Jewitt etc

[Mike Cleven]

At 07:32 PM 1/13/99 -0800, Liland Brajant ROS' wrote:
>Sally scripsit:
>>
>>There is a small amount of literature on that Nootka jargon or
>>pre-pidgin or whatever it was -- an article by Sturtevant (in a
>>newsletter: I forget the title, but it's from about 15 years
>>ago, I think).  It's pretty clear, from the distorted phonology
>>of the Nootka words in Chinook Jargon, that they were introduced
>>into CJ by whites, or by Natives using Nootka Jargon, and not
>>by Nootka speakers themselves.  The other really interesting
>>thing about those Nootka-origin words in CJ is that, although
>>there aren't all that many of them (a couple of dozen, maybe,
>>or maybe fewer), they are mostly quite basic vocabulary items.
>
>Are there any Portuguese-origin items in CJ?  (The prominence of the
>relatively small number of Nootkan words in the CJ vocabulary reminded me
>of the prominence and persistence of "sabe/sabi/saber/savvy" in many
>English- and French-type pidgins that arose on the middens of earlier
>Portuguese-based ones.)  Any of you sociolinguists care to pronounce on
>the implications of the Nootkan in CJ for the analysis of the relative
>prestige status of the Nootkan vis-a-vis the Chinookan tribes of the region?

I've wondered about Spanish and/or Portuguese terms, too, but there don't
seem to be any.  None obvious, anyway.  Portuguese-financed explorer Juan
de Fuca was Greek, of course, although some of his crew may have been
Portuguese (or other Mediterranean origin).  But he made no mention of a
landing or AWOLs or anything of the kind; later Portuguese presence on the
Coast did not come until the Gold Rush era of the mid-1800s.

The Spanish are another matter, especially given their prominent role at
Nootka Sound and the role of Spanish exploration ships on the Coast - as
well as the abortive settlement colony at Okanagan Mission.  You'd think
there'd be a lot more Spanish in the Jargon, or at least in the "Nootka
jargon" - but there doesn't seem to be any at all.....

Same with the Russian input; we _hear_ of it, but no one's yet produced a
loan-word, to my knowledge, although the hope that something might exist in
Russian-language documents concerning the NW is truly interesting.....