Hayne & Taylor re Yukon CJ

[Jeffrey Kopp]

>>*page 87:  'The Indians talk a mixture of English and Hudson Bay
>>[presumably Chinook Wawa] trading jargon -- a word here and a word there,
>>and the rest by signs.'
>
>Ameslan is everywhere......as for "Hudson Bay trading jargon", that could
>also have involved some Michif and Scottishisms and god knows what else;
>interesting if we could "prove" that it was the Wawa that was referred to
>here.  The Yukon HBC posts were northward extensions of the New Caledonia
>trading district, which was heavily connected to the Prairies and Rupert's
>Land - where there would have been an "HBC trading jargon" quite
>independent of the Wawa.......maybe the HBC archivists can help out (I'll
>dig out their URL later; remind me if I forget).

Well, for some time I have been pondering the apocryphal merging of the
documented explorer-originated Nootka pidgin with the (very likely but
still unproven) native-originated Chinookan pidgin into our "Chinook
Jargon," which I think occurred in the early 1800s somewhere.  The
number of "erroneous" attributions of the Jargon to the HBC I am seeing
quoted here recently makes me wonder if that was indeed where the mixing
occurred.  

>Just a question for you Yankees on the list - is "hooch" used on your side
>of the line?  It's still quite common in BC, and I'd be interested to know
>if it's purely "Canadian" in origin (like "screech" in Newfoundland).  Also
>got me to wondering if it might be a corruption of "kloosh"........like, a
>really _drunken_, possibly brain-damaged corruption......

I think "hooch" was in common use here during Prohibition, and probably
formed the basis of "hootchy-kootchy [girl]", for bootleg drinking or
similar illicit activity [or a floozie].  I haven't heard it much in
thirty years.

Regards,

Jeff

P.S.  Speaking of the HBC, I note it seems to be spelled "Hudsons Bay,"
although the bay itself is "Hudson's Bay."  Am I right on this one?
Where did the apostrophe go?  (Probably some story behind it, like the
missing first comma in "Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith.")