[7] In 2016, linguist John Lyon studied the word lists collected by Francis Drake and his crew on the 1579 voyage that took them to the Oregon coast.

[10][11] The Jargon also acquired English loanwords, and its written form is entirely in the Duployan shorthand created by French priest Émile Duployé.

[12][5] The post-contact hypothesis suggests the language originated in Nootka Sound after the arrival of Russian and Spanish traders as a means of communicating between them and indigenous peoples.

As a result, the Jargon had the beginnings of its own literature, mostly translated scripture and classical works, some local and episcopal news, community gossip and events, and diaries.

[citation needed] In the 2000s, Lane Community College in Eugene, Oregon, started a three-semester university program teaching Chinook Jargon.

[1] In 2015, the U.S. Census Bureau estimated based on the self-reported American Community Survey that around 45 people (with a margin of error of 25) spoke Chinook Jargon at home in the period 2009–2013.

[22] According to Nard Jones, Chinook Jargon was still in use in Seattle until roughly the eve of World War II, especially among the members of the Arctic Club.

Writing in 1972, Jones remarked that "Only a few can speak it fully, men of ninety or a hundred years old, like Henry Broderick, the realtor, and Joshua Green, the banker.

Emerging out of early contact and the fur trade, the Chinook jargon possesses at most 700 words derived in approximately equal proportions from the powerful Chinook Indians of the lower Columbia, from the Nootka people of Vancouver Island, and from French and English... jargon provided 'an important vehicle of communication for trading & ordinary purposes.' ...

At Grand Ronde, the resettlement of tribes from all over Oregon in a multi-tribal agency led to the use of Chinuk Wawa as a common tongue among the linguistically diverse population.

The range of varying usages and vocabulary in different regions suggests that localization did occur—although not on the pattern of Grand Ronde where Wasco, Klickitat and other peoples adopted and added to the version of the Jargon that developed there.

[5] Local creolization's probably did occur in British Columbia, but recorded materials have not been studied as they were made due to the focus on the traditional aboriginal languages.

holds that a trade language probably existed before European contact, which began "morphing" into the more familiar Chinook Jargon in the late 1790s, notably at a dinner party at Nootka Sound where Capts Vancouver and Bodega y Quadra were entertained by Chief Maquinna and his brother Callicum performing a theatrical using mock English and mock Spanish words and mimicry of European dress and mannerisms.

Linguist David Douglas Robertson and others have described Chinook Jargon as part of the shared cultural heritage of modern inhabitants of the Pacific Northwest.

[32][13] As of 2009[update], the Confederated Tribes of the Grand Ronde Community of Oregon was taking steps to preserve Chinook Jargon use through a full immersion head start/preschool that was conducted in Chinuk Wawa.

[35] In addition, Lane Community College offers two years of Chinuk Wawa study that satisfy the second-language graduation requirements of Oregon public universities.

[18] An art installation featuring Chinook Jargon, "Welcome to the Land of Light" by Henry Tsang, can be viewed on the Seawall along False Creek in downtown Vancouver, British Columbia, between Davie and Drake streets.

[38] A short film using Chinook Jargon, Small Pleasures by Karin Lee, explores intercultural dialogue between three women of different cultural and linguistic backgrounds in 1890s Barkerville in northern British Columbia.

[39] In 1997, the Grand Ronde reservation in Northern Oregon hired Tony Johnson, a Chinook linguist, to head its language program.

Chinuk Wawa was chosen due to its strong connection to native identity on the reservation as well as being the only indigenous language still spoken at Grand Ronde.

[41] A kindergarten was started in 2004 by Kathy Cole, a tribal member and certified teacher, which has since expanded to a half-day immersion K–4 with slots for 25 students at Willamina Elementary School.

A small group led by Sam Sullivan formed around him, organizing learning sessions and starting the BC Chinook Jargon initiative website.

[47] Sullivan's efforts to expand public awareness of Chinook Jargon have included an interview with Powell conducted entirely in that language.

The interview was organized through Kumtuks, a British Columbia focused educational video series whose name comes from the Chinook word for knowledge.

[48] The online magazine Kaltash Wawa was founded in November 2020 using BC Chinook Jargon and written in Chinuk Pipa, the alphabet based on Dupoyan shorthand.