Teach Yourself
Teach Yourself Northern Chinook Jargon (Year 1)
By David Douglas Robertson, PhD
Tlahowyum! “Hi!”
This course will let you “teach yourself” the unique Northern Dialect of the Chinook Jargon language. (Call it “CJ” for short.)
You can do that in a literal way, without anyone else.
Or, you can use this course along with a friend, a community member, a teacher, or in our free online Zoom classes and videos.
This is set up as a 3-year course, having 10 units in each year, so there are 30 units total.
Every unit in this course will have 6 parts in it:
- A Lessonin how the language works,
- “Wawa Chinook”, which is a conversation between 2 or more people,
- Discussion Notes, to get you (and any other students / teacher) talking and thinking about what we’ve shown you,
- Reading/talking exercises to practice that knowledge (this is the core! You’ll be learning CJ by talking!), and
- Check Your Understanding, on a real example of the language being used.
- Vocabulary (Chinook to English, and English to Chinook)of all the words taught so far,
Year 1 will focus on giving you basic conversation skills.
Year 2 will show you the simple patterns that you can use to say practically anything in this language.
Year 3 will guide you to a full, independent understanding of whatever people say in Northern Chinook Jargon.
@learners and @instructors, please end me sound recordings, or videos, of yourselves! You can record the Wawa Chinook conversations, and/or the Vocabulary words, and/or your answers to the Reading/Talking Exercises!
We might put you into the podcasts & videos we’re making of these lessons! I’m at spokaneivy@gmail.com
Year 1 Curriculum
Individual Lessons and Supplementals can be downloaded separately below. Or, you can download the complete 10 lessons plans (161 page PDF).
Year 2 Curriculum
Currently in production.
Year 3 Curriculum
Currently in production.
Additional Resources
Chinook Jargon: Word a Week with video, downloadable worksheets and answer sheets.