"Chimo"

[Mike Cleven]

>From: David Robertson <drobert at tincan.tincan.org>
>
>Mike, qhata mayka?
>
>Interesting that you'd mention the word "chimo".  The book on Arctic
>contact languages contains references to it.  For example, Peter Bakker's
>article on "Language Contact and Pidginization in Davis Strait, Hudson
>Strait, and the Gulf of Saint Lawrence (Northeast Canada)" mentions on
>page 281 citations from the Ungava area, from the 1750s on, of Inuit
>greeting European outsiders with the words "Chimo!  Chimo!  Pillattaa!
>Pillattaa!" and variations thereof.
>
>"Chimo" is evidently a pidgin Inuktitut word meaning something like "[are
>you] friendly[?]"  It is apparently still used as a greeting by Inuit of
>Labrador and Quebec.  The word, fascinatingly, was said in 1821 to be
>understood by the Yellowknife Indians too:  Likely further evidence that
>it is part of a pidgin.  If anyone knew only a word of "Eskimo" I'd wager
>it would be "chimo", just as there are many people who know the word
>"klahowya" in ChInuk Wawa; thus the behavior of the dramatic character you
>remember.

The scriptwriters, rather; no doubt expat Canadians (L.A. is the fourth
largest Canadian city, just as at one time Winnipeg was the largest
Ukrainian city in the world).




>Bakker mentions in passing a Fort Chimo of the Hudsons Bay Company.


It's still there; can't remember exactly where; NWT probably but I think it
may be in "Nouveau Quebec" (Quebec's imperial subarctic possessions); shows
up on the weather maps.  (http://www.weatheroffice.com)

BTW since the Arctic is expected to be ice-free by mid-century, a
transArctic pidgin will come in handy, I think......





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