Dictionary of the Chinook Jargon, or Indian Trade Language, of the North Pacific Coast

This dictionary captures a language on the edge of disappearance. By 1871, when this volume was compiled, the Chinook Jargon, a pidgin that emerged from centuries of contact between Indigenous peoples, French Canadians, English traders, and American settlers along the North Pacific Coast, was already fading from everyday use. What remains is a living fossil of one of North America's most remarkable linguistic experiments: a working trade language that allowed speakers of Salish, French, English, and dozens of other tongues to negotiate, joke, argue, and connect. The book is organized in two parts: Chinook to English, then English to Chinook, each entry followed by example sentences that reveal the texture of daily life. These aren't dry linguistic specimens. They capture the particular slang of fur traders, the intimate terms of Indigenous-European families, the crude humor of sailors. A window into a world where cultures collided and somehow found common ground, preserved here for posterity.