Talk:Wp/chn/Main Page

I've managed to obtain translator status on translatewiki.net for Chinook Jargon. I am now translating the most important MediaWiki messages into Chinook Jargon, although I doubt that my translations are anywhere near perfect quality. I hope I can get someone who knows Chinook Jargon better than I do on board to help proofread my translations! POSSUM chowg (talk) 21:32, 17 January 2024 (UTC)

Dave Robertson (the world's leading living authority on Duployan-Shorthand Chinook Wawa orthography) says in email, "On the test page, the shorthand message is legible but it welcomes us to the Chinuk Wawa "Hawkipidia"." --Haruo 9 July 2005 16:46 (UTC)

Of course, I'm still a sort of "chee-chako" to both wiki editing and Chinook Jargon, but I never thought I would pick up a language so quickly. I even taught some of my pals a few words. However, my main resource for the language is a nineteenth-century dictionary that you can find on the University of Washington website. The modern-day Kaltash Wawa web-magazine has also been a big help. I'm still not great at reading the Duployan "Wawa" shorthand, but I'm getting there. As of now, my pages are written in a sloppy compromise between the common spelling seen in 1800's-early-1900's Chinook records and the Grande Ronde spelling... POSSUM chowg (talk) 05:14, 7 December 2023 (UTC)

Haruo? Haruo Aoki? The linguist who worked on Nez Perce? Inspiring... --Nvolut (talk) 10:15, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

This is probably a good place and time to begin discussing orthographies, as they are a real source of constant potential problems. My personal preference would be to set the standard somewhere near Grand Ronde, but to have a Special Page devoted to cross-referencing and disambiguation of other (Latin-alphabet) common spellings. I really doubt if it makes sense to use the Shorthand (though it would make for an intriguing logo!) as very few living people read it with any alacrity and, as far as I know, there still isn't a good Unicode font that supports it. However, there certainly should be full information (in CWawa) here on the Shorthand, with copious examples from Kamloops Wawa and the epistolary archives. But even using GR spelling (and if we're doing that we might as well use munk properly, too!) raises the question of fonts (and given fonts, keyboards). Ideas? --Haruo 9 July 2005 16:46 (UTC)

I think that once the usage customs of this wiki are established, fonts etc. will follow. In my opinion the Grand Ronde would be great for titles, links, etc. since so much work has gone into it already, there is an ascii version, and a lot of people are aware of it. For the body, which is more conversational, intermixing all the various forms of Wawa, such as Kamloops Wawa can add richness and character. --ShiningBlueGlacier

Masi, ShiningBlueGlacier! --Haruo 05:16, 10 July 2005 (UTC)

tSinuk => chinuk

hayu Lush, nayka nanich ukuk. the orthography is already being improved in the direction of GR ASCII. Masi, 24.225.83.227! --Haruo 06:25, 11 July 2005 (UTC)

Re: Shorthand

You say that only a few people in the world can read shorthand... well, how many people worldwide are fluent enough to understand an entire encyclopedia in Chinuk Wawa in the first place?

As I understand it, the purpose of a Chinook Wawa Wikipedia wouldn't be to distribute information to people for whom Chinook Wawa is the primary language.

In the interest of authenticity, we should at least make an attempt to use shorthand, ALONGSIDE Latin. --Node ue 07:09, 11 July 2005 (UTC)

My understanding is this: Historically the center of Chinuk Wawa usage was on or near the Pacific coast from Oregon to British Columbia, with the earliest use not surprisingly near the mouth of the Columbia (up to Fort Vancouver area) in the area where the Old Chinook was still spoken as the primary language of some groups. The shorthand, on the other hand, was a relatively short-lived (but vigorous) phenomenon centered in Kamloops, BC. Because of its adoption by many BC Indians for epistolary use, and its support by the local Catholic diocese as a language of publication (including the newspaper Kamloops Wawa and diocesan bulletins) there is a sizable body of text extant in this form. However, it has not been in practical use for many decades.

On the other hand, at Grand Ronde (in Oregon) there is actually an up-and-coming generation of children who have had immersion preschool in the Grand Ronde version of the language, which is creolized and has a readily usable basically-ASCII orthography that is much more practical than the older traditional anglicizations that served outside the Kamloops area in the heyday of the pidgin.

