Chinook Pidgin -Tsinuk Wawa - Trade Language on the West Coast

konoway tillicums klatawa kunamokst klaska mamook okoke huloima chee illahie" - Chinook pidgin meaning "everyone was thrown together to make this strange new country."
~from the poem Rain Language

Chinook, a pidgin language used for trade along the Washington state coast was derived from the language of the Native American tribe of the same name. History has it that the pidgin form of the language developed because the Chinook were too arrogant to teach it to anyone else. Chinook pidgin (or jargon) became widely used once Europeans arrived in the area. The Chinook language died out early in the 20th century, but there are still remnants of Chinook pidgin in American vocabulary.

Chinook pidgin which flourished from 1858 to 1900, was a combination of English, French, Chinook and Nootka (another Native American tribe of the Northwestern coast) and other Salishan languages (the collective languages of Northwestern coast tribes). It was necessitated and facilitated by the fur trade.

Tyee Lake in Concrete, Washington:


Tyee is the Chinook Pidgin word for Chief. And that is a beautiful lake!

Note: Learn more about Chinook pidgin - including numerous examples and translations.

Something else I learned: "Mucky-muck," a word I've used to describe bosses and other important people (usually derisively) is actually from a Chinook pidgin phrase: hayo makamak, literally meaning "plenty to eat."