There has always been extensive trading among Indian peoples. For thousands of years, extensive trade networks linked the North American Indian nations so that goods and materials flowed from one part of the country to another. After the Europeans arrived, the trading networks included European traders and trade goods.
In order to engage in trade, people need to communicate. The indigenous trading routes often connected people who spoke unrelated languages. As a consequence, a number of trading languages evolved, which included words and phrases from a number of different languages.
Indian trade languages are what linguists call pidgin languages. That is, they are languages which are always second languages and have both reduced grammar and reduced vocabulary. They are, therefore, relatively easy for adults to acquire. However, this also means that it is difficult to communicate abstract concepts, such as those associated with religion and legal issues, in a pidgin language.
The Mobilian trade language developed among the many trading nations in the Southeast. This language was a mixture of several Muskogean languages. It used words from Choctaw and Chickasaw with some words from Alabama and Koasati. Mobilian was used from the Mississippi delta region to as far north as central Illinois; from as far east as Georgia and Alabama, to eastern Texas in the west.
When the first Europeans arrived in the Southeast, it was more practical for them to adopt the Mobilian Jargon than it was to impose their own languages on the native peoples. Some of the early Christian missionaries attempted to use the Mobilian Jargon to proselytize the Indians.
In the northwest, Chinook Jargon (also called Chinook Wawa) developed long before European traders arrived in the area. This trade pidgin included a vocabulary from Chinookan, Wakashan, Salishan, Athapaskan, and Penutian. The language appears to have developed with the coastal trade along the Northwest Coast and then spread inward along the Columbia River. After European traders entered the area, words from English and French were incorporated into the language. However, only sounds which could be pronounced by the Indian speakers in the area were incorporated into Chinook Jargon. At its peak, this language was used from the Oregon-California border to southern British Columbia and as far east as the Rocky Mountains.
Chinook jargon was also influenced by English. It incorporated a number of English words and, in addition, English borrowed some Chinook jargon terms. English, for example, has taken the slang term ‘hootch’ for homemade liquor from Chinook jargon. In Chinook ‘pehlten’ came to mean ‘drunk’ after Indian observations of alcoholic Archibald ‘Judge” Pelton of Fort George.
In 1855, Washington Territorial Governor Isaac Stevens insisted that treaties be negotiated in Chinook, apparently thinking that this was the Native language of the various Indian tribes of the region. Subsequently, it was difficult to communicate accurately many of the details of the treaties to the various Indian nations.
In Oregon, Chinook Jargon became the primary language of the various Indian groups – Kalapuya, Clackamas, Molala, Upper Umpqua, Takelma, and Shasta – who were consolidated on the Grand Ronde Reservation. Chinook Jargon continued in daily use after most tribal members were speaking English and well beyond the effective demise of all the community’s tribal languages.
During the 17th century a pidginized form of Delaware, an Algonquian language, was developed to facilitate trade between the Algonquian-speaking groups and the various European traders (English, Dutch, Spanish). While the language used Delaware words, they tended to be put together using English syntax. This trade language was used in New Jersey, New York, Delaware, and Pennsylvania.
In the Southwest, Trader Navajo is used today as a means of communication between the Anglo traders and the Navajo. There are some Anglo traders in the area who do not make the distinction between full Navajo and Trader Navajo, believing that they are speaking Navajo when in fact they are speaking the pidgin.
In the Northeast, an Indian-Basque pidgin developed in the sixteenth century in response to the Basque whalers who were doing some trading with the tribes. By 1606, one French observer reported that the language of the coastal tribes was about half Basque.
On the Plains, a sign language developed to allow for trade and easier communication among the many different Indian nations in this area. Many of the early European explorers, such as Lewis and Clark, relied heavily upon this language. Linguists feel that this sign language originally developed in the area of south Texas and the Gulf Coast and then spread north, developing some local variations. Sign language was the lingua franca for trade among the different tribes.
By the nineteenth century Plains Sign Language was used by tribes which spoke more than three dozen languages. Not every individual in the tribe was fluent in sign and there was great variation between the tribes regarding fluency in sign. Some individuals had a vocabulary of 3,500 words while most functioned quite well with a vocabulary of 500 to 1,000 words in sign.
With regard to tribal proficiency in sign, on the Northern Plains the Crow, the Northern Cheyenne, and the Blackfoot were considered the most proficient, while on the Southern Plains, the Kiowa were considered the best.
Among the Arapaho, elders have reported that at one time all children acquired the use of sign language. The elders recall that at one time adults would use sign language most of the time while they spoke Arapaho, or in other settings across rooms or large areas as social events progressed.
In the Southeast, a sign language was developed to facilitate communication among the various nations affiliated with the Creek Confederacy. Little is known about this sign language today.
On the northern Plains in Canada, a new language – Mitchif – was created among the Métis. The new language included a combination of Cree verbs and French nouns. At the present time, Michif is classified as a moribund language, meaning that relatively few children are learning it.
Cross Posted at Native American Netroots
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