Sign component in Jargon

[Jeffrey Kopp]

Hi. While hunting for some other reference I ran across this excerpt from 
"<http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/ItemRecord/41556?id=9b8f82b82de95870>The 
lost Atlantis and other ethnographic studies," Wilson, Daniel, Sir, 
1816-1892. (Edinburgh : D. Douglas, 1892.) (pp. 227-8) on Canadiana.org 
describing the extent of sign usage in Jargon (see second paragraph, which 
break I inserted myself to make it more easily found). I'd be most 
interested in further documentation of the sign component of Jargon.

Somewhat tangentially (and paradoxically), further below see a paragraph 
from 
"<http://www.canadiana.org/ECO/ItemRecord/26366?id=9b8f82b82de95870>Introduction 
to the study of sign language among the North American Indians: as 
illustrating the gesture speech of mankind," Mallery, Garrick, 1831-1894. 
Smithsonian Institution. Bureau of Ethnology. (Washington : G.P.O., 1880.) 
(p. 12), which refers to the decline of sign usage by the Kalapuyas as the 
Jargon came into broader use.
_____________________________

Vocabularies of the Oregon or Chinook jargon have been repeatedly published 
since 1838, when the Rev. Samuel Parker made the first attempt to reduce it 
to writing. But it is necessarily in an unstable condition, with local 
variations and a changing vocabulary. The latest Dictionary of the Chinook 
Jargon, or Trade Language of Oregon, is that of Mr. George Gibbs, published 
by the Smithsonian Institution in 1863, and includes nearly five hundred 
words. When studied in all its bearings, it is a singularly interesting 
example of the effort at the development of a means of intercommunication 
among such a strange gathering of heterogeneous races. In an analysis of 
the various sources of its vocabulary, Mr. Gibbs assigns about two-fifths 
of the words to the Chinook and Clatsop languages. But in this he includes 
one of the most characteristic elements of the jargon. The representatives 
of so many widely dissimilar peoples, in their efforts at mutual 
communication, naturally resorted to diverse forms of imitation; foremost 
among which was onomatopoeia. There are such mimetic words as he-he, 
“laughter”; hoh-hoh, “to cough”; tish-tish, “to drive”; lip-lip, “to boil”; 
poh, “to blow out”; tik-tik, “a watch”; tin-lin or ting-ling, “a bell”; 
tum-tum, “the heart,” from its pulsation; and hence a number of 
modi­fications in which the heart is used as equivalent to mind ‘or will, 
etc. Again, varying intonations are resorted to in order to express 
different shades of meaning, as sey-yaw, “far off,” in which the first 
syllable is lengthened out according to the idea of greater or less 
distance indicated. Many of their words, as in all interjectional 
utterances, depend for their specific meaning on the intonations of the 
speaker. Such utterances play so small a part in our own speech, that we 
are apt to overlook the force of the interrogative, affirmative, and 
negative tones, and even the change of meaning that is often produced. by 
the transfer of emphasis from one to another word.1

         But with such an imperfect means of intercommunication as the 
trade jargon, there is a constant motive not only to help out the meaning 
by expressive intonation, but also by signs or gesture-language. “A horse,” 
for example, is kuatan; but “riding” or “on horseback” is expressed by 
accompanying the word with the gesture of two fingers placed astride over 
the other hand. Tenas is “little” or “a child,"-­in the latter case, 
accompanied by the gesture suggestive of its size,­-or it may mean “an 
infant,” by the first syllable being prolonged to indicate that it is very 
small. In addition to all this, words are borrowed from all sources; and 
the miscellaneous vocabulary is completed from English, French, Cree, 
Ojibway, Nootka, Chibalis, Nisqually, Kalapuy, and other tongues.

1 The Rev. Mark Pattison, according to one biographer, Mr. Althaus, had 
cultivated a habit of reticence, till it became one of his most marked 
characteristics. His usual response to any remark was “Ah”; but his 
biographer adds: “It was interesting to observe of ‘what a variety of 
shades of meaning that characteristic ejaculation ‘Ah’ was capable. Many 
times it was his sole answer. Mostly it signified that something had 
aroused his interest ; sometimes it conveyed approval, sometimes surprise, 
sometimes doubt; sometimes it was said in a ‘way that indicated he did not 
wish to express himself on the point in question.”
_____________________

     Many instances are shown of the discontinuance of gesture-speech with 
no development in the native language of the gesturers, but from the 
invention for intercommunication of one used in common. The Kalapuyas of 
Southern Oregon until recently used a sign-language, but have gradually 
adopted for foreign intercourse the composite tongue, commonly called the 
Tsinuk or Chinook jargon, which probably arose for trade purposes on the 
Columbia River before the advent of Europeans, founded on the Tsinuk, 
Tsihali, Nutka, &c., but now enriched by English and French terms, and have 
nearly forgotten their old signs. The prevalence of this mongrel speech, 
originating in the same causes that produced the pigeon-English. or 
lingua-franca of the Orient, explains the marked scantness of sign-language 
among the tribes, of the Northwest coast. No explanation is needed for the 
disuse of that mode of communication when the one of surrounding 
civilization is recognized as necessary or important to be acquired, and 
gradually becomes known as the best common medium, even before it is 
actually spoken by many individuals of the several tribes.
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