French element

[Francisc Czobor]

Klahowya konaway kluksta / LaXayEm khanawi Laksta

Now I come with another question, I don't remember whether this was
discussed before or not.
It is regarding the French loanwords into CJ.
Generally speaking, they fall very nicely into determined semantic
categories, explainable through the contribution of the French-
speaking "voyageurs" (with HBC or not), respectively of the French-speaking
Catholic missionaries.
Such categories are:
- non-Native household items (door, table, chair, plate, fork, bottle,
etc.);
- non-Native tools (scissors, hammer, nail, saw, plough, etc.);
- terms connected to horse-breeding (horse colors, harness items);
- domesticated animals of European origin (mule, sheep, pig, cock, hen);
- culture plants of European origin (barley, oats, peas, carrot, apple);
- Catholic religious terms.

BUT, there is another semantic category with plenty of French elements:
body parts.
Why should these words be borrowed from French? In this case there are not,
like in the cases ennumerated before, new items that were not known before.
(Obviously the PNW people had heads, mouthes, teeth, tongues, hands,
fingers also before the arrival of the "voyageurs", isn't it ?!)

In my limited understanding (I'm not very acquainted with the history of
the PNW) this must be the sign of a broadening of the domain where CJ was
used.
(I am tempted to say "the first creolization of CJ", but probably this
would be to much to say).
What I want to say: probably initially CJ was a trade pidgin with a very
restricted domain of use: just trade (and usually people don't trade heads,
mouthes, teeth, fingers, etc.)
When necessary, body parts could be indicated by gesture.
But I have read somewhere (probably in the Archieves of Chinook List) that
the children of HBS employees with Native women were fluent in two
languages: French and CW...
Thus, a trade pidgin was forced to take the role of an everyday family
language...
In this case, it was necessary for CJ to enrich its vocabulary with words
for everyday communication, including terms for body parts...
And, taking into account the fact that from a certain moment the HBC people
played an important role in spreading the CJ, the body parts terms borrowed
from French got general circulation in the CJ speaking area...
Just thoughts from an outsider amateur...

Francisc

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