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1863.
Some years ago the Smithsonian Institution printed a small vocabulary ofthe Chinook Jargon, furnished by Dr. B.R. Mitchell, of the U.S. Navy, andprepared, as we afterwards learned, by Mr. Lionnet, a Catholic priest, forhis own use while studying the language at Chinook Point. It was submittedby the Institution, for revision and preparation for the press, to thelate Professor W.W. Turner. Although it received the critical examinationof that distinguished philologist, and was of use in directing attentionto the language, it was deficient in the number of words in use, containedmany which did not properly belong to the Jargon, and did not give thesources from which the words were derived.
Mr. Hale had previously given a vocabulary and account of this Jargon inhis "Ethnography of the United States Exploring Expedition," which wasnoticed by Mr. Gallatin in the Transactions of the American EthnologicalSociety, vol. ii. He, however, fell into some errors in his derivation ofthe words, chiefly from ignoring the Chihalis element of the Jargon, andthe number of words given by him amounted only to about two hundred andfifty.
A copy of Mr. Lionnet's vocabulary having been sent to me, with a requestto make such corrections as it might require, I concluded not merely tocollate the words contained in this and other printed and manuscriptvocabularies, but to ascertain, so far as possible, the languages whichhad contributed to it, with the original Indian words. This had become themore important, as its extended use by different tribes had led toethnological errors in the classing together of essentially distinctfamilies. Dr. Scouler, whose vocabularies were among the earliest bases ofcomparison of the languages of the northwest coast, assumed a number ofwords, which he found indiscriminately employed by the Nootkans ofVancouver Island, the Chinooks of the Columbia, and the intermediatetribes, to belong alike to their several languages, and exhibit analogiesbetween them accordingly.[A] On this idea, among other points of fanciedresemblance, he founded his family of Nootka-Columbians,—one which hasbeen adopted by Drs. Pritchard and Latham, and has caused very greatmisconception. Not only are those languages entirely distinct, but theNootkans differ greatly in physical and mental characteristics from thelatter. The analogies between the Chinook and the other nativecontributors to the Jargon are given hereafter.
[Footnote A: Journal Royal Geographical Society of London, vol. xi.,1841.]
The origin of this Jargon, a conventional language similar to the LinguaFranca of the Mediterranean, the Negro-English-Dutch of Surinam, thePigeon English of China, and several other mixed tongues, dates back tot