P. Bakker re 3 factors tending against pidgins in N. America

[David Robertson]

Hello,

Peter Bakker in his superb book "A Language of Our Own:  The Genesis of
Michif, the Mixed Cree-French Language of the Canadian Metis" (New York:
Oxford University Press, 1997; page 15) outlines "three factors...that
hindered the genesis of a pidgin" in the "whole fur trade area in Canada".

1)  "bilingualism[,] by intermarriage especially"
2)  "existence of lingua francas, which are mother tongues for one
	powerful tribe but second languages for a number of neighboring tribes",
 	such as Ojibwe, Huron, Plains Cree
3)  "a great number of children from mixed European-Indian marriages"

Can't it be said that numbers one and two above clearly applied to our
Northwestern area as well?  The pattern of intermarriage was as much the
rule in our region as elsewhere in North America, I hear.  And we had
lingua francas of may I say various magnitudes, e.g. Nez Perce and Kutenai
may have been well known, and more so than Spokane, which some say worked
as a common language of the East Plateau.

The third condition, however, may have been the great point of difference
with our area.  Here there was no long-standing trend of European-Indian
marriage, and thus few natively bilingual speakers of both Northwest and
foreign languages.

It's a small interesting point to think of; in effect, a useful
restatement with respect to the Northwest facts might be that "substantial
contacts among groups from farflung homelands encouraged an unusual
occurrence, the birth of a pidgin in North America".  Nu?

Your thoughts are solicited.

Best,
Dave



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