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MAY 1, 2001
Giinuk Wawa language;
Lost and Found?
Dictionary is the first of its kind.
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By Justin Phillips
Communication is everything.
Without it, we wouldn't be here.
Until recently, the Chinuk Wawa
or Chinook Jargon language was in
jeopardy of being lost forever.
It is like a person with no voice.
With over 30 years of experience
combined, Tony Johnson, Tribal Lan
guage Specialist and friend Henry
Zenk, a consultant in the Northwest,
have produced a 2,600 word Chinuk
Wawa dictionary.
The dictionary has two main sec
tions: Chinuk Wawa to English and
English to Chinuk Wawa. ,
Johnson started building a data
base of words and definitions in early
1998.
Zenk wrote his doctoral dissertation
on Grand Ronde Chinuk Wawa and
on the persistence of the language
in Grand Ronde.
"He had given the best description
of the language in Chinuk Wawa as
used in Grand Ronde," said Johnson.
This dictionary is intended to serve
as a reference for finding many of the
words and expressions once heard
daily in the vernacular Chinuk Wawa
of the Grand Ronde Community.
Johnson and Zenk also allowed in a
. few expressions recorded from Indi
ans in nearby related communities.
The dictionary highlights the
Chinuk Wawa of Tribal Elders not
only with respect to the words and
expressions selected for inclusion.
The alphabet itself is modeled after
the pronunciations of the oldest flu
ent speakers recorded.
"We have tried to make the alpha
bet as 'user friendly' as possible, how
ever, recognizing not only that an
authentic Indian pronunciation of
Chinuk Wawa is diflicult to learn, but
that one does not have to sound ex
actly like a fluent Elder of 50 or more
years ago to at least to be intelligent
in Chinuk Wawa," said Johnson. "We
are building this dictionary as is, that
is, a first ever dictionary of real Grand
Ronde Chinuk Wawa. It is really the
first ever dictionary of Indian Chinuk
Wawa anywhere."
There have been numerous dictio
naries made of Chinuk Wawa, but it
is always the language as used by
non-Indians in the Northwest. It was
originally put together for people
coming to the Northwest who had
reason to deal with Indians.
"The problem with that is the lan
guage doesn't represent the full lan
guage, and it surely doesn't repre
sent the sound system we use," said
Johnson. "Additionally, they are usu
ally full of all the opinions of the au
thor, as to where the language came
from and how it developed, and in
most cases, they are far from the
truth. Unfortunately, that usually
taints people's opinions of the lan
guage. "This is surely not a complete
thing," said Johnson. "It never can
be complete, but the language cer-
Its good that we continue to produce
things like this (dictionary) that counteract
the impressions of our language. When
people can see this and truly hear the
language, they will quickly realize that
we have a pretty fantastic language.
Tony Johnson
tainly fills all the requirements of a
normal language."
They are going to be adding more
examples of the use of the words. The
words will have more sentences as
sociated with them so people will have
a better understanding of how to use
words in sentences.
"At the point where we feel like we
have filled in all the gaps, we will
look at publishing it," said Johnson.
"Our best interests are that the ma
jority of the proceeds come back here
to the Tribe's language program."
In terms of future hope, the program
is working on a list of additions to the
language because naturally there are
all sorts of words we use today that
weren't recorded from the Elders; like
computers or copy machines.
"Those things we are working on,"
said Johnson. "Eventually, one ad
dition to this dictionary will be an
appendix or perhaps maybe a whole
other dictionary just of modern
words."
In order to do that, they will form
a lexicon committee.
"We talked to some Hawaiians, who
are very much successful in revital
izing their language, have similar
lexicon committees and recom
mended that we do the same,"
Johnson quoted. "That's just a way
we can sit down as a group and say
we need words for these."
Another addition to this effort in the
future could be a dictionary of all
Lower Columbia River Chinuk
Wawa. Grand Ronde Chinuk is in
credibly full of its grammar and how
it's used. It is by far the finest vari
ety of Chinuk ever recorded. There
is a lot of vocabulary out there in
other places around the Lower Colum
bia River that isn't used around here.
"What we don't like to do is take the
vocabulary as they come out of the
older dictionaries," replied Johnson.
"They just don't represent how the
language sounded. There are other
real good sources of information on
this language like bilinguals and folks
who had a better system for writing
or were able to find words in some of
the better dictionaries and then trace
them to their roots."
Soon these will be available in simi
lar format for the Chinuk Wawa
classes taught here in Grand Ronde.
"This is something Grand Ronde
should be proud of," said Johnson.
"This language was used everywhere
in the Northwest, from Northern
'ill : f
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California to British Columbia. The
one place in the world where it sur
vived and probably the place it is fin
est in terms of impressibility and
where it's really used is here in
Grand Ronde."
Johnson puts on weekly classes
with our 3 and 4 year-old preschool
children. He also teaches the Uni
versity of Oregon sponsored adult
classes.
"We have a whole number of dif
ferent levels of classes that are gen
erally taught together because it is
just me teaching," said Johnson. "Be
sides just the standard language
classes that I offer on a regular ba
sis, there is a conversation class that
I started last quarter."
Summer will be the start of another
conversation class for Johnson and
his students.
"That is open to everybody," said
Johnson. "Every quarter we have
new students. A lot of folks think that
if the classes have been going on and
have seen people taking them for
years that they can't get started now.
We really do the basics every class
and I usually pull the more advanced
to the side and do advanced work."
The language program just finished
and submitted a grant application for
the funding of a preschool language
immersion project. That program
would start the kids off at preschool
with a full morning of immersion.
"This will be the real answer to sav
ing Chinuk Wawa," said Johnson.
"At the point we can do that, I think
there will be enough enthusiasm
from the results of it, we should be
able to follow the kids and attentively
work with them. The demand for
language activities continues to grow
and grow. We assume we are going
to grow with the demand."
Also in the works at a later date is
a book that has the first ever gram
mar of the language.
When asked if anyone that he
knew could speak as fluently as he,
he replied, "Unfortunately no."
In early April, Tribes in Santa Fe,
New Mexico celebrated a renewal of
Native languages over a weekend at
Santa Fe Indian School, where 185
students, ranging up into adulthood,
made presentations in 13 languages,
from Cherokee and Comanche to
Oneida, Navajo, Apache, Keres and
Tiwa.
The Santa Fe-based Indigenous
Language Institute sponsored the
fair. Of 300 or more indigenous lan
guages, only 175 exist.
"Tribe after Tribe have seen Native
languages disappear," said Inne Yang
Slaughter, who heads the nine year
old Indigenous Language Institute.
"I believe that all the negative feed
back and opinions about the language
is contributed by non-Indians,"
Johnson said. "It's good that we con
tinue to produce things like this (dic
tionary) that counteract the impres
sions of our language. When people
can see this and truly hear the lan
guage, they will quickly realize that
we have a pretty fantastic language."
Even though Tribal members can't
live forever, our culture, traditions
and language can. Don't forget
where you came from.