The ''Kamloops Wawa'' (
Chinook Jargon: 𛰅𛱁𛰙𛰆𛱛𛰂𛰜 𛱜𛱜, "Talk of Kamloops") was a newspaper published by Father
Jean-Marie-Raphaël Le Jeune, superior of the Roman Catholic
Diocese of Kamloops in
British Columbia
British Columbia (commonly abbreviated as BC) is the westernmost province of Canada, situated between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains. It has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that include rocky coastlines, sandy beaches, ...
,
Canada
Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...
, beginning May 25, 1891, and continuing into the 1900s.
The contents of the ''Kamloops Wawa'' were near-entirely written using Le Jeune's adaptation of the French
Duployan shorthand
The Duployan shorthand, or Duployan stenography (french: Sténographie Duployé), was created by Father Émile Duployé in 1860 for writing French. Since then, it has been expanded and adapted for writing English, German, Spanish, Romanian, Lat ...
writing system, called "chinuk pipa" in Chinook Jargon itself.
Most of the texts of the ''Kamloops Wawa'' were composed in the
local variant of
Chinook Jargon with some passages and articles in
Nlaka'pamuxtsin,
Secwepmectsin,
St'at'imcets
Lillooet , known in the language itself as / (), is the language of the St’át’imc, a Salishan language of the Interior branch spoken in southern British Columbia, Canada, around the middle Fraser and Lillooet Rivers. The language of ...
and other traditional languages. Some series of articles, however, included translations into Chinook Jargon of classical texts from Latin, such as the ''
Seven Kings of Rome
The king of Rome ( la, rex Romae) was the ruler of the Roman Kingdom. According to legend, the first king of Rome was Romulus, who founded the city in 753 BC upon the Palatine Hill. Seven legendary kings are said to have ruled Rome until 509 BC ...
'', though most content was either community news or translations of the mass or other liturgical materials.
Origin of Chinook writing
During a meeting of the
Oblate
In Christianity (especially in the Roman Catholic, Orthodox, Anglican and Methodist traditions), an oblate is a person who is specifically dedicated to God or to God's service.
Oblates are individuals, either laypersons or clergy, normally livi ...
missionaries in June 1890 at
New Westminster
New Westminster (colloquially known as New West) is a city in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia, Canada, and a member municipality of the Metro Vancouver Regional District. It was founded by Major-General Richard Moody as the capita ...
, the missionaries discussed the unsuitability of the highly successful
Carrier syllabics
Carrier or Déné syllabics (, Dʌlk'ʷahke, (Dulkw'ahke) meaning ''toad feet'') is a script created by Adrien-Gabriel Morice for the Carrier language. It was inspired by Cree syllabics and is one of the writing systems in the Canadian Aborigina ...
to writing the native languages in British Columbia. Father J. D. Chiappini suggested the use of shorthand to teach literacy to
First Nations
First Nations or first peoples may refer to:
* Indigenous peoples, for ethnic groups who are the earliest known inhabitants of an area.
Indigenous groups
*First Nations is commonly used to describe some Indigenous groups including:
**First Natio ...
people, which would have the advantage of being suitable for European, as well as the native languages of British Columbia. In August,
Father LeJeune had traveled back to the Kamloops area, and began his first attempt at teaching writing to the native peoples. His efforts remained unsuccessful until a visit to
Coldwater (near
Merritt), where a lame native, Charlie Alexis Mayous, began studying in earnest. Father LeJuene left Mayous shortly thereafter with a notebook of lessons on the alphabet and common prayers. Upon returning in December, LeJuene found that Mayous had completely learned the shorthand, and deciphered and memorized all of the prayers, and could read French and English with equal proficiency to his native tongue, and began to instruct other natives in the Chinook writing.
Before Christmas, LeJeune and Mayous traveled to
Douglas Lake
Douglas Lake, also called Douglas Reservoir, is a reservoir created by an impoundment of the French Broad River in Eastern Tennessee. This lake is located only a few miles from the Pigeon Forge/ Gatlinburg area, and also the Great Smoky Mountains ...
, with Mayous again acting as teacher, while LeJeune prepared lesson books, the locals being so eager to learn the shorthand that they sharpened his pencils so he would not have to stop writing. After Christmas, the natives of Douglas Lake wanted to keep Mayous, so as to continue their instruction, but the natives of Coldwater would not allow him to remain behind. LeJeune returned to Coldwater around Easter to find that Mayous had taught everyone the shorthand, and that everyone could their prayers in the
Thompson language
The Thompson language, properly known as Nlaka'pamuctsin, also known as the Nlaka'pamux ('Nthlakampx') language, is an Interior Salishan language spoken in the Fraser Canyon, Thompson Canyon, Nicola Country of the Canadian province of British C ...
