"American Indian Pidgin English"

[Sally Thomason]

I note that several of Drechsel's references are to varieties
spoken in the Southwest. That may account for the difference
between Drechsel & me, at least in part; AIPE is reliably
attested only from east of the Mississippi, and from an earlier
period (not surprisingly) than the Southwest examples.  It isn't
likely that AIPE itself got much farther than the Mississippi,
from what I've seen of the documentation.

As for Drechsel's comments about it, you wouldn't have much
trouble finding similar comments about Chinook Jargon in the
literature.  But as soon as you start looking closely at the
19th-century CJ data (that is, even without the benefit of more
recent data documented more reliably), it's easy to find consistent
structural features (both syntax and phonology).  And similarly
for AIPE, as long as you stick to the eastern documentation and
ignore the diffused semi-AIPE versions found farther west.  You
don't need to take my word for it; look at Flanigan, for instance,
and other studies of the eastern (the real) AIPE.

  But yes, no doubt whites (like other European-origin explorers
& colonizers and surely other people elsewhere in the world too)
would have tried to use their notion of Pidgin English with Natives
everywhere, assuming that it was the only thing Natives would
understsand.  Hence occasional words like "katchem" in CJ.

  -- Sally