Pidgin English in CJ, another installment

[David Robertson]

Hi,

Answering just one point: It would be surprising if Hawaiian influence on
Chinook Jargon appeared only in the Kamloops area.  I think there were
possibly far more Hawaiians in other areas like the lower Columbia, so any
overt Hawaiian influence on the Jargon ought to show up there as well.

Your idea is a really interesting one, however.  In previous studies of
possible Hawaiian traces in CJ, scholars like Emanuel Drechsel have
focused on words that might have come from the Hawaiian language.  Your
suggestion that we look for South Seas Pidgin English (my broad label)
items is a worthy approach.

There are items in common with South Seas Pidgin English like 'bye-and-
bye' in some CJ lexicons, though I'm ignorant whether these were used much
in speech. There are also items, again mostly in Kamloops Wawa, that have
the same general form as transitive verbs in SSPE, for
example 'sellim', 'catchim'.  My impression has been that these in KW were
part of a trend of using local English terms in CJ, since there are lots
of those found in KW, e.g. 'high tone', 'o'clock'.

But it might be worth investigating the possibility that the Hudsons Bay
Co. post in Kamloops, which dates pretty far back, hosted a significant
staff of 'Owyhees' who could have put their mark on local Chinook Jargon.
Given certain work that's been done lately on establishing the actual
importance of CJ to the fur trade in BC, it's a reasonable question.

--Dave R.


On Fri, 30 Apr 2004 19:22:47 -0700, Leanne Riding <riding at TIMETEMPLE.COM>
wrote:

>I wonder if this word, "Olsem" was used in Hawaii c.1810-1840?
>
>Contributions into CJ by the important community have been predicted but
>remain elusive. Perhaps we do not see Hawaiian words in the CJ because
>the Hawaiians made use of a Pidgin-English of their own.

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