.
Early issues of the ''Kamloops Wawa''
Father LeJeune's success at teaching the shorthand was limited by his ability to write instructional materials in addition to his clerical duties. In February 1891, he attempted to use a
hectograph
The hectograph, gelatin duplicator or jellygraph is a printing process that involves transfer of an original, prepared with special inks, to a pan of gelatin or a gelatin pad pulled tight on a metal frame.
While the original use of the technolo ...
to create materials, which worked reasonably well, but in March, he read an advertisement for an Edison
mimeograph
A mimeograph machine (often abbreviated to mimeo, sometimes called a stencil duplicator) is a low-cost duplicating machine that works by forcing ink through a stencil onto paper. The process is called mimeography, and a copy made by the pro ...
, which he immediately ordered. On May 25, LeJeune published the first issue of the ''Kamloops Wawa'', but only printed a few issues of the paper before shutting it down due to a lack of subscriptions. In July 1891, a large gathering of the first nations by Bishop Durieu in Kamloops brought attention to the fact that the natives of Coldwater and Douglas Lake were able to write down songs that they did not know. After the Kamloops gathering, Father LeJeune was assigned to the
Shuswap, who having been impressed by the literacy of the Thompson people at Kamloops, endeavored to learn the shorthand later that month at their meeting at
Little Shuswap Lake
Little Shuswap Lake is a small lake in the Thompson River basin of the southern Interior of British Columbia, Canada, which sits at the transition between the Thompson Country to the west and the Shuswap Country to the east. It is fed by the Littl ...
. Within two months, most of these natives could read nearly anything written in
Chinook Jargon or
Shuswap. That fall, LeJeune continued to teach the shorthand at every village he stopped in, dispensing with practice lessons in favor of actual Chinook texts, consisting mostly of biblical verses and hymns.
With many natives now eagerly pursuing the learning of shorthand, LeJeune resumed printing the ''Kamloops Wawa'' on February 2, 1892, with an initial run of 25, then 100, then 150, 200, and 250 copies. By the end of the year, as many as 300 copies of each edition of the ''Kamloops Wawa'' were being printed. In 1893, Monsignor Durieu translated the
Old Testament
The Old Testament (often abbreviated OT) is the first division of the Christian biblical canon, which is based primarily upon the 24 books of the Hebrew Bible or Tanakh, a collection of ancient religious Hebrew writings by the Israelites. The ...
into Chinook Jargon, and copies of the Durieu text were included as a 16-page per month supplement to the ''Kamloops Wawa'' in 1893. Also, prayers in Latin, Chinook, Thompson, and
Okanangan, and a copy of Our Lady of Lourdes were likewise printed.
See also
*
Duployan shorthand
The Duployan shorthand, or Duployan stenography (french: Sténographie Duployé), was created by Father Émile Duployé in 1860 for writing French. Since then, it has been expanded and adapted for writing English, German, Spanish, Romanian, Lat ...
*
Duployan (Unicode block)
Duployan is a Unicode block containing characters for various Duployan shorthands, including French Duployéan, Chinook Writing, Romanian shorthand, and the English Sloan-Duployan, Pernin, and Perrault shorthands. It is the first block of shorth ...
and
Shorthand Format Controls (Unicode block)
Shorthand Format Controls is a Unicode block containing four formatting characters for representing shorthands in Unicode.
Block
Being invisible controls, they have no visible glyph but can have a representation.
*
*
*
::Romanian affix -tsion ...
*
Chinook Jargon
*
Canadian Aboriginal syllabics
Canadian syllabic writing, or simply syllabics, is a family of writing systems used in a number of Indigenous Canadian languages of the Algonquian, Inuit, and (formerly) Athabaskan language families. These languages had no formal writing s ...
References
{{reflist
External links
*Early Canadiana online
''Kamloops Wawa''(1891–1900)
*
J.M.R. Le JeuneChinook and shorthand rudiments Kamloops, 1898
First Nations newspapers
First Nations history in British Columbia
Culture of British Columbia
Duployan shorthand
Newspapers published in British Columbia
Mass media in Kamloops
Catholic newspapers
1891 establishments in British Columbia
Publications established in 1891
Chinook Jargon