which signify matters recognized by the ear, thus bringing 

 about a similarity between the sign and the thing it stands for. 

 But we have to do here with Chinook, not the " bow-wow theory " 

 of the origin of language. 



But few of the verbs are English, though many are formed by 

 prefixing " mamook " to make, or do (native), to an English word ; 

 as " mamook pent," to paint ; " mamook warm," to heat ; " mamook 

 bloom " (broom), to sweep ; " mamook wash," to wash. It is a 

 curious fact that neither the verb " to be," nor any of its moods 

 or tenses, are found in Chinook. All verbs are understood wher- 

 ever necessary in a sentence. There are a number of words which 

 are used indifferently as nouns and verbs, though there are but 

 few which are used solely as verbs. 



One form of pronoun answers for the personal and possessive. 

 " Nika " is I and mine ; " mika," thou and thine ; " yahka," he, his ; 

 " nesika " is we, us, ours ; " mesika," you, yours ; " klaska," they, 

 theirs. 



