LING455

Chinook Jargon: an Amerindian Lexifier Pidgin

Elise Washines

First Records of Existence

1. John Meares 1790: English explorer uses several Chinook Jargon (CJ) words in “Voyages to the Northwest Coast”
1. Uses CJ words to note exclamation of Nootkan chief Callicom in 1788 upon tasting blood – “kloshe”
2. John R. Jewitt 1803-1805: “A Narrative of the Adventures & Suffereings of John R. Jewitt”
1. uses 10 CJ words
3. Lewis & Clark, Dec, 10 1805: recorded words from Concommolly, Chinook Chief.

Jargon becomes known

• Used as trade language=Astoria, Hudson Bay Co, explores, traders, Indians
• Writingà Blanchet, early missionary to Oregon who composed vocabulary & used it to translate Christian prayer
• 50 Dictionaries and vocabularies available.

CJ on the Rise

• CJ attained its maximum usage in the 1870’s when it was estimated to have been used by >100,000 people on a daily basis
• Spoken by: Indians, Europeans, Asians, and Hawaiians
• Geographical border= Northern CA border to the Southern portion of Alaska & Pacific Coast to Montana/Eastern BC

Note: Despite its widespread use, controversy existed and still exists today as to the origins of CJ.

3 Theories as to the Origin of CJ

1. originated w/ Hudson’s Bay Co. – Discredited

2. originated among Indians of Pacific North West prior to European Contact

a. Edward H. Thomas “Chinook, A History, & Dictionary of North West Coast Trade Jargon” (1935) – “Chinook Jargon had its beginning in the trade necessities of pre-historic slave and shell-money commerce between Chinook and Nootka”

b. authorities regard theory as unproved

3. originated with Advent of white trader

1805 Lewis & Clark visit Columbia River Valley

àIndians with European Trade goods

àIndians with European diseases

àIndians that knew English

àIndians could not understand one another

Note: Whatever the origin, CJ is an example of an Interethnic Contact Language – used for trade, spread of religion, political negotiations, and various ceremonies

Decline of CJ

Use of CJ declines gradually as more & more Natives begin to speak English

1962àSummer institute of Linguistics estimates that 100 speakers in North America, all over 50 years of age

1990àSIL considers CJ scattered/extinct

CJ words

• ~500 words in CJ
• ORIGIN = Chinook, Nootkan, English, French, Salish dialects other than Chinook, and onomatopoeic
• ~1/2 CJ words are of Chinook origin à pronouns, numbers, adverbs, adjectives, prepositions, nouns
• ~24 terms from Nootkan
• à essential verbs mamook “do/make”, klatawa “go”, kumtux “understand”, potlatch “give”
• Some adjectives and adverbs

· ~ Salish origin is skookum “strong”

· Onomatopoeic terms in Jargon tik-tik “watch”

· Many words pass into Jargon in almost exactly original form

• English = salt, sun, boat, papa
• French = lebal, latate, lalong, lekleh

PHONOLOGY

18 phonemes – 13 consonants & 5 vowels

Various rules associated with CJ

Reduction in place/manner of articulation

Note: I do not have the font to write the IPA symbols, so I am going to use only the word examples

“stocking”à/sta-kin/

“fish, fire”à/pish, pa-ya/

“rum”à/lum/

“lazy”à/la-si/

Deletion of phonemes

(1^st)”doctor”à/tak-ta/

“dollar”à/tala/

(2^nd) deletes any [d] following [h] or [l] & which precedes word boundary or stop consonant

“cold”à/kol/

“oldman”à/oelman/

WORD ORDER

• No strict word order, mainly dependent upon speaker
• Mostly SVO
• Negative participle before subject & verb

VERBS

• Not inflected
• Same form used whatever person, number, tense, mood, voice, verb
• Used as verb, infinitive, participle, gerund

àextensive use of compound expressions in CJ

àof all verb compounds “chaco, mamook, mahsh” most extensively used

àMamook (verb & noun) declared most useful word in CJ: 198 compounds using “mamook”

NOUNS

• Not inflected – exception tilicum which becomes “tilicums”
• 3 types: common, proper, abstract

Syntax/Syntactic words-

POSSESSIVE CASE – of nouns indicated in two way

(1) “yaka” after noun

(2) “kopa” before noun

PRONOUNS – are not inflected

ADJECTIVES ordinarily precede the noun, not inflected

Types: Qualitative, Quantitative, Interrogative, Demonstrative, Numeral, Distributive

NO DEFINATE ARTICLE

ADVERBS of time, of place, or manner, of degree, interrogative, conjunctive, negative participle

PREPOSITIONS: “kopa”=in, on, into, to, from, with, towards, during