Chinook Jargon in Areal and Historical Context

Abstract

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.* 1. INTRODUCTION. Chinook Jargon (CJ) is a pidgin whose attested history in the Pacific Northwest of the United States and Canada covers a period of more than a hundred years. It had a limited area of usage along the Columbia River and along the neighboring coast during the first half of the 19th century; but during the second half of the century, it reached its peak-eventually spreading south along the coast to northern California, and north through British Columbia to southern Alaska. In the middle years of the century, it was the major lingua franca in the region; and as late as the 1880's, Boas (1933:209) used CJ as a contact language with speakers of Bella Bella, Bella Coola, Tillamook, Clatsop, Chinook proper, Lower Chehalis, Songish, Kwakiutl, Tsimshian, and Haida. CJ gradually fell out of usage in the first half of the 20th century, as it was replaced by English; today only a few elderly people, Indians and whites, remember it.' The origin of CJ is unclear; in fact, it has been a source of controversy since