In the 1800s, there were over a hundred different dialects spoken in the Pacific Northwest. Chinook was one of them.  Not to be confused with the more complex "Old Chinook" language spoken by the people living along the Columbia River, Chinook, or Chinook Jargon was an agglutinous, or "Pidgin" language, meaning its words were composed of morpheme, or word-element sequences,   In the Chinook dialect of the Wishram,  the word acimluda ("He will give it to you") is composed of the elements a- "future," -c- "he," -i- "him," -m- "thee," -1- "to," -ud- "give," and -a "future." 

Chinook Jargon, similar in syntax to European languages, was easily learnt by settlers and explorers;  people from Alaska to Southern California were speaking Chinook Jargon, which transformed itself over the years by adding elements of European and other aboriginal languages. After all, Chinook Jargon was the language of trade. 

Chinook Jargon was also used in industries like fishing, sealing, logging and the gathering of crops, and Missionaries in their efforts to convert the Native Americans, went as far as to translate Hymns and bible texts into Chinook Jargon.

As the world economy developed, and trade-ways opened from all corners of the globe, as railway tracks made the land easier to travel, the Chinook Jargon faded into obsolescence.

Inverse population growth saw the Native Americans numbers dwarfed by the White Man's and soon it was the Natives who had to learn English.

Once the language of trade, then the working class, Chinook Jargon is now seldom heard, save for ceremonial usage. 

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Last modified: April 23, 2001