Why the southern boundary of Chinuk Wawa use?

[David Robertson]

Another CHINOOK member, whose expertise involves the region in question, 
wrote to me off-list.  I don't have explicit permission from that person to 
quote but it seems fair and worthwhile to paraphrase the observations made:

-----CW loanwords are found, if only in small numbers, in several languages 
on the California side of the state line.  

-----Multilingualism may have been more common in that area than farther 
North.  Examples involve aboriginal languages as well as Spanish.

-----Possibly farther to the East, there was more contact between tribes 
across what's now the state line.

For my own part, I'll respond that the CW loanwords in NW (~mostly coastal) 
California languages are our best evidence of the southern limit of Chinuk 
Wawa.  But we still haven't explained why that's the limit.

I would want clear evidence that multilingualism was significantly more 
common in California than in Oregon, Washington, or BC.  Especially I'd 
want to know that California aboriginal multilingualism operated at the 
level of individual persons knowing several languages, which would be 
significantly different from the very common Pacific NW pattern of several 
languages being known within a single village group.  

Tribes in NE California may have been less insular than those in NW 
California, but maybe only because of their physical environment.  As most 
of you know, the semiarid climates of the interior almost always match up 
with Indian groups having smaller populations that were more scattered 
across larger territories.  This situation would seem to be one where an 
intercultural language would have little use.  

Finally, another member commented off-list to me that perhaps the Spanish 
mission priests forced so many Indian people into these new villages that 
there were relatively few free aboriginals who would find themselves in 
situations demanding an intercultural language.  (Other than Spanish.)  But 
I think the northernmost of the missions was still pretty far removed from 
the southern limit of CW, leaving a broad stretch of land and tribes that 
could have learned Jargon but didn't.  

So far I incline toward thinking the newcomers' "kill a Digger" mentality 
played a deciding role in keeping CW from spreading far in California.  And 
I would like to check whether the NW California tribes whose languages show 
Jargon borrowings were possibly spared from that genocide.  Keep in mind 
that there were what the newcomers called "Indian wars" in coastal Oregon 
too (Klamath, Rogue River) but these were very limited in duration and 
scope compared to the determined attempt at extermination in California.  

Enough for now; other people's thoughts?

--Dave R.

To respond to the CHINOOK list, click 'REPLY ALL'.  To respond privately to the sender of a message, click 'REPLY'.  Hayu masi!