Pre‐1860 European contact in the pacific and introduced cultural vocabulary

Abstract

Abstract South Seas Jargon is the name used to refer to the precursor of a number of Pacific pidgins, used for communication between European sailors and people from many parts of Polynesia and Micronesia before 1850. Some debate exists over the extent to which this “jargon” was structurally stable and lexically developed beyond an absolutely minimal stage. This paper argues that the jargon was possibly not as lexically impoverished as some have argued. Evidence is presented in the form of possible loans from South Seas Jargon into Pacific languages by 1860 that there were almost 250 items of cultural vocabulary in circulation, which would necessarily have been used along with a somewhat larger set of non‐cultural vocabulary. If this is so, then the so‐called “jargon” period in the development of Pacific pidgins and creoles needs to be, fairly drastically shortened.