Therefore, I do think there are people for whom Chinuk Wawa is a (not the) primary language and to whom it may therefore be useful to use the Wikipedia to distribute information. And I do think that as the primary group of present-day users of the language, the Grand Ronde community's orthographic (and other linguistic) preferences ought to be honored in the Wikipedia.

I don't think the community of shorthand users is large enough, even if the font issues were resolved, to support the creation of more than a token Wikipedia (I could be wrong; Dave Robertson's opinion would carry great weight with me here). Certainly the shorthand should be mentioned, and perhaps some sort of parallel texting might be an option where users develop such, and if and when the test Wikipedia is well-enough developed to go "live" perhaps there should be some sort of vote of users to see whether the Logo should incorporate shorthand (I like the idea myself). But I think making the Wikipedia only, or even primarily, shorthand based will simply kill it on the vine. The situation is quite different from that of Cherokee, where if there is to be a Wikipedia it probably should be primarily syllabic. I'm not sure where the issue stands with Cree, Inuktitut etc. --Haruo 20:39, 11 July 2005 (UTC)

More to Node ue's point, are there any actual members of the Grande Ronde community who have contributed to this wiki? Because while their variant of the language is certainly valid, it is quite unlike the standard familiar to new learners, ie the phonetic versions in lejeune et al. I am not sure how this topic became politicized, but it's pretty clear that while GR members are free to write in their own orthography, the most broad and inclusive approach must be transcribed for the most part in the 19th century convention. —Muckapædia 15h40, 9e Mai 2006 (EST)

Name of page

Boy, I guess there's no point in searching for "Chinook" in MetaWiki, is there? And it looks like the linguistics/GR crowd has made this their own turf; it's when I see self-flatulence on Dave Robertson being "the world's leading authority on Duployan Shorthand" that I have to retch. You guys are really on turf-building campaigns, aren't you? I've met a couple of elderly ladies who write and read the Duployan and have since their girlhood. I'd say there more experts than Dave ever will be. Of course, these septuagenarians were white, not native, so even though they learned it in childhood obviously, according to the historical judgements laid down by modern Chinookology, because they were white their pronunciation is of no relevance or interest. I imagine the same would apply to any Scandinavian or Chinese or Hawaiian users of the Jargon, never mind the Scots and others. But NOOOOOOOO, we have to assert that this is primarily a native language, don't we, as in Dave's assertion in the recent article in The Tyee? Repeat a lie often enough, it doesn't become truth; you just convince more people that it is and the actual truth doesn't matter any more.

This MetaWiki is obviously the turf of the Oregonian/Grand Ronde creole version of the Jargon, so I won't intervene otherwise. But be advised that in main Wikispace the bowdlerization of regional history and society that the ongoing official Chinookology agenda has sought to set in motion won't hold, short of major arbitration proceedings in Wiki. Five other BC Chinookers feel the same way, including founders of the CJ online group which Dave R. made his own private bailiwick, even enlisting someone to write a letter of condemnation who had never been in the group before, and to which I was not allowed to respond. Oh yeah, you know who this is now; but never mistake my silence in recent years as though it were surrender. Modern academics like to play po-mo games with history and culture all the time; but not with MY history and MY culture you're not going to. You're on my turf now, Dave, living in BC and all and daring to pontificate on BC history, while actually only seeking ways to justify the existing linguistics agenda established between you and Henry and Tony. It's all pretty sickening what you guys pulled on me, but what's even more sickening is the way that you're retooling BC history in order to justify your own cultural agenda.......Skookum1 00:44, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

I think we should use the broadest/most common usages first - eg Gill/Shaw, then deversify, have postings in Gill, Duployan and GR spellings. Let folks choose, it's all legit. We just need to get people using the wawa, not wait. Hell I think Tony J at GR even said this. The GR have specific needs which I don't think anyone wishes to tread upon, but we should just start.

Tsiatko 22:51, 19 May, 2006

Why has this been deleted?

Someone just deleted this Test project. Could somebody restore it? -- 84.178.250.162 20:50, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

No, because we move all pages from Test-wp/ to Wp/, so you can find this test on Wp/wawa. SPQRobin 21:18, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Ah, I thought it has been deleted completely. No wonder I couldn't find it, it was orphaned. -- 84.178.254.247 15:45, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Chinook Jargon phrasebook / online glossary

• Klahowya kopa Chinook Wawa, Chinook Jargon phrasebook / online glossary. Quite useful! Djembayz (talk) 13:32, 26 May 2012 (UTC)

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Ooh! Thank you so much! - The Skook