Borrowing of lexicon from English is relatively uncommon in Salishan languages. A limited vocabulary was borrowed from Chinook Jargon, and in some areas from French, after the first fur trappers and priests arrived and when the first settlers began agricultural pursuits. This vocabulary is fairly consistent both in form and meaning across Salishan territory. Because of the great flexibility provided by lexical suffixes for creating new vocabulary, it was often easy to create new words out of old parts, rather than borrow lexicon. All this is familiar to anyone who has collected vocabulary of a Salishan language. Much less easy to detect are words borrowed between neighboring indigenous languages, especially between neighboring languages that are closely related.
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