Chinook

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Chinook has several meanings:

• The Chinookan nation of Native Americans of the Pacific Northwest, which inhabited the lower Columbia River valley in what is now Washington, Oregon, and British Columbia. Chinook comprise the Clatsop, Cathlamet, Multnomah, Watlala, Clowwewalla, Clackamas, Chilluckittequa and Wasco tribes

• Coastal Chinook and Upper Chinook are extinct Chinookan languages spoken by Chinook peoples.

• The Chinook Jargon, also referred to simply as Chinook, was a pidgin or contact language which evolved to allow the inhabitants of the Pacific Northwest to discuss business and otherwise communicate. "The Jargon", which goes by many names, including simply "the old trade jargon", was a blend of words from Chinookan, Nootka, Chehalis, English, French, and other languages, with simple syntax and no complex pronunciation or grammar. This jargon was adopted by newcomers who used it throughout the Pacific Northwest and British Columbia, and contributed a number of words to local Canadian English and American English dialects (e.g. skookum, high muckamuck, saltchuck).

• The Chinook salmon (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha) is Alaska's state fish and is native to the Pacific coasts of North America and Northeast Asia.

• Chinook winds are warm, dry, usually irregularly occurring katabatic winds, similar to Alpine föhn winds, that come down the eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains into the plains of North America. The air has been stripped of its moisture due to precipitation, releasing heat as it rises and cools, then has been warmed by increasing density as it descends. The wind is named after the Chinook people. See Effects of Chinooks on weather ecology and agriculture in Alberta, Canada. In British Columbia, warm-wet southwest winds are also called Chinooks, again because they come from the direction of the country of the Chinook people; it is these same winds which, once dried out, become the famous "snow-eater" Chinook in Alberta and Montana.

• The CH-47 Chinook helicopter is used by a number of military forces, including the United States Army and the Royal Air Force

• Chinook College is a college in Calgary, Alberta.

• Chinook is a computer program that plays checkers (draughts), developed at the University of Alberta. It was declared the Man-Machine World Champion in checkers in 1994.

• Chinook (dog) is a breed of dog, bred to be a sled dog.

• Chinook Scenic Byway is an All-American Road crossing the Cascade Range in Washington.

• Chinook Pass is a mountain pass in the Cascade Range of Washington.

• Chinook was an underground newspaper in Denver, Colorado. This was also the name of the first newspaper started in British Columbia by George Murray, husband of Margaret Lally "Ma" Murray, c.1910.

• Chinook, Montana is a town of 1,386 people (as of the 2000 Census). It is the county seat of Blaine County.