Chinook Jargon in Areal and Historical Context

This paper addresses two current controversies about the nature and origin of Chinook Jargon. First, evidence is presented to support the claim that CJ is a true pidgin-rather than a jargon, in Silverstein's sense (1972) of a speech form without independent grammatical status. When structural f...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Language (Baltimore) 1983-12, Vol.59 (4), p.820-870
Main Author: Thomason, Sarah Grey
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Chinook jargon
Language
Native languages
Phonology
Pidgins
Pronunciation
Sentences
Syntactics
Verbs
Words
Citations: Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:This paper addresses two current controversies about the nature and origin of Chinook Jargon. First, evidence is presented to support the claim that CJ is a true pidgin-rather than a jargon, in Silverstein's sense (1972) of a speech form without independent grammatical status. When structural features of CJ, as used by English (and French) speakers and by Indians, are compared with those of the speakers' native languages, we see that CJ possesses a grammatical norm that differs in non-simplificatory ways from the native languages. Second, the paper explores the implications of CJ structure for the older controversy as to whether CJ existed before Europeans set up permanent trading posts in the Northwest. The major point here is that phonological and syntactic features of CJ fit well with typological features of Northwest Amerindian languages, but they are markedly non-European. This weakens the case for a post-European origin, since it is hard to explain on the hypothesis that CJ arose from Indian-white communication.
ISSN:0097-8507
1535-0665
DOI:10.2307/